Fall 2012
Course Information
- Time:
- MWTh, 12-12:50am [Block E]
- Location:
- Volen 119
- There is no textbook for this course (see important policies in the course syllabus)
Professor
- Lotus Goldberg
- Email: lmgold AT brandeis DOT edu
- Office: Volen 134
- Office Hours:
- Tuesdays 11am-12pm, Thursdays 3-4pm
TA
-
TA name
- Office hours
Course description and objectives
This course provides an introduction to the process of syntactic analysis, to generative syntactic theory, and to many major syntactic phenomena of English and other languages. Topics covered include the clausal architecture, the lexicon, and various types of syntactic movement, focusing primarily on A Movement (also called NP Movement).
Schedule (subject to change)
| Week |
Topics Covered |
|---|---|
| 1,
2, 3 |
Grammaticality and ungrammaticality, (Non)standardness, Semantically bizarre
sentences, ambiguity; the concept of a formal grammar; Constituency and tests for it, Trees |
|
3,
4,
5 |
The auxiliary system, VP Ellipsis
, the architecture of the clause |
|
6,
7 |
Yes-No Questions
,
Wh-questions
,
(more on)
subcategorization |
| 8,
9 |
Passive, Semantic (theta) Roles
,
expletive
it |
|
10,
11, 12 |
Reflexive
and other
pronouns, infinitival
structures and other clause types (plus even more on theta-Roles and the lexicon ) |
| 13, 14, 15 |
More on infinitival structures
, course wrap-up |