Week 3’s Crash Course Linguistics video introduces viewers to grammar in the descriptive linguistic sense.
Topics include word order, grammaticality, and constituency. Closed captions are available in English.
Crash Course Linguistics videos provide entertaining overviews of topics without diving too deeply into field-specific terminology. For an introduction to English constituency tests that is more suited to providing testable course content, check out this 11-minute video from TrevTutor. Computer-generated closed captions are available in English.
The 39-minute Lingthusiasm podcast episode A bridge between words and sentences addresses constituency in a fun, conversational way. This episode is available wherever you prefer to find podcasts, and a transcript is available here.
Two problems from the 2013 United Kingdom Linguistics Olympiad exam offer practice with related concepts: The long and short of English verbs involves verb arguments and adjuncts, and Yodaspeak examines the unusual syntax of a popular fictional character. Answers for each exercise are available at the end of the linked PDF files.
Finally, see the Resource Guide we shared in the spring for additional videos and activities relevant to teaching constituency.
Coming next week: more resources about syntax!
Liz, Gretchen, and Lauren
About Mutual Intelligibility
Mutual Intelligibility is a project to connect linguistics instructors with online resources, especially as so much teaching is shifting quickly online due to current events. It's produced by Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch, with the support of our patrons on Lingthusiasm. Our editor is Liz McCullough.
Mutual Intelligibility posts will always remain free, but if you have a stable income and find that they’re reducing your stress and saving you time, we're able to fund these because of the Lingthusiasm Patreon and your contributions there.
For the 16 weeks of Crash Course Linguistics, Mutual Intelligibility will be sharing the video weekly, along with supporting resources. We will resume our regular link request and recommendations after the Crash Course Linguistics series. For more on how we usually operate, check out our about page.
If you have other comments, suggestions, or ideas of ways to help, please email mutual.intellig@gmail.com.