The appendix to Collins and Stabler 2016 contains proofs of various theorems that were given in the paper. We usually have a few people ask for it each year, so I thought I would post it in a convenient place (my blog):
Collins, Chris and Edward Stabler. 2016. A Formalization of Minimalist Syntax. Syntax 19, 43-78.
This interview took place by e-mail starting from November 4, 2021 lasting until November 8, 2021. In some minor cases, the text has been lightly edited, and the order of the questions has been changed.
Cite as: Collins, Chris. 2022. A Conversation with Noam Chomsky about Language and Thought. Ordinary Working Grammarian [Blog].
Relative Clause Deletion Revisited
(‘You’re on mute’ ellipsis seminar series 2021-2022)
Chris Collins, New York University
March 4, 2022
This talk revisits the basic results of Collins (2015, 2018) concerning relative clause deletion. These results include examples with coordination and comparatives, identity and parallelism requirements, examples of deletion of other modifiers in the nominal domain, the difference between definite and indefinite DPs, reconstruction effects, strict and sloppy readings and the consequences for the syntactic structure of relative clauses.
Abstract: In this squib, I argue that the child faces a severe computational complexity problem in parsing even the simplest of trees: the number of possible trees grows exponentially as a function of the number of lexical items. Principles of UG and economy conditions have the result of drastically decreasing the complexity of the parsing task, making language acquisition possible.
The Complexity of Trees, Universal Grammar and Economy Conditions
Here is my syllabus for the second semester graduate introduction to syntax, co-taught with Gary Thoms this year. Comments and questions welcome!
Here is my syllabus for the undergraduate introduction to syntax. I will also post the handouts from time to time. There may be some Zoom videos too. Comments or questions welcome!
SAVE THE DATE -- STAY TUNED FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
The second Morphology as Syntax workshop (MaS2), organized by UCLA, will take place online on June 10-11 2022, from 9 am-12.30pm PDT (Please adjust to your local time zone).
The purpose of the workshop is to investigate the relationship between morphology and syntax, and in particular to investigate the extent to which morphological generalizations can be accounted for in terms of purely syntactic operations and conditions. See here for MaS1.
The workshop will involve talks by invited speakers followed by question periods, and comments by panel members followed by general discussion. Here is the line-up of speakers and panel members:
Invited speakers (in alphabetical order):
Pavel Caha https://www.muni.cz/en/people/
Norbert Corver http://norbert.abelcorver.com,
Karen De Clercq http://www.llf.cnrs.fr/fr/
Marit Julien https://portal.research.lu.se/
Heather Newell https://heathernewell.ca,
Dimitrios Ntelitheos https://faculty.uaeu.ac.ae/
Edwin Williams https://scholar.princeton.edu/
Panel members:
Antonio Fábregas https://en.uit.no/ansatte/
Michelle Sheehan https://msheehan.net
The workshop will be free. Please spread the word. Hope to see many of you on zoom in June.
--Hilda Koopman
(on behalf of my fellow UCLA organizers, Stefan Keine and Harold Torrence)
