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
| 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. Wechsler, Stephen. “HPSG, GB, and the Balinese Bind.” In Lexical And Constructional Aspects of Linguistic Explanation. Edited by A. Kathol, J.-P. Koenig, and G. Webelhuth. Stanford, CA: Center for the Study of Language and Information, 1999, pp. 179-195. ISBN: 9781575861524. |
| 3 | LFG: Basics |
Bresnan, Joan. Lexical-Functional Syntax. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2000. ISBN: 9780631209744. (Read all chapters except last half of chapter 4, skim chapter 5, skip second chapter on “Binding Theory.”) 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. Müller, Gereon. Incomplete Category Fronting. Dordrecht, NL: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998, chapter 1. ISBN: 9780792348375. |
| 7 | History of analyses of the English auxiliary verb system: Derivations to representations |
Chomsky, Noam. Syntactic Structures. 2nd ed. Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter, 2002. ISBN: 9783110172799.
|
| 8 | Standard theory to generative semantics |
Lakoff, George. “On Generative Semantics.” In Semantics: An Interdisciplinary Reader in Philosophy, Linguistics, and Psychology. Edited by D. D. Steinberg and L. A. Jakobovits. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1974. ISBN: 9780521204996. ———. “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 |
Chomsky, Noam. “Conditions on Transformations.” In A Festschrift for Morris Halle. Edited by Stephen Anderson and Paul Kiparsky. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973, pp. 232-286. ISBN: 9780030865954. ———. “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 |
Chomsky, Noam. Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht, Holland: Foris Publications, 1981, chapters 1-2, pp. 1-135. ISBN: 9789070176280. Gazdar, G. “Unbounded Dependencies and Coordinate Structure.” Linguistic Inquiry 12 (1981): 155-184. |
| 12 | Simpler syntax? |
Excerpts to be discussed collectively from: Culicover, Peter W., and Ray Jackendoff. Simpler Syntax. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780199271092. |
