LING 610: SYNTAX II

Spring 2004

Time and place:

TH 11:00-12:15, GOR 317

Instructor:

Benjamin Bruening, LIN 101, Tel: 831-4096, email bruening@udel.edu

Website:

http://www.ling.udel.edu/bruening/Courses/syntaxIISpr04.html

1  Overview

The objective of this course is to introduce students to recent syntactic theory and the empirical phenomena (drawn from a wide variety of languages) that it seeks to cover. Continuing the focus of LING 609, Syntax I, this course will stress the tools of syntactic argumentation and hypothesis testing, through examination of some of the primary literature of the past 20--30 years. The course will focus on the Principles and Parameters approach to syntax, which attempts to characterize the grammars of all natural languages in terms of a set of universal principles that all languages share, and a set of parameters along which languages may vary. We will emphasize the empirical motivation behind major theoretical proposals in the Principles and Parameters approach, and show how views on the nature of universal grammar and cross-linguistic variation have developed over the past 20--30 years as a consequence of a massive increase in cross-linguistic syntactic research. The course is also intended to provide graduate students in linguistics with preparation for the syntax qualifying exam.

In order to maximally benefit from this course, you should ensure that you are an active participant in class; active participation involves reading assigned articles or chapters before class and identifying questions or concerns that you have about them, attending class, and participating in class discussions.

In addition to regular written assignments, all students are required to write two short papers which go beyond the material covered in class. The topics for these should be discussed with the instructor. The first paper should be a response to a published paper, presenting an alternative analysis; the second, which should be longer, will discuss and analyze some novel syntactic data.

2  Course Requirements

There will be no exams for this course. The focus of the course is on reading, discussing, writing, and doing over the course of the semester, and hence your entire grade will be based upon this.

If you want to get the maximum benefit from this class (i.e., learn a lot and have a grade to show for it), you will do the following:

1. Come to class prepared, and participate. Being prepared means having read the assigned article(s), and having jotted down your initial thoughts or questions about the article(s). If there are parts of a paper you do not understand, skip them and go on; most of the time you will figure it out from the rest of the paper, or you will never miss what you didn't understand. It is important for participation in class that you get what you can out of the assigned readings. Particpating in class discussions is valuable because it makes you an active learner and massively increases the likelihood that you will understand and retain the material.

   In class, don't hesitate to ask if there is something that you do not understand. Also, if you find the logic of an argument unconvincing, point this out to the class.

2. Think and write carefully in written assignments. There will be regular written assignments, consisting either of problem sets or critical evaluations of some article. There will be roughly one assignment per week, excepting some weeks such as the two before the short papers are due.

   It is fine to work with other students on the written assignments; this is even encouraged, since it will most likely improve your understanding of the material. However, if you do this you should submit an assignment that you have written yourself, you should mention who you worked with, and-most importantly-you should make sure that you are satisfied that you have understood what you have written.

3. Take care in writing the two short papers. You are expected to write two short papers or `squibs' for this class, which take you beyond the material directly discussed in class. While the scope of these pieces is flexible, I recommend that first piece be a critical response to a paper from the syntax literature, presenting an alternative analysis, and that the other piece be a discussion of some novel data that you have collected. The first squib is due on the last day before Spring Break, on March 26th; the second squib is due at the last meeting of this class on May 21st.

   You are not helping yourself if you wait until the last possible moment to work on these squibs, and if you spend forever stressing out over what to write about. There are vast numbers of interesting papers to review and topics to explore (I will suggest some throughout the semester), and your success will depend more on the care you give to working on the project than on the brilliance of the choice of topic! You should come to speak to me in advance to let me know what you are working on, and you should also feel free to come to talk to me if you're not sure what to write about.

3  Schedule

This schedule is tentative and is likely to change over the course of the semester. Readings should be done before the class for which they are assigned.

FEBRUARY
10 Class 1: Introduction	12 Projection, Theta Roles, Selection Reading: Johnson Syntax Notes, chs 1-3
17 Argument Structure and NP Movement Reading: Perlmutter and Postal 1984	19 Argument Structure and NP Movement Reading: Jackendoff 1972 Assignment 1
24 NP Movement Reading: Chomsky 1981, chapter 2, esp. pp.29-52,55-60,66-71,101-127	26 NP Movement Reading: Chomsky 1981, chapter 2
MARCH
2 Binding Reading: Chomsky 1981, ch.3	4 PRO and Infinitives Reading: review LGB Chomsky and Lasnik 1993 (selection) Martin 2001
9 Binding Reading: Huang 1982, chapter 5 Reinhart and Reuland 1993	11 Binding and Coreference Reading: Reinhart 1999 Grodzinsky and Reinhart 1993
16 NP Movement: Derived Subjects Reading: McCloskey 1997 Diesing 1992, chapter 2	18 Verb Movement and Word Order Reading: Pollock 1989
Spring Break
30 Catch up Reading: Reinhart, McCloskey, Diesing
APRIL
	1 Catch up: Pollock 1989 Friday: Pollock FIRST SQUIB DUE (Friday)
6 finish V movement Reading: Pollock 1989	8 NP/DP Structure Reading: Syncom case, Longobardi 1994
13 Ditransitives Reading: Larson 1988	15 pro-drop Reading: Kenstowicz 1989
20 pro-drop Reading: Huang 1984	22 Wh-Movement Reading: Chomsky 1977 van Riemsdijk and Williams 1986, chapter 2
27 The ECP Reading: Huang 1982, chapter 6	29 Barriers Reading: Chomsky 1986
MAY
4 Barriers Reading: Chomsky 1986	6 LF wh-movement Reading: Huang 1982, chapter 7
11 LF wh-movement Reading: Pesetsky 1987	13 Relativized Minimality Reading: Rizzi 1990
18 Verb Movement and Word Order: Minimalism Reading: Chomsky 1993 SECOND SQUIB DUE

4  Course Materials

Readings consist of primary literature, listed in the schedule above (full references in bibliography below). A copy of each reading will be placed in the course mailbox in the linguistics department; you should photocopy the readings yourself and return them promptly.

There will be no textbook for this course, just the primary literature assigned. However, if you want to consult a textbook as background or further reading, you might try the following:

• Roberts, Ian (1997). Comparative Syntax. London: Arnold.

• Haegeman, Liliane (1994). Introduction to Government & Binding Theory. Oxford: Blackwell.

Additional resources: during the semester I will point out additional syntax resources, such as the Syncom project, notes compiled by various researchers, and others. There are also various computer programs for drawing trees, some of which attempt to be useful analytical tools as well (the Trees program, Syntactica). In writing the squibs, you should also become familiar with electronic databases for locating resources (if you are not already).

References

(Note: I am putting the references here in Bibtex format, for easy importation into a bibliographic database.)