Techniques and formalisms for analyzing syntactic phenomena of human languages within the framework of generative grammar. Examples will be drawn from English and a wide variety of other languages. (Writing-intensive)
Athena Title
Generative Syntax
Equivalent Courses
Not open to students with credit in LING 3150
Non-Traditional Format
This version of the course will be taught as writing intensive,
which means that the course will include substantial and ongoing
writing assignments that a) relate clearly to course learning;
b) teach the communication values of a discipline—for example,
its practices of argument, evidence, credibility, and format;
and c) prepare students for further writing in their academic
work, in graduate school, and in professional life. The written
assignments will result in a significant and diverse body of
written work (the equivalent of 6000 words or 25 pages) and the
instructor (and/or the teaching assistant assigned to the
course) will be closely involved in student writing, providing
opportunities for feedback and substantive revision.
Prerequisite
LING 2100 or LING 2100E or LING 2100H
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall and spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student Learning Outcomes
Students will precisely describe syntactic patterns, such as phrase structure and word order, in English and a variety of other languages.
Students will identify central grammatical functions, like subject and object as well thematic roles like initiator/agent, undergoer/patient, and recipient.
Students will formalize rules that capture the hierarchical structure of sentences and draw tree diagrams illustrating these rules.
Students will recognize the pragmatics-related rearrangement of words and phrases and capture these rearrangements in the form of transformation (e.g., movement) rules.
Students will collaborate with classmates to discuss, propose, and present problem-set solutions, both in class and when working on homework assignments outside of class.
Students will present solutions to problem-sets in individually composed write-ups consisting of essay-style, coherent prose, arguing for the claims being made by supporting them with convincing evidence.
Topical Outline
1. Syntax as a science: applying the scientific method by observing data patterns, making hypotheses as to the rules underlying these patterns, and systematically testing these hypotheses
2. Grammaticality: distinguishing syntactic vs. semantic well-formedness
3. Diagnosing constituency (the formation of sub-sentential semantic groupings of words into phrases)
4. Tree-diagrams as illustrations of how phrase-structure rules generate phrases and sentences
5. The components of Generative grammar: mental lexicon, phrase structure rules, and transformations; deriving the surface of a sentence from its deep structure
6. Instances of recursion in phrase structure rules to capture the infinite number of grammatical expressions with the help of a finite set of rules
7. Structural ambiguity and how phrase structure rules capture it
8. Lexical entries and the lexical restrictions words come with (e.g., transitive vs. intransitive verbs)
9. Form rules capturing inflection (the syntax-morphology interface)
10. The phrase structure of Indonesian, including sentences with non-verbal predicates
11. English vs. Indonesian verbal and adjectival modifiers
12. Word order in English and Indonesian vs. Turkish and Japanese
13. Transformation rules, e.g., yes/no-questions, negation, topicalization, and passivization, and their ordering
14. Main vs. embedded clauses and finite vs. nonfinite clauses
15. French, Irish, and German word order
16. X-bar Theory: a more elaborate phrase-structure system to account for arguments vs. adjuncts and language universals
Institutional Competencies
Analytical Thinking
The ability to reason, interpret, analyze, and solve problems from a wide array of authentic contexts.
