Introduction to Linguistics
MIT OpenCourseWare presents a foundational survey of human language as a rule-governed mental system. Lectures cover core subfields such as phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics, building up from basic data to formal analysis. Additional sessions address language acquisition, historical change, and language endangerment, giving students a sense of how languages evolve and disappear over time. The course includes lecture notes, problem sets, and exams drawn from MIT's actual undergraduate offering, available free through OCW under a Creative Commons license. No certificate is offered, but all materials are open for self-study. It suits anyone curious about how language works as a cognitive system rather than just a communication tool, and it assumes no prior linguistics background.