LINGUIST 601: Introduction to Transformational Grammar

Fall 2005
Machmer 413, TTh 2.30-3.45

Rajesh Bhatt
bhatt@linguist.umass.edu
224 South College, 577-0797
Office Hours: TTh 4.00-5.00 or by appointment


Syllabus

General Themes:
Universal Grammar, Parameters, Features, Constituency, Displacement, Locality, the model of the grammar
Global Questions:
How are linguistic structures built? Where do linguistic principles apply?
Specific Topics:
X-bar theory, Case, Binding, A-movement, A'-movement, and Head Movement

Useful Texts

Requirements

Lectures

• [1-3]: Implicit Knowledge and tests for constituency, Sep. 8, 10, 20
  Reading: Background: Ch. 1 of Aspects by Noam Chomsky (1965).
  Reading: Motivation for DP: Ch. 1, II:1-3, IV:1 of Steve Abney's (1987) MIT dissertation The English Noun Phrase in its Sentential Aspect
  Reading: CFGs: the Wikipedia entry
  Reading: Adjunction: Section 2 of Phase Theory and Tree Adjoining Grammar by Robert Frank (to appear) in Lingua
  Reading: Conflicting Constituency: Linear Order and Constituency by Colin Phillips, Linguistic Inquiry:34.1
• [4-5]: Complement Selection , Sep. 22
  Reading 1: Complement Selection and the Lexicon by Jane Grimshaw, Linguistic Inquiry 10:2:279-326 (1979).
  Reading 2: A Theory of Floating Quantifiers and Its Corollaries for Constituent Structure by Dominique Sportiche, Linguistic Inquiry:19:425-449 (1988).
• [6-7]: Elementary Operations, Sep. 27, 29
  Background Reading: Minimalist Inquiries: The Framework by Noam Chomsky, MITOPL 15, 1998.
• [8-11]: Auxiliaries and do-support, Oct. 4, 6, 13, and 18
  Reading 1: Ch. 2 of Morphosyntax: The syntax of verbal inflection by Jonathan Bobaljik, MIT PhD dissertation, 1995.
  Reading 2: Secns. 1-4 and 7.2 of Movement Operations after Syntax by David Embick and Rolf Noyer, Linguistic Inquiry 32:4:555-598, 2001.
• [12-15]: Case, EPP, and A-Movement, Oct. 20, 25, and 27 and Nov. 1
  Reading 1: Subjects Across Categories by Tim Stowell, Linguistic Review, 2:3:285-312 (1983).
  Reading 2: Secns, 3.1-3.3 of Knowledge of Language by Noam Chomsky, pgs. 51-101, (1986)
• [16-18]: Ergatives, Middles, Other Unaccusatives, and Unergatives , Nov. 3, 8, and 10
  Reading 1: Ch. 1 of Unaccusativity by Beth Levin and Malka Rappaport Hovav, MIT Press, (1995).
  Reading 2: Part I (pgs. 1-16) of the Introduction of The Unaccusativity Puzzle edited by Artemis Alexiadou, Elena Anagnostopoulou, and Martin Everaert, OUP (2004).
• [19-20]: Passives, Nov. 15 and 17
  Reading 1: Pgs. 355-368 of On the Structure of Resultative Participles in English by David Embick, Linguistic Inquiry, 35:3:355-392, (2004).
• [21]: The facts of Control, Nov. 22
  Reading 1: Movement and Control by Norbert Hornstein, Linguistic Inquiry, 30:1:69-96, (1999).
  Reading 2: Movement out of Control by Idan Landau, Linguistic Inquiry, 34:3:471-498, (2003).
  Reading 3: Movement under Control by Cedric Boeckx and Norbert Hornstein, Linguistic Inquiry, 35:3:431-452, (2004).

Assignments

• [1]: Report on Ch. 1 of Aspects, assigned Sep. 8, due Sep. 15
• [2]: Exercise on the Argument/Adjunct Distinction, assigned Sep. 22, due Sep. 29
• [3]: Exercise on concealed questions and null complement anaphora, assigned Sep. 29, due Oct. 6
• [4]: Exercise on do-support and double modals, assigned Oct. 13, due Oct. 20
• [5]: Exercise on Case, assigned Oct. 22, due Nov. 1
• [6]: Exercise on Unaccusatives in Hebrew and Italian, assigned Nov. 3, due Nov. 10
• [7]: Exercise on The Direct Object Restriction, assigned Nov. 10, due Nov. 17
• [8]: Exercise on Passives and Unaccusatives, assigned Nov. 17, due Dec. 1
• [9]: Exercise on Control, due Dec. 8
• [10]: Final Exercise on Control, ECM, and Passives, assigned Dec. 13, due Dec. 23