This class is a reading-intensive introduction to syntactic theory. Its goal is to familiarise you with the ideas underlying current syntactic research in the "Principles and Parameters" framework, and some of their technical renderings. Throughout, emphasis is put on the ideas rather than the nitty-gritty of the mechanics. The goal being (i) to equip you with knowledge that allows you to acquire the nitty-gritty yourself, and (ii) to allow you to be ready for the fact that the technology changes fairly often, because our understanding of how to implement the general ideas still evolves relatively quickly.
Requirements:
Part I. Introduction.
[10 Sept. 2002] General Picture: the language organ, the acquisition paradox, interfaces, minimalist methodology, constituency and the basics of phrase-structure, overview of the main buildling blocks of current theories. .
Part II. Fine-grained phrase-structure. The discovery that phrase-structure might be much richer and interpretatively more fine-grained than ever thought plays an increasingly important role in syntactic theory. It offloads much of the work that used to be done by "principles" onto a single statement about the order of elements in the structure. The nature of the structure also provides the backbone for all other principles, often strongly influencing their formulation.
[Topic 1 - 17 Sept. 2001] Specifiers and Complements. CP/IP. Negative inversion, head-movement.
24 Sept - no class.
[Topic 2 - 1 Oct 2002] I-to-C and failure thereof. Split-IP. Labelling and the Mirror Principle. Required reading: J-Y. Pollock (1989) "Verb-movement, UG, and the structure of IP", Linguistic Inquiry 20:365. Read sections 1-3 carefully, and section 4 more lightly.
[Topic 3] Consequences on the relationship between morphology and syntax. Required reading: Mark Baker (1985) "The Mirror Principle", Linguistic Inquiry 16:373. Read 1--4 (ie. up to p.400)
Optional readings: more on the rich-infl hypothesis:
[Topic 4] Pursuing the logic to its full consequences: refined functional projections. Required readings: Guglielmo Cinque (1997) "Adverbs and Functional Heads", OUP. In class, we will additionally go over two other readings that are optional but encouraged:
Part III. Subjects. A large amount of our syntactic knowledge builds on the fact that "subjects are special". This is true wrt. their position in the clause-structure, wrt. their movement (EPP, raising, passives, middles), wrt. their (lack of) relation to thematic roles and interpretation (expletives, quirky subjects, psych-verbs), their optionality in some languages (null-subjects), their categorial restrictions, etc.
[Topic 1] Grounding subject movement (and the phrase-structure of subjects). Motivations for subject movement: attraction versus 'need to move', case versus agreement versus epp versus discourse versus sanity. Other cases of A-movement: passives, ergatives, middles, raising. Required reading: McCloskey (1997) "Subjects", in Haegeman (ed) "Elements of Grammar", p. 197.
[Topic 2] Null subjects and parametrisation. Parameters, and the history of syntactic theory. What null subjects and expletive constructions show us about them. Suggested readings: Rizzi (ms) A parametric approach to comparative syntax properties of the pronominal system, Cardinaletti (1997) Agreement and Control in Expletive Constructions, LI.
[Topic 3] A tour of exotic subjects: quirky case, psych-verbs, locative inversion, etc. Suggested reading: Belletti and Rizzi (1988) "Psych-verbs and Theta-Theory". Linguistic Inquiry 19:1-34. Read up to p. 312.
Part IV. A glance at Coreference
[Topic 1] Binding Theory. Morphology and Binding. Reading: Reuland and Everaert, Deconstructing Binding" in Baltin and Collins, pp. 634-669.
Part IV. Movement and Locality. While something like movement (dislocation) seems to exist in natural languages, this operation is heavily restricted. Search for the principles that restrict it - or for a formulation the movement operation that automatically yields those restrictions - has been the cornerstone of research between roughly 1970 and 1990 (and still plays a central role, though focus has moved towards phrase-structure and features).
[Topic 1] Varieties of wh-movement: weak islands, strong islands, relative clauses, superiority, wh in situ, P-stranding.
[Topic 2] Theories of locality. Trying to state a unified principle covering the various subcases of locality. Reading: Rizzi (1999) Relativised Minimality effects.
[Topic 3] Movement of non-arguments: predicate movement, VP-movement, remnant movement. The remnant festival.