LING 508
Syntactic Theory II
Winter 2017, University of Washington
Syllabus
Instructor:
Email:
Office:
Edith Aldridge
[email protected]
415F Guggenheim Hall
Department of Linguistics
(206)685-4845
By appointment
Phone:
Office hours:
Time:
Location:
MW 8:30-10:20
SAV 140
Overview and objectives:
This course is the second in the graduate level introduction to Generative Grammar
series. Students will be expected to read and critique primary literature in the Minimalist
Program. Particular focus will be on A’ syntax and other topics not covered in LING 507
and LING 509. Students will also be expected to write a term paper on a syntactic topic.
Another goal of this course is to help students develop hypothesis setting and problem
solving skills which are common to all subfields of linguistics.
Requirements:
Successful completion of this course will depend on the following.
Preparation and class participation:
Participation in Discussion Board:
Presentation 1:
Presentation 2:
Literature Review:
Final Paper:
10%
10%
15%
15%
20%
30%
100%
Preparation and class participation:
Students are expected to attend all class meetings, to have read the assigned readings, and
to participate in class discussions.
Participation in Discussion Board:
Students are expected to make at least one entry on the course Canvas discussion board
before each class meeting. Posts are due one hour before class begins.
Presentation 1:
Students will find a syntax article and present the main points of this article to the class. It
is recommended that students present one of the articles to be discussed in the literature
review.
Literature Review:
Students will write a critical review of two or more syntax articles that can be
incorporated into their final papers.
Presentation 2:
Students will present a summary of their final research paper to the class.
Final Paper:
Students will write an original research paper of approximately 15-25 pages (doublespaced, 12-point font) on a syntactic topic of interest to them. Work on the paper must be
exclusively your own, and you must give appropriate citations for any resources you
consult, including online resources. The links below can help you familiarize yourself
with policies concerning academic honesty.
https://depts.washington.edu/grading/pdf/AcademicResponsibility.pdf
Similar information can be found at the following link by navigating to “What is
academic misconduct?” on the side menu.
http://www.washington.edu/uaa/advising/at-the-uw/not-doing-well/
Course Outline
Note: This schedule is subject to change at any time.
Topics
1/4
CP layer
Adger (2003), ch. 8 review
1/9
wh-movement
Adger (2003), ch. 9
1/11
Locality
Adger (2003), ch. 10
1/16
HOLIDAY – NO CLASS
1/18
Successive-cyclic wh-movement
McCloskey, James. 2001. The morphosyntax of WH-extraction in Irish. Journal
of Linguistics 37.1: 67-100.
1/23
Relative clauses
Bhatt, Rajesh. 2002. The Raising Analysis of Relative Clauses: Evidence from
Adjectival Modification. Natural Language Semantics 10:43-90. (sec. 1-4)
Hulsey, Sarah and Uli Sauerland. 2006. Sorting out Relative Clauses. Natural
Language Semantics 14:111-137. (sec. 1, 2, 4)
1/25
Q-particles
Cable, Seth. 2007. The Grammar of Q: Q-Particles and the Nature of WhFronting, As Revealed by the Wh-Questions of Tlingit. MIT dissertation. (pp.
21-129) (Available through MITWPL)
1/30
PRESENTATION 1
2/1
wh-in-situ
Slade, Benjamin. 2012. Formal and Philological Inquiries into the Nature of
Interrogatives, Indefinites, Disjunction, and Focus in Sinhala and Other
Languages. University of Illinois Ph.D. dissertation. (ch. 1-4)
2/6
REVIEW/CATCH-UP - Literature reviews due
2/8
Focus in Bantu
Cheng, L.-L. Lisa, Leston Buell, and Thilo Schadeberg. To appear. Word Order
and Morphological Marking in Bantu. To appear in a volume on Bantu.
2/13
Complementizer Agreement
Carstens, Vicky. 2016. Delayed Valuation: A Reanalysis of Goal Features,
“Upward” Complementizer Agreement, and the Mechanics of Case. Syntax
19.1: 1-42.
2/15
Anti-agreement
Henderson, Brent. 2013. Agreement and person in anti-agreement. Natural
Language and Linguistic Theory 31:453–481.
2/20
HOLIDAY – NO CLASS
2/22
Phases
Citko, Barbara. 2014. Phases: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. (eBook)
2/27
Feature Inheritance
Epstein, Samuel and Miki Obata. 2008. Deducing Improper Movement from
Phase-Based C-to-T Phi Transfer: Feature-Splitting Internal Merge. In
Natasha Abner and Jason Bishop (eds.), Proceedings of the 27th West Coast
Conference on Formal Linguistics, 353-360. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla
Proceedings Project.
Richards, Marc. 2007. On Feature Inheritance: An Argument from the Phase
Impenetrability Condition. Linguistic Inquiry 38: 563-572.
3/1
Phases and successive-cyclicity
van Urk, Coppe and Norvin Richards. 2015. Two components of long distance
extraction: Successive cyclicity in Dinka. Linguistic Inquiry 46.1: 113-155.
3/6
Ergativity
Aldridge, Edith. 2008. Generative Approaches to Ergativity. Language and
Linguistics Compass: Syntax and Morphology 2.5:966-995.
3/8
PRESENTATION 2
3/14
Final Papers Due (No extenstions, no exceptions)