Seminar in Syntax: Argument Structure in Minimalist Syntax

Seminar in Syntax                                                                                                    Fall 2018

Argument Structure in Minimalist Syntax

Time:              TR, 12:30-1:45pm

Place:              10 WP 103

Instructor:     Professor Chris Collins

Office:             10 Washington Place, Room 411

E-Mail:           cc116@nyu.edu

Course Description

This is a seminar on the syntax of argument structure in the framework of minimalist syntax, focusing on the passive and the dative alternation. We will read and discuss recent papers on these topics. The course will alternate between lectures and student led discussions (and occasional guest lectures). Some of the issues of particular interest are:

i.  What is the syntactic status of implicit arguments in the short passive?

ii. How do implicit arguments in the short passive relate to other kinds of implicit arguments? Are there different kinds of implicit arguments?

iii.  What is the status of the by-phrase in the passive? Argument, adjunct or neither?

iv.  What is the relation between the passive and the dative alternation?

v. What is the relation between the double object construction (e.g., give John a book) and the prepositional dative construction (e.g., give a book to John)?

vi.  What is the status of UTAH in Universal Grammar?

vii. What is the trade-off between syntax and semantics in analyzing the passive and in analyses of argument structure more generally?

Selected Readings:

Alexiadou, Artemis, Elena Anagnostopoulou and Florian Schäfer. 2015. External Arguments in

Transitivity Alternations: A Layering Approach. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Alexiadou, Artemis, Elena Anagnostopoulou and Florian Schäfer. 2018. Passive. In Norbert Hornstein, Howard Lasnik, Pritty Patel-Grosz and Charles Yang (eds.), Syntactic Structures after 60 Years: The Impact of the Chomskyan Revolution in Linguistics. De Gruyter Mouton.

Bhatt, Rajesh and Rouyana Pancheva. 2006. Implicit Arguments. In Martin Everaert and Henk van Riemsdijk (eds.), Blackwell Companion to Syntax. Blackwell.

Bowers, John. 2010. Arguments as Relations. MIT Press, Cambridge.

Bruening, Benjamin. 2013. By Phrases in Passives and Nominals. Syntax 16, 1-41.

Breuning, Benjamin. 2018. Double Object Constructions and Prepositional Dative Constructions are Distinct: A Reply to Ormazabal and Romero. Linguistic Inquiry 49: 123--150

Collins, Chris. 2005. A Smuggling Approach to the Passive in English. Syntax 8, 81-120.

Collins, Chris. 2017. On the Implicit Argument in the Short Passive. Ms, NYU

(http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003492)

Collins, Chris. 2017. A Smuggling Approach to the Dative Alternation. Ms., NYU

(http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003370)

Collins, Chris. 2018. Is the Passive by-Phrase an Adjunct? Ms., NYU

(https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/004032)

Collins, Chris. Forthcoming. The Linker in the Khoisan Languages. Oxford University Press.

Elbourne, Paul. Forthcoming. Literal vs. enriched meaning: It's raining. In Lisa
Matthewson, Cécile Meier, Hotze Rullmann & Thomas Ede Zimmermann (eds.), Companion to semantics. Wiley.

Hallman, Peter. 2015. Syntactic Neutralization in Double Object Constructions. Linguistic Inquiry 46, 389-424.

Hallman, Peter and Dalina Kallulli. 2013. Passive: Components and Composition. Lingua 125 [Special Issue]

Harley, Heidi. 2002. Possession and the Double Object Construction. Linguistic Variation Yearbook 2, 31-70.

Harley, Heidi and Hyun Kyoung Jung. 2015. In Support of the P_HAVE Analysis of the Double

Object Construction. Linguistic Inquiry 46, 703-703.

Harley, Heidi and Shigeru Miyagawa. 2017. Ditransitives. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics.

Kayne, Richard. 1984. Connectedness and Binary Branching. Foris Publications, Dordrecht.

Kayne, Richard. 1985. Principles of Particle Constructions. In Jacqueline Guéron, Hans-Georg Obenauer, Jean-Yves Pollack (eds.), Grammatical Representation. Foris Publications, Dordrecht.

Larson, Richard K. 2014. On Shell Structure. Routledge, New York.

Müller, Gereon. 2016. The Short Life Cycle of External Arguments in German Passive Derivations. Ms., University of Leipzig.

Legate, Julie. 2014. Voice and v: Lessons from Achenese. MIT Press, Cambridge.

Postal, Paul. 2010. Edge-Based Clausal Syntax. MIT Press, Cambridge.

Postal, Paul. 2004. Skeptical Linguistic Essays. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Pylkkänen, Liina. 2008. Introducing Arguments. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Rappaport Hovav, Malka and Beth Levin. 2008. The English Dative Alternation: The Case for Verb Sensitivity. Journal of Linguistics 44, 129-167.