Linguistics 4248B
Advanced Syntactic Analysis

Course Description:

The main goal of this course is to familiarize the students with current syntactic theory, by investigating the notions of raising and control and how they been analyzed over the past 60 years. Students will be expected to read original literature in the Principles and Parameters/Minimalism frameworks and will learn about different approaches to syntax (e.g. Relational Grammar, Lexical-Functional Grammar). Students will also learn to apply what they have learned to new data from different languages.

By the end of the course students should

• feel confident reading formal syntactic literature
• be able to apply theoretical analyses to original data
• be able to critique and present research papers
• feel confident about doing original research within the frameworks provided
• be able to communicate their research results (in the form of abstracts, squibs, and oral presentations)

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Format of the course:

• lectures
• discussion groups on concepts introduced in the papers
• presentation of language logs
• solving empirical problems in class and at home (assignments)
• student presentations of relevant literature
• original research