Overview

The focus of this class is on comparative syntax, primarily from the perspective of the Principles and Parameters approach to syntax, which has developed over the last 20 years. Research in this tradition has attempted to characterize the grammars of all natural languages in terms of a set of universal principles which all languages share, and a set of parameters along which languages may vary.

The course will emphasize the empirical motivation behind major theoretical proposals in the Principles and Parameters tradition, and show how views on the nature of universal grammar and cross-linguistic variation have developed as a consequence of a massive increase in cross-linguistic syntax research. While this course differs from LING 609 Syntax I in its greater comparative focus and its increased attention to recent theoretical models, it continues to stress the tools of syntactic argumentation and hypothesis testing. 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: one possibility would be for one of the papers to be a review of two or three related articles, and for the other paper to discuss the analysis of some novel syntactic data.