Linguistic theories use formal systems to explain cognitive processes related to the production and perception of human speech. In the first semester, students were introduced to these theories and taught how to understand and use the representations and algorithms involved. Specially, we have looked at some of the core areas of human language – sound (phonetics & phonology), words (morphology), and sentence structure (syntax). In this semester, we will be focusing on meaning (semantics), language change (historical linguistics), language in society (sociolinguistics), and language acquisition.