| LEC # | TOPICS | READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | HPSG 1: How it works | Sag, Wasow, and Bender. pp. 1-202. |
| 2 | HPSG 2: Infinitival complementation/a-bar dependencies | Sag, Wasow, and Bender. pp. 203-end.
|
| 3 | LFG: Basics |
Carnie, Andrew. "Flat Structure, Phrasal Variability and Non-Verbal Predication in Irish." Journal of Celtic Linguistics 10. (Forthcoming). |
| 4 | LFG 2: The overall system, modern developments | |
| 5 | Student presentation festival: HPSG and LFG papers | Pick one NELS-length paper from the recent HPSG literature and one from the LFG literature (not necessarily related). Present and discuss. CSLI Online HPSG and LFG Proceedings. |
| 6 | Non-derivational principles and parameters/minimalist grammars |
DeKuthy, Kordula, and Walt Detmar Meurers. "On Partial Constituent Fronting in German." Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 3 (2001): 143-205.
|
| 7 | History of analyses of the English auxiliary verb system: Derivations to representations |
|
| 8 | Standard theory to generative semantics |
———. "Global Rules." Language 46 (1970): 627-639. Baker, C. L., and Michael Brame. "'Global Rules': A Rejoinder." Language 48 (1972): 51-75. Lakoff, George. "The Arbitrary Basis of Transformational Grammar." Language 48 (1972): 76-87. Andrews, Avery D. "Case Agreement of Predicate Modifiers in Ancient Greek." Linguistic Inquiry 2 (1971): 127-152. Postal, Paul. "A Global Constraint on Pronominalization." Linguistic Inquiry 3 (1972): 35-59. |
| 9 | Conditions |
———. "Conditions on Rules of Grammar." Linguistic Analysis 2 (1976): 303-351. |
| 10 | Student presentation festival: Generative semantics/interpretive semantics/conditions papers | Pick a paper from the period in which Generative Semantics was debating with Interpretive Semantics (or from a very slightly later period, in which the Conditions framework was starting to be discussed). Present it, and discuss it in light of more recent research. |
| 11 | The legacy of conditions: LFG, GPSG, and GB |
Gazdar, G. "Unbounded Dependencies and Coordinate Structure." Linguistic Inquiry 12 (1981): 155-184. |
| 12 | Simpler syntax? | Excerpts to be discussed collectively from:
|
Table of Contents
Study Materials
Readings
 Help support MIT OpenCourseWare by shopping at Amazon.com! MIT OpenCourseWare offers direct links to Amazon.com to purchase the books cited in this course. Click on the Amazon logo to the left of any citation and purchase the book from Amazon.com, and MIT OpenCourseWare will receive up to 10% of all purchases you make. Your support will enable MIT to continue offering open access to MIT courses. |
Wherever possible, the book citations below reflect the specific editions used in the course.
Required Readings
Sag, Ivan, Thomas Wasow, and Emily Bender. Syntactic Theory: A Formal Introduction. 2nd ed. Stanford, CA: Center for the Study of Language and Information, 2003. ISBN: 9781575864006.
Chomsky, Noam. Syntactic Structures. 2nd ed. Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter, 2002. ISBN: 9783110172799.
Lasnik, Howard. Syntactic Structures Revisited: Contemporary Lectures on Classic Transformational Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780262122221.
Recommended Readings
We will read excerpts from the following two books, so you can decide if you want to purchase the books. The excerpts may be available in other ways.
Bresnan, Joan. Lexical-Functional Syntax. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2000. ISBN: 9780631209744.
Culicover, Peter W., and Ray Jackendoff. Simpler Syntax. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780199271092.
Readings by Session