GATE Linguistics Syllabus 2025 - Download Topics Wise Syllabus PDF

GATE Linguistics Syllabus 2025 - Download Topics Wise Syllabus PDF

Edited By Vikash Kumar Vishwakarma | Updated on Jan 29, 2025 04:00 PM IST | #GATE

GATE Linguistics Syllabus 2025 (XH-C3) - IIT Roorkee uploaded the GATE 2025 Linguistics syllabus pdf online at, gate2025.iitr.ac.in. The GATE linguistics syllabus 2025 pdf download link is provided below. GATE Linguistics is a paper section out of the Humanities and Social Sciences (XH Paper). Candidates appearing in the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering for the linguistics paper must refer to the GATE syllabus for linguistics available on this page. The GATE Linguistics syllabus 2025 comprises topics based on Language and Linguistics, Levels of Grammar and Grammatical Analysis, Historical Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Methods of Analysis, Applied Linguistics, Areal Typology, Universals, Cross-linguistic Features. IIT Roorkee will conduct the IIT GATE 2025 exam as a computer-based test on February 1, 2, 15 & 16.
Direct link to download the GATE 2025 Linguistics Syllabus

GATE Linguistics Syllabus 2025 - Download Topics Wise Syllabus PDF
GATE Linguistics Syllabus 2025 - Download Topics Wise Syllabus PDF

GATE Linguistics Syllabus 2025 (XH-C3)

Aspirants can check the complete syllabus of GATE 2025 Linguistics here.

GATE 2025 Linguistics Syllabus (XH-C3)

Syllabus

Topics

GATE Linguistics syllabus for Language and Linguistics

  • Language spoken, written and signed

  • Description and prescription

  • Language and cultural heritage

  • Language and social identity

  • Language as an object of inquiry – its structure, units and components

  • Design features

  • Writing systems

  • Biological Foundations and Language faculty

  • Linguistic competence and performance

  • Levels of grammar

  • Contrast and complementation

  • Rules - context-dependent and context-free

  • Levels of adequacy for analysis

  • Interdisciplinary approaches

  • Schools of linguistic thought (European, American) and the Indian Grammatical Tradition

GATE Linguistics syllabus for Levels of Grammar and Grammatical Analysis

A. Phonetics and Phonology: Vocal tract anatomy; phonation; articulatory parameters; classification of sounds; gestural theory of speech production; cardinal vowels; secondary and coarticulation; suprasegmentals - length, stress, tone, intonation and juncture; IPA; basic physics of sound and phonation and articulation; acoustic cues for speech sounds; organisation of phones into phonemes; phoneme inventories and cross-linguistic properties; syllable structure and phonological properties; principles of phonological analysis - phonetic similarity, contrastive and complementary distribution, free variation, allophones; linear and non-linear approaches; levels of representation; phonological rules; distinctive features (major class, manner, place, etc.); feature geometry; rule ordering, markedness and unspecified featural values; core principles of lexical phonology, optimality theory, autosegmental phonology and prosodic morphology.

B. Morphology: Concepts of morpheme, morph, allomorph, zero allomorph, conditions on allomorphs; lexeme and word; types of morphemes – structural and functional; affixes vs clitics; grammatical categories; morphological theories – generative, lexicalist, process and distributed morphology; identification of morphemes and parts of speech; alternation; morphophonology; inflection vs. derivation; conjugation and declension; word creation and word formation rules and processes; creativity and productivity, blocking, bracketing paradoxes, constraints on affix ordering; mental lexicon; lexical categories; valency changing operations.

C. Syntax: Basic syntactic units and their types: word, phrase, clause, sentence and their description and generation; grammatical and case relations; key ideas from syntactic theories, Generative Grammars including Minimalist Program, HPSG, Relational Grammar and Lexical Functional Grammar; phrase structure rules (including X-bar theory); universal grammar and cross-linguistic properties; idea of grammaticality judgements; solving the language acquisition problem; diagnostics of structure; syntactic phenomena such as movement, binding, ellipses, case-checking, islands, argument structure etc.; unergatives and unaccusatives.

D. Semantics and Pragmatics: Types of meaning, lexical and compositional; syntax-semantics interface (semantic roles, binding, scope, LF etc.); sense and reference, connotation and denotation, lexical semantic relations (homonymy, hypo/hypernymy, antonymy, synonymy, ambiguity); prototype theory and componential analysis; sentence meaning and truth conditions, contradictions, entailment; basic set theory; propositions, truth values, sentential connectives; arguments, predicates, quantifiers, variables; in/definiteness, mood and modality; language use in context; sentence meaning and utterance meaning; speech acts; deixis; presupposition and implicature: Gricean maxims; information structure; politeness, power and solidarity; discourse analysis.

GATE Linguistics syllabus for Historical Linguistics

  • Neogrammarian laws of phonetic change such as Grimm’s, Verner’s, Grassmann’s Laws

  • Genesis and spread of sound change; split and merger

  • Conditioned vs. unconditioned change

  • Lexical diffusion of sound change

  • Analogical changes and paradigm levelling

  • Relative chronology of different changes

  • Study of sound change in progress

  • Morphosyntactic (syncretism, grammaticalisation and lexicalisation) and semantic change (extension, narrowing, figurative speech)

  • Linguistic reconstruction - external vs. internal: the comparative method; lexicostatistics

  • Language contact and dialect geography – borrowing and impact of borrowing

  • Pidgins and creoles

  • Bi- and multilingualism as the source for borrowing

  • Dialect geography - dialect atlas

  • Isogloss, focal, transition and relic areas.

GATE Linguistics syllabus for Sociolinguistics
  • Micro-and macro approaches to language in society
  • Linguistic repertoire language, dialect, sociolect, idiolect
  • Diglossia
  • Taboo, slang and euphemism
  • Elaborated and restricted codes
  • Speech community and communicative competence
  • Ethnography of speaking; lingua franca
  • Diasporic language
  • Linguistic variables and their co-variation along linguistic/social dimensions
  • Language policies and development (especially in India)
  • Language contact and outcomes (language loss, pidginization and creolization)
  • Code-mixing and code-switching
  • Language movements – state and societal interventions; script development and modifications
  • Linguistic minorities
  • Language ecology and endangerment linguistic vitality, language endangerment (EGIDS scale), parameters of endangerment, documentation and revitalisation.
GATE Linguistics syllabus for Areal Typology, Universals, Cross-linguistic Features
  • Morphological types of languages agglutinative, analytical (isolating), synthetic fusional (inflecting), polysynthetic (incorporating) languages
  • Formal and substantive universals, absolute and statistical universals
  • Implicational and non-implicational universals (Greenberg)
  • Linguistic relatedness—genetic, typological and areal classification of languages
  • Universals and parametric variation
  • Word order typology
  • Salient features of South Asian languages - Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, and Tibeto-Burman language families
  • Linguistic Survey of India
  • Contact induced typological change.
GATE Linguistics syllabus for Methods of Analysis
  • Experimental and non-experimental methods
  • Sampling and tools
  • Identification of variables and their variants
  • Data processing and interpretation
  • Quantitative analysis of data
  • Ethnomethodology
  • Participant observation
  • Field methods and elicitation
  • Document creation
  • Ethics
GATE Linguistics syllabus for Applied Linguistics
  • Psycholinguistics — the study of how humans learn, represent, comprehend, and produce language. Topics include word recognition and storage, sentence production and comprehension, reading, speech perception, language acquisition, neural representation of language, bilingualism, and language disorders.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Is the GATE 2025 syllabus released?

Yes, IIT Roorkee has released the syllabus for GATE 2025.

2. When should I start preparing for GATE 2025?

Aspirants can start their preparation for GATE 2025 as soon as possible. Early preparation will lend you extra time for revision.

3. Is the GATE syllabus changed every year?

No, But any changes in the GATE syllabus shall be intimated to the students. 

4. What is the GATE 2025 exam date?

GATE exam 2025 will be held on February 1, 2, 15, and 16.

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Questions related to GATE

Have a question related to GATE ?

Hello,

Yes, as per the latest GATE eligibility criteria , students who have completed a 3-year BSc (Bachelor of Science) degree can now apply for the GATE exam. But admission options through GATE score for such students are limited.

  • IITs: Generally do not allow admission to MTech, but some may offer MSc-PhD or research programmes.

  • IISc: Allows BSc students for Integrated PhD in science subjects.

  • NITs/IIITs: Mostly need BE/BTech, so limited chances for BSc students.

  • Best options: Integrated PhD, MS by Research, or research roles.

Hope it helps !

For GATE preparation, reputed institutes include Made Easy, ACE Engineering Academy, and GATEForum. These institutes offer structured curriculum, experienced faculty, and comprehensive study materials to help students excel in the GATE exam.

The GATE 2026 syllabus covers topics from various engineering disciplines. For Computer Science, it includes subjects like Digital Logic, Discrete Mathematics, Algorithms, Operating Systems, Databases, Theory of Computation, and Software Engineering, among others. Each subject is further divided into core concepts and topics for in-depth preparation.

Yes, it is possible to get admission to a BE in Electronics and Communication Engineering (ECE) in NIT Trichy without taking the GATE exam. GATE is specifically meant for postgraduate (M.Tech) admissions, not undergraduate (B.E.) admissions.

For a BE course, the procedure is as follows:

1. Eligibility:

You must have completed your 10+2 (or equivalent) with the required subjects (Physics, Mathematics, and an additional subject like Chemistry or Biology).
You should meet the required percentage cutoff as defined by NIT Trichy (usually around 75% for general category students).

2. Entrance Exam:

You must qualify JEE Main, which is the entrance test for undergraduate admissions to NITs, including NIT Trichy.

3. JoSAA Counseling:

Once you qualify for JEE Main, you must attend the JoSAA (Joint Seat Allocation Authority) counseling.
You will choose NIT Trichy as your first choice for admission during counseling. The seat will be allotted according to your JEE Main rank.

4. Seat Allotment and Admission:

You will be given a seat at NIT Trichy according to your JEE Main rank if you are within the cutoff.
Once seat allotment is over, you are required to present yourself at NIT Trichy for verification of documents and payment of fee to secure your admission.

5. Verification Documents:

You'll be required to bring your original documents (10th and 12th mark sheets, JEE Main score card, identity proof, etc.) for verification purposes.

6. Fee Payment

Once the seat is finalized, you will be paying the entry fee, which is different according to your category (OBC, SC, ST, general).

In short, GATE is not necessary for admission in the BE program at NIT Trichy.

List MTech colleges without GATE

Congratulations on qualifying GATE! Here is a detailed professional answer to your query:

1. GATE Score and Category Advantage:

  • A GATE score of 334 in Electronics and Communication Engineering (ECE) under the SC category gives you a decent advantage.

  • Cutoffs for SC candidates are usually much lower compared to the General category.

  • This score can open up opportunities in good institutes, but getting the topmost IIITs may still be slightly competitive for specialized branches like VLSI.

2. Admission Chances in Top IIITs for VLSI:

  • IIIT Hyderabad is one of the top IIITs for VLSI but generally requires a higher GATE score, even for SC candidates (around 400+).

  • Other IIITs like IIIT Bangalore, IIIT Delhi, IIIT Allahabad, and IIITDM Jabalpur may have lower cutoffs and offer decent chances for VLSI-related programs.

  • IIIT Bangalore considers both GATE scores and past academic performance, so you may still have a chance there with a strong profile.

3. Alternative Options to Consider:

  • NITs like NIT Trichy, NIT Surathkal, NIT Warangal, and MNIT Jaipur offer excellent VLSI programs and may have cutoffs suitable for your score under SC reservation.

  • Central universities such as IIITDM Kancheepuram and other newer IIITs could also be good backup options.

4. Important Suggestions:

  • Apply to a wide range of IIITs and NITs to maximize your chances.

  • Keep track of CCMT counselling and institute-specific admission processes.

  • Also check for special admission rounds or spot counselling if your preferred institute has vacant seats later.

5. Conclusion:

  • While securing VLSI in the very top IIITs like IIIT Hyderabad may be challenging, you still have very good chances in other reputed IIITs and NITs.

  • With proper choice filling and a little flexibility regarding specialization (like Embedded Systems or Microelectronics), you can secure a strong seat.

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