Here is my graduate Syntax II syllabus for Spring 2019. Comments welcome!
Syllabus Syntax
II Syntactic Theory and Analysis
LING-GA
2310
Spring 2019
Instructor: Professor
Chris Collins
Office: 10
Washington Place, Room 411
Phone: 28763
Time: T/TH 11:00
to 12:15pm
Place: 10 Washington
Place, Room 103
Office Hours: by appointment
Course Description:
Syntax I and II
together form a comprehensive introduction to syntactic theory,
in the framework of Principles and Parameters and Minimalism.
Syntax I is concerned
with phrase structure, argument
structure (unaccusatives, unergatives, transitives, double object constructions, psych-verbs), Case and
agreement (Agree), A-movement (passives, raising
constructions), head movement,
binding and control.
Syntax II will cover
A’-movement, the left periphery,
differences between A- and A’-movement, weak and strong crossover, remnant movement, successive cyclic
movement, general constraints on movement (minimalist conception of
phases, relativized minimality), that-trace
effects, the adjunct/argument asymmetry, covert movement (QR, Wh-in
situ) and multiple wh-questions.
Emphasis will
be on reading the primary literature and writing a research paper.
Course Requirements
Readings
I have carefully planned the
syllabus so that you have at most one reading per class, and often only one
reading per week. I have also indicated additional optional readings for people
who want to continue looking into the topic. Since the number of assigned
readings is few, you should plan read the assigned papers before class and be
ready to discuss them in class.
Problem Sets
There will be short problem sets in
the first half of the semester. Problem sets will be assigned on Thursday and
due the following Thursday. You may discuss the homework problems together, but
the actual written work must be your own.
Important: All written work in this
class, including problem sets, presentations and papers must be submitted in
12pt font. Any smaller, and I cannot read it.
Paper Presentation
Each student will be responsible for
presenting a paper during the semester. In your presentation, you should
summarize the main data and arguments of the paper. In addition, you should
think of discussion questions, connections to other readings, and if possible,
additional data that bears on the proposals in the paper. You should arrange to
see me the week before your presentation to show me your handout and discuss
any questions you have about the material.
Individual Meeting
In the beginning of the semester
(around the third week), each student will meet with me to discuss their paper
topic. What area do you find interesting? Have you already identified some
problem or data that you want to work on?
Paper Proposal
Halfway through the semester, you
will submit a final paper proposal. The proposal should be around 3 pages
(double-spaced, 12pt) long. It should include a statement of the topic, some
data (just a few sentences), a brief sketch of an analysis, a plan for working
on the topic and a few references that you plan to study. Paper proposals will
be distributed to the whole class, and one of your colleagues will be in charge
of providing written feedback on your proposal. We will spend one or two class
periods discussing the proposals.
Final Presentation
Students will present their papers
during the last week of class. Each presentation should last around 15 minutes,
with an additional 5 minutes for discussion.
Final Paper
A significant focus
of the course is the final paper, which should be around 15 pages (double
spaced, 12pt) long. Your aim should be to write a paper that will provide a
solid foundation for future work (e.g., a syntax qualifying paper, a conference
presentation or a published article). We will work on it throughout the
semester.
Grading
Assignments 40%
Paper Presentation 10%
Paper Proposal/Commentary 10%
Final Presentation 10%
Final Paper 30%
Course Materials
You are not required to purchase any materials for this class. All readings will be posted to Dropbox. For people who need background
reading, the following textbook is recommended:
Dominique Sportiche, Hilda Koopman
and Ed Stabler. 2014. An
Introduction to Syntactic Analysis and
Theory. Blackwell.
This
book is available online through the NYU library. It is also available at a
reasonable price on Amazon.com.
Schedule:
The schedule may be revised. The
dates may change. Topics and readings may be dropped and/or added depending on
our progress and the interest of the students.
Week 1: Jan.
29, 31
Tuesday: Syllabus,
Outline of Minimalist Syntax,
A Brief History of Generative
Grammar.
Thursday: Merge
and Remnant Movement
Reading:
Muller, Gereon. 1998. Incomplete
Category Fronting. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht. [chapter 1]
Optional:
Collins,
Chris and Edward Stabler. 2016. A Formalization of Minimalist Syntax. Syntax 19,
43-78.
Week 2: Feb.
5, 7
Tuesday: A vs.
A’-Movement
Thursday: A vs.
A’-Movement (cont.)
Homework 1: Assigned Feb. 7, due Feb. 14
Reading:
Adger, David, Alex Drummond, David Hall and Coppe van Urk. 2017.
Is there Condition C Reconstruction? Proceedings
of NELS 47.
(https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003674)
Optional:
Urk,
Coppe van. 2015. A uniform syntax for phrasal movement: A case study of
Dinka Bor [Chapter 2: Eliminating A/A-bar Positions]. PhD Dissertation,
MIT.
Barss, Andrew. 2001.
Syntactic Reconstruction Effects. In Mark Baltin and Chris Collins (eds.), The Handbook of Contemporary Syntactic
Theory. Blackwell.
Engdahl, Elisabet. 2001. Parasitic
Gaps. In Peter W. Culicover and Paul M. Postal (eds.), Parasitic Gaps. MIT Press, Cambridge.
Heycock, Caroline. 1995. Asymmetries in Reconstruction. Linguistic Inquiry 26, 547-570.
Week 3: Feb.
12, 14
Tuesday: Successive Cyclic Movement
[Possible
student presentation: McCloskey 2002]
Thursday: Successive Cyclic Movement (cont.)
Homework 2: Assigned Feb. 14, due Feb. 21
Readings:
McCloskey, James. 2002. Resumption,
Successive Cyclicity, and the Locality of
Operations. In Derivation and
Explanation in the Minimalist Program. Edited by
Samuel Epstein and Daniel Seeley.
Blackwell, Oxford.
Optional:
Chomsky, Noam. 1977. On Wh-Movement. In Peter Culicover,
Thomas Wasow and Adrian Akmajian (eds.), Formal
Syntax, 71-132. Academic Press, New York.
Chung, Sandra. 1994. Wh-Agreement and “Referentiality” in
Chamorro. Linguistic Inquiry 25,
1-44.
Collins, Chris. 1994. Economy of Derivation and the
Generalized Proper Binding Condition. Linguistic
Inquiry 25.1, 45-61. [This paper gives an example of a reflex of successive
cyclic movement in Ewe.]
Georgi, Doreen. 2017. Patterns of Movement Reflexes as the
Result of the Order of Merge and Agree. Linguistic
Inquiry 48, 585-626.
McCloskey, James. 2000. Quantifier Float and Wh-Movement in
an Irish English. Linguistic Inquiry
31, 57-84.
Week 4: Feb. 19,
21
Tuesday: Islands
[Possible
Student Presentation: Sichel 2018]
Thursday: Islands (cont.)
Readings:
Sichel, Ivy. 2018. Anatomy
of a Counterexample: Extraction from Relative Clauses. Linguistic Inquiry 49, 335-378.
Optional:
Boskovic,
Zeljko. 2015. From the Complex NP Constraint to Everything: On Deep Extractions
Across Categories. The Linguistic Review
32, 603-669.
Collins,
Chris. 2015. Relative Clause Deletion.
In Ángel J. Gallego and Dennis Ott (eds.) 50 Years Later: Reflections
on Chomsky’s Aspects. Vol. 77 of MIT
Working Papers in Linguistics. MITWPL, Cambridge.
Citko,
Barbara. 2016. Islands. Oxford
Bibliographies.
Kayne,
Richard. 1994. The Antisymmetry of Syntax.
MIT Press, Cambridge
[Section
8.2: Relative Clauses in English]
Hulsey,
Sarah and Uli Sauerland. 2006. Sorting Out Relative Clauses.
Natural Language Semantics
14: 111-137.
ISAT [chapter 10:
Wh-Questions: Wh-Movement and Locality]
Rizzi,
Luigi (1982). Violations of the wh-Island Constraint and the Subjacency
Condition. Chapter 2 in Issues in Italian Syntax, 49-76. Foris,
Dordrecht.
Rackowski,
Andrea and Norvin Richards. 2005. Phase Edge and Extraction: A Tagalog Case
Study. Linguistic Inquiry 36,
565-599.
Ross, John Robert. Infinite Syntax. Ablex Publishing
Corporation.
Sprouse, Jon and Norbert Hornstein. 2013. Experimental
Syntax and Island Effects: Toward a Comprehensive Theory of Islands. In Jon
Sprouse and Norbert Hornstein (eds.), Experimental
Syntax and Island Effects. Cambridge University Press.
Week 5: Feb. 26, 28
Tuesday: That-Trace
[Possible
Student Presentation: Browning 1996]
Thursday: That-Trace (cont.)
Homework
3: Assigned Feb. 28, due March 7
Reading:
Browning, Maggie.
1996. CP Recursion and that-t Effects. Linguistic
Inquiry 27, 237-255.
Optional:
Culicover, Peter.
1993. Evidence against ECP Accounts of the That-T Effect.
Linguistic Inquiry 24, 557-561.
Pesetsky, David. 2017.
Complementizer-Trace Effects. Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax.
(https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/9781118358733.wbsyncom108)
Rizzi, Luigi. 2006. On the
Form of Chains: Criterial Positions and ECP Effects. In Lisa Cheng and Norbert
Corver (eds.), Wh-movement Moving On.
MIT Press, Cambridge.
Rizzi, Luigi and Ur
Shlonsky. 2007. Strategies of Subject Extraction. In Uli Sauerland and
Hans-Martin Gaertner (eds.), Interfaces +
Recursion = Language? Mouton de Gruyter, New York.
Sobin, Nicholas. 1987. The
Variable Status of Comp-Trace Phenomena. Natural
Language and Linguistic Theory 5, pgs. 33-60.
Week 6: Mar.
5,7
Tuesday: Islands: Asymmetries
Thursday: Islands:
Asymmetries (cont.)
Homework 4: Assigned March 7, due March
14
Readings:
Postal, Paul. 1998. Three
Investigations of Extraction. MIT Press, Cambridge. [Chapter 2, Chapter 3
[section 3.2.2], Appendix A: Mistaking Selective Islands for Non-islands]
Optional:
Collins, Chris. 1991. Why and How Come. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 15, 31-45.
Rizzi, Luigi. 2001. Relativized Minimality Effects. In Mark
Baltin and Chris Collins (eds.), The
Handbook of Contemporary Syntactic Theory, 89-110. Blackwell, Oxford.
Rizzi,
Luigi. 1990. Relativized Minimality. MIT Press, Cambridge.
Ross, John Robert. 1984. Inner Islands. In Claudia Brugman
and Monica McCaulay (eds.), Berkeley
Linguistics Society. Berkeley, California.
Week 7: March 12,14
Tuesday: Left
Periphery: Basics
[Possible
Student Presentation: Rizzi and Bocci 2017]
Thursday: Left
Periphery: Overt Top and Foc Heads
[Aboh 2004: chapters 7,8]
Readings:
Aboh, Enoch. 2004. The Morphosyntax of Complement-Head
Sequences. Oxford
University Press. [chapter 7: Focus
and Wh Constructions, chapter 8: Argument Topics
and Yes-No Questions]
Rizzi, Luigi and Giuliano
Bocci. 2017. Left Periphery of the Clause: Primarily Illustrated for Italian. Blackwell Companion to Syntax.
Blackwell.
(https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/9781118358733.wbsyncom104)
Optional:
Abels, Klaus. 2012. The
Italian Left Periphery: A View from Locality. Linguistic Inquiry 43, 229-254.
Haegeman, Liliane. 2012. Adverbial Clauses, Main Clause Phenomena,
and the Composition of the Left Periphery. The Cartography of Syntactic
Structures, Volume 8. Oxford Uuniversity Press, Oxford. [Chapter 1: Background: The Articulated Structure of the
Left Periphery.]
Rizzi, Luigi. 1997. The Fine
Structure of the Left Periphery. In Haegeman, Liliane (ed.),
Elements of Grammar,
281-337. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.
Rizzi, Luigi. 2010. Some Properties of Criterial Freezing.
In E. Phoevos Panagiotidis (ed.), The
Complementizer Phase: Subjects and Operators. Oxford University Press.
Due: Paper Proposals
Note: Send your proposal to the other students in the class.
Be ready for discussion on Monday, March 26.
Week 8: March 19,21 [Spring Break]
Week 9: March
26, 28
Tuesday: Discuss
Paper Proposals.
Thursday: Discuss Paper Proposals (cont.)
Reading: Each student is required to read all
the proposals by the other students.
Due: Each student is required to provide written feedback to one
other student on their proposal before March 26 (e-mailed by Monday, March 25th
at the latest). The written comments should be 1-2 pages (double spaced).
Week 10: April
2,4
Tuesday: Quantifier
Raising: Basics
Thursday: Quantifier
Raising (cont.)
Reading:
May, Robert. 1977. Grammar of Quantification. Doctoral
Dissertation, MIT [Chapter 1]
Optional:
Fox, Danny. 2003. On
Logical Form. In Randall Hendrick (ed.), Minimalist
Syntax, 82-123. Blackwell,
MA. (http://web.mit.edu/fox/www/LFnewer.pdf)
Kayne, Richard. 1998. Overt vs. Covert Movement. Syntax 1.2, 128-191.
Kiss, Katalin and Jurgen Pafel. 2017. Quantifier Scope
Ambiguities. Blackwell Companion to
Syntax. Blackwell.
Week 11: April
9,11
Tuesday: Quantifier Raising
[Possible Student
Presentation: Beghelli and Stowell 1997]
Thursday: Quantifier
Raising (cont.)
Readings:
Beghelli, Filippo and Tim Stowell. 1997. Distributivity and
Negation: The Syntax of Each and Every. In Anna Szabolcsi (ed.), Ways of Taking Scope, 71-107.
Optional:
Kennedy, Christopher. 1997. Antecedent-Contained Deletion
and the Syntax of Quantification. Linguistic
Inquiry 28, 662-688.
Potsdam, Eric. 2013. CP-Negation and the Domain of
Quantifier Raising. Linguistic Inquiry
44, 674-684.
Szabolcsi, Anna. 2010. Quantification.
Cambridge University Press.
Week 12: April 16,18
Tuesday: Wh-in-Situ:
Overview
[Possible
Student Presentation: Cheng 2009]
Thursday: Wh-in-Situ
(cont.)
Reading:
Cheng,
Lisa. 2009. Wh-in-situ from the 1980s to Now. Language and
Linguistics Compass, 3/3, 767-791.
Optional:
Baker, C.L. 1970. Notes on the Description of English
Questions: The Role of an Abstract Question Morpheme. Foundations of Language 6, 197-219.
Huang, James. 1982. Move Wh in a Language without
Wh-Movement. The Linguistic Review 1,
369-416.
Richards, Norvin. 2001. Movement
in Language. Oxford University Press, Oxford. [chapter 1: Introduction,
chapter 2: Subjacency Forever, chapter 3: Featural Cyclicity and the Ordering
of Multiple Specifiers].
Week 13: April 23,25
Tuesday: Wh-in-Situ: Intervention Effects
[Possible Student
Presentation: Beck 1996]
Thursday: Wh-in-Situ:
Intervention Effects
Reading:
Beck, Sigrid. 1996. Quantified Structures as Barriers for LF
Movement. Natural Language Semantics
4, 1-56.
Optional:
Beck, Sigrid and Shin-Sook Kim. On Wh- and Operator Scope in
Korean. Journal of East Asian Linguistics
6, 339-384.
Pesetsky, David. 2000. Phrasal
Movement and its Kin. MIT Press, Cambridge. [selected sections]
Kotek, Hadas. 2016. Covert Partial Wh-Movement and the
Nature of Derivations. Glossa 1(1),
1-19.
Kotek, Hadas and Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine. 2016. Covert Pied-Piping in English Multiple
Wh-Questions. Linguistic Inquiry 47,
669-693.
Week 14: April 30,
May 2
Tuesday: Negated
Quantifier Phrases
Thursday: Negated Quantifier
Phrases (cont.)
Readings:
Collins, Chris and Paul
Postal. 2014. Classical NEG Raising.
MIT Press, Cambridge
[Chapter 13: Horn
Clauses: Preliminaries]
Optional:
Blanchette, Frances and Chris Collins. 2018. On the Subject
of Negative Auxiliary Inversion. Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 1-30.
Collins, Chris. 2017. A Scope
Freezing Effect with Negated Quantifier Phrases. Natural Language Semantics 25, 315-327.
Week 15: May 7,
9
Tuesday: Final
Presentations
Thursday: Final Presentations
Due: Final
paper is due on Friday, May 10th.
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