Descriptive grammar of Latvian

obligatory courses

(in Polish) Znajomość języka łotewskiego co najmniej na poziomie A2.

Classroom

The present course is focused on the practical review of the relevant aspects of the contemporary grammar of Latvian. It covers all the relevant fields of the grammatical system, i.e. phonetics and phonology, morphology (the review of grammatical categories) and syntax.

The basic aim of the present course is to present the grammatical system of contemporary Latvian, to describe roles of its grammatical categories and grammatical structures of particular forms, as well as to review and improve knowledge gained during the Latvian language classes.

During the classes, much attention is paid to practical aspects of Latvian grammar, i.e. rules of construing inflected forms and complete inflection paradigms on the basis of their basic forms. Issues concerning the history of Latvian or phenomena observed in substandard types of Latvian are covered by the course only to the extent to which their knowledge is indispensable for a wider synchronic description of contemporary literary language.

After passing the course, a student:

(KNOWLEDGE)

- knows the grammatical structure of contemporary Latvian;

- understands the essence of linguistic theories and the methodology of conducting classes on linguistics;

- knows the basic linguistic terminology in Latvian;

- understands the overall nature of language and is aware of its historic dynamics.

(SKILLS)

- makes use of basic theoretical notions typical for the synchronic description of language;

- describes the selected linguistic problems from the philological point of view;

- makes use of theoretical knowledge of phonetic and phonological properties of Latvian, including those not reflected in script (e.g. vowel length), in practice;

- correctly recognizes all inflected forms, knows the main rules of their construction and roles.

(ATTITUDES)

- is aware of gained knowledge and the scope of skills, understands the need of continuous development.

The written examination consists of two parts. Its first part, consisting of the topics discussed in the first semester (phonology, prosody, name categories describing the nominal phrase), takes place in the winter examination session, while the second part, consisting of the topics discussed in the second semester (grammatical categories of the verbal phrase and its basic syntax), takes place in the summer examination session. The grade for the final examination is the cumulative grade obtained from both parts of the written examination.

The written final examination consists of open-ended questions and test questions, that is single-choice, true-false, completion test, testing knowledge of both theoretical issues and their practical application.

A prerequisite for taking a written examination (both the first and the second part) is attendance (a student is entitled to 2 unexcused absences per semester, each subsequent absence must be credited in a way agreed with the lecturer; absence in 50% of classes excludes taking the examination).