Preliminary Version
Final Version Will Be Given Out in Class

CAVEAT: For all courses the definitive edition of the course is found in the hard copy pages distributed in class. These pages on the web are placed here by students working with Prof. Dougherty, see the HTML Gesellschaft. They are not always up to date.

COURSE DESCRIPTION: The class will focus on Chomsky's concept of explanation in linguistics. We will consider his early definitions (1957,1965) of observational, descriptive, and explanatory adequacy and see how they have evolved into the underpinnings of the minimalist program. We will compare Chomsky's views of language with those of Charles Sanders Peirce. We will discuss explanation deriving from external motivation (the relation of generative grammar to studies of perception, performance, parsing, language acquisition, and so on), and internal motivation (the ability of a theory/grammar to provide an insightful analysis of some distribution or interpretation of natural language data). We will discuss three types of constructions in order to see how they have been analyzed from pre-government and binding analyses into the minimalist program. The three constructions are:

• Quantifier/Coordinate/Plural constructions: Sentences containing and, or, nor, either, each, each other, all, some, any, group, and so on.
• Belief-type verbs: Verb complement constructions in which a noun phrase seems to be the object of the higher verb, but the subject of the lower verb.
• Wh-constructions Relative and question constructions in which one or more wh-elements (who, what, how, etc.) seem to be 'displaced' from the position in which they are interpreted

• BasicsThis document.
• Overview Short essay describing course contents.
• Syllabus Schedule of readings and assignments.
• Project The final project required of all students.
• HELP Overview of course description format.
• LING Overview of Chomsky's generative grammar in Prolog.
• COURSES Partial listing of courses.

BACKGROUND REQUIREMENTS: None.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS: The requirements are detailed in the document: Course Final Project. All course work may be submitted either as a printed document or as a set of HTML pages on the WWW.

COMPUTER ACCOUNT: Each student registered for the class will have an account on the ACF4 Unix Vax and accounts to the IBM PC and Macintosh Labs. These are connected to the WWW.

BOOKS:

• Chomsky, Noam. 1966. Cartesian Linguistics. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
• Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
• Johnson, David and Shalom Lappin. 1996. A Critique of the Minimalist Program. Xerox in library.
• Cheng, Lisa Lai-Shen. 1991. On the Typology of Wh-Questions. MIT Ph.D. Dissertation. Xerox in library.
• There will be readings from other sources on reserve.

RECOMMENDED: Many books, articles, and other readings will be placed on reserve in Bobst Library and in the Linguistics Department Library, 719 Broadway, Fifth Floor. Many, perhaps most, of the readings are available on the World Wide Web and can be downloaded by students. You will learn to use the WWW browser.

EXAMS: There are no examinations. There are three assignments culminating in a final project.

• Due at lecture 5, Project 1.
• Due at lecture 8, Project 2.
• Due at lecture 11, Project 3.
• Due when the registrar schedules the Final Exam, Project 4.