1) Theoretical and methodological aspects

• The notion of language sign and fundamental features of historical-natural languages (biplanarity, arbitrariness, double articulation, linearity, etc);
• exemplification of different viewpoints according to which it is possible to analyse a natural language (synchrony/diachrony, diastratic, diaphasic and diamesic variability);
• language as a system of communication.

2) Phonetic and phonological level

• Articulatory phonetics; the notion of phone, the classification of language sounds, the phonetic transcription according to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) conventions;
• phonology: the notion of phoneme; classical Prague phonology as a descriptive model of the functioning of sounds within a given linguistic system; elements of contrasting phonology between Italian and the main European languages.

3) Principles of morphology and syntax

• Illustration of the functioning of other levels of language analysis, with special reference to morphological and syntactic levels, finally dealing with the interconnections between the different planes (morpho-phonology and morpho-syntax). Special attention will be devoted to the interplay between syntax and pragmatics with the analysis of the main syntactically marked constructs to be found in Italian, in a communicative perspective.