Linguistics 250, S13, Introduction to syntactic theory

Course information and syllabus

	Time Place	M W 2-3:30 Williams 321
Instructor: Dr. Beatrice Santorini	Email Office Office hours	beatrice@babel.ling.upenn.edu Williams 602 M W 3:30-4:30 or by appointment

Dates	Readings	Assignments and solutions	Due dates
W 1/9	1   Foundational issues Prescriptive versus descriptive grammar. Rule formation and syntactic structure in language acquisition. More evidence for syntactic structure. Universal Grammar. Generative grammar. Supplementary material: Expletive elements in English. Modals and auxiliary verbs in English. Questions. Excerpts from Gould and Marler 1987. Grammatical terminology.	A1-2	Part 1a: M 1/14 Part 1b: W 1/16 Part 2: F 1/18
M 1/14 W 1/16	2   Constituent structure Tests for determining syntactic constituenthood. Some complications. Representing constituenthood. Supplementary material: Finiteness in English. Node relations.
M 1/21	Martin Luther King's Birthday observed — no class	A3	Part 1: W 1/23 Part 2: F 1/25
W 1/23	3   Some basic linguistic relations Argumenthood. Modification. Predication. Supplementary material: Adjectives. Expletive elements in English. Finiteness in English. Finiteness in English. Grammatical relations. Reference and related notions. Thematic roles.
M 1/28 W 1/30	4   Introducing the X' schema of phrase structure The X' schema for elementary trees. Deriving simple and complex sentences. The adjunct relation. A typology of syntactic dependents (complements, specifiers, adjuncts). Supplementary material: Grammatical relations. Modals and auxiliary verbs in English. Reference and related notions. Thematic roles.	A4	Part 1: W 1/30 Part 2: F 2/1
M 2/4 W 2/6	5   Extending the X' schema Noun phrases. Parallels and differences between noun phrases and sentences. Noun phrases as DPs. Adjective phrases. Prepositional phrases. Crosslinguistic variation in headedness. Supplementary material: Nouns.	A5	Part 1: W 2/6 Part 2: F 2/8
M 2/11 W 2/13 M 2/18	6   The verb movement parameter (version of Spring 2012) Verb raising: V moves to I in the syntax. Tense lowering: I moves to V in the morphology. Cues for the acquisition of verb raising. Verb raising and related issues in the history of English. Supplementary material: Modals and auxiliary verbs in English. Node relations.	A6	Part 1: M 2/18 Part 2: F 2/22
W 2/20 M 2/25	7   VP shells (version of Spring 2012) A VP shell analysis of double-object sentences. Direct versus indirect causation. Extending the VP shell analysis to other constructions. Locality constraints on idioms. Supplementary material: Thematic roles.	A7	Part 1: M 2/25 Part 2: Th 2/28
W 2/27	Midterm review.	---	---
Spring break
M 3/11 W 3/13	8   Case theory A first look at case. Case features. Case checking. Supplementary material: Grammatical relations.	Exam 1	F 3/15
M 3/18 W 3/20	9   Nonfinite clausal complements Selectional restrictions. Subject control. Raising. Object control. More nonthematic subjects.	A8-9	Part 1: W 3/20 Part 2: Su 3/24
M 3/25 W 3/27 M 4/1	10   Passive (version of Spring 2012) Characteristics of the passive. A movement analysis. The passive and nonfinite complementation. Structural versus inherent case. The passive of double-object sentences. Supplementary material: Thematic roles.	A10	Part 1: W 3/27 Part 2: F 3/29
W 4/3 M 4/8	11   Wh- movement in English A movement analysis of questions. Constraints on movement (island constraints, Comp-trace effect). Relative clauses as instances of wh- movement. Supplementary material: Questions.	A11	F 4/12 (no oral part)
W 4/10	12   Subjacency and the ECP Please read only the first section ("Subjacency"). Supplementary material: Node relations.	A12	F 4/19 (no oral part)
M 4/15	13   Parametric variation concerning wh- movement Please read only the first section ("To move or not to move"). Supplementary material: Information structure. Questions.	no A13	---
W 4/17	Class cancelled
M 4/22	14   The verb-second (V2) parameter V2 in German. V2 in the history of English.	A14	F 4/26 (no oral part)
		Exam 2	Sat 5/4

Last modified: 30 Apr 13