Fall 2012

MACHMER E 37, TUTH 11.15-12.30

MAGDA OIRY
MOIRY AT LINGUIST.UMASS.EDU
313 SOUTH COLLEGE, 545-6826
OFFICE HOURS: TUTH 10-11 OR BY APPOINTMENT

MATTHIEU DECKER
MPDECKER AT STUDENT.UMASS.EDU
OFFICE HOURS: MWF 11-12 OR BY APPOINTMENT

SYLLABUS

Themes: What syntactic properties are shared by all natural languages? What syntactic properties distinguish them? What do we know when we know a language? What are syntactic properties? How do we construct a theory of syntax? This course aims to equip students with the ability to address these questions in a precise and informed way. The topics include those that are central to a proper understanding of syntax: phrase structure, movement, grammatical relations, case, complementation, anaphora, and long-distance movement.

PREREQUISITES

Linguist 201 (Introduction to Linguistics) or the consent of the instructor.

READINGS AND REQUIRED TEXT

I will occasionally distribute short, compulsory reading assignments through the website.
Required Text: Syntax: A Generative Introduction, 2nd edition, Andrew Carnie, Blackwell Publishing, 2007. (ISBN 0-4051-3384-8) (ordered at UMass Textbook Annex).

SCHEDULE

• [1-2]: Basic Questions, Implicit Knowledge, and Syntactic Categories, Sept. 4, 6
  Reading: Chs. 1-2 of the textbook. Assignment 1 due September 11. (You can find chapter 1 here and chapter 2 here.)

• [3-4]:  The Atoms: Words and Syntactic Categories, Sept. 11, 13
  Reading: Ch. 2 of the textbook. Problems 2 and 6 from Assignment 2 are due on Sept. 18.

• [5-6] : Phrase Structure Rules, Sept. 18, 20
  Reading: Ch. 3 of the textbook. Problems 3 and 4e, j and m from Chapter 3 due on Sept. 25.

• [7-8]: Phrase Structure Rules, Trees, and Automata, Sept. 25, 27
  Reading: Ch. 3 of the textbook. Problems 4 n-q, 7 and 8 a-e from Chapter 3 are due on October 2nd. I uploaded a copy of chapter 3 here.

• [9-10], Structural Relations, Oct. 2, 4
  Reading: Ch. 4 of the textbook. Problems 3, 7, 9, 14 and 15 from Ch.4 [not due].

• [11]  Oct. 11, Dominance and c-command
  Reading: Chapter 4

• [12-13]  Oct. 16: In-Class midterm, Oct. 18: binding theory
  Reading: Chapter 5. Problems 2 and 4 (pp. 146-147) and Challenge Problem Set 4 from chapter 5 due Thursday, October 23d (hk 5).

• [14-15]  Oct. 23, 25  Binding theory
  Reading: Ch. 5. Exercises 7 a, b, c from chapter 6 NOT due for now.

• [16-17]  Oct. 30, Nov 1 Grammatical relation and X’ theory
  Reading: Chapter 6. Do this due on November 8 (hk 6).

• [18-19]  Nov 6, 8 X’ theory
  Reading: Chapter 6

• [20-21]  Nov. 13, 15 Classes cancelled (giving a talk at Maryland)
  Reading: Chs.

• [22]  Nov. 20 X’ theory, Specifier, adjunct and complement. Happy Thanksgiving!
  Reading: Chapter 6. Homework 7 due Nov 27: sentences b/c/f from exercise 7 from the the textbook plus exercise 5 on Japanese.

• [23-24]  Nov. 27, 29 Extending X’ – T and C nodes and DP
  Reading: Ch. 7 and 8 from the new edition here.  Final exam hand out on the 29th, due Dec. 7.

• [25-26]  Dec. 4, 6
  Reading: Chs. 7 and 8. Final exam due Dec. 7.