LINGUIST 601: Introduction to Transformational Grammar

Fall 2008
Hasbrouck 104b, TTh 9.30-10.45

Rajesh Bhatt
bhatt@linguist.umass.edu
224 South College, 577-0797
Office Hours: TTh 11.00-12.00 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:
Case, Argument Structure, Binding, A-movement, A'-movement, and Head Movement

Requirements

Lectures

• [1]: Implicit Knowledge and tests for constituency, Sep. 2
  Reading: Ch. 1 of Aspects (Part 1, Part 2) by Noam Chomsky (1965).
  Reading: Chs. 1 and 2 of Kyle Johnson's Lecture Notes
• [2-4]: Phrase Structure, Structure within the NP and VP, Sep. 4, 9, 11
  Reading: Sections 1-4 and 6 of Bare Phrase Structure (Part 1, Part 2) by Noam Chomsky (1995).
• [5-10]: Clause Structure, Elementary Operations, and do-support , Sep. 16, 18, 23, 25, 30, Oct. 2
  Ch. 2 of Morphosyntax: The syntax of verbal inflection by Jonathan Bobaljik, MIT PhD dissertation, 1995.
  Secns. 1-4 and 7.2 of Movement Operations after Syntax by David Embick and Rolf Noyer, Linguistic Inquiry 32:4:555-598, 2001.
• [11-13]: Case, EPP, and the Location of Subjects, Oct. 7, 9, 16
  Reading 1: Origins of Phrase Structure by Tim Stowell, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, and Chapter 3, 1981 MIT PhD Thesis
  Reading 2: Subjects Across Categories by Tim Stowell, Linguistic Review (1983).
  Reading 3: A Theory of Floating Quantifiers and Its Corollaries for Constituent Structure by Dominique Sportiche, Linguistic Inquiry:19:425-449 (1988).
  Reading 4: Severing the External Argument from its Verb by Angelika Kratzer in `Phrase Structure and the Lexicon', Johan Rooryck and Laurie Zaring (eds.) pgs. 109-37, 1996
  Reading for assignment: Complement Selection and the Lexicon by Jane Grimshaw, Linguistic Inquiry 10:2:279-326 (1979).
• [14]: Do we really need Case in Syntax?, Oct. 21
  Reading 1: Subjects in Non-Finite Clauses by Thomas McFadden, Proceedings of the 28th Penn Linguistics Colloquium (2004)
  Reading 2: Pages 157-159 of Severing the distribution of PRO from Case by Idan Landau, Syntax (2006)
• [15-17]: Ergatives, Middles, Other Unaccusatives, and Unergatives , Oct. 23, 28, and 30
  Reading 1: Ch. 1 of Unaccusativity by Beth Levin and Malka Rappaport Hovav (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), 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).
  Additional Reading: Chs. 3 and 4 of First Phase Syntax by Gillian Ramchand (2008)
• [18-21]: Passives, Nov. 4, 6, 12, and 13
  Reading 1: Passive Arguments Raised by Mark Baker, Kyle Johnson, and Ian Roberts, Linguistic Inquiry, 20:2:219-251, (1989).
  Reading 2: On the Structure of Resultative Participles in English by David Embick, Linguistic Inquiry, 35:3:355-392, (2004).
• [22-26]: Control, Nov. 18, 20, 25, 30, and Dec. 2
  Reading 1: Null Case and the Distribution of PRO by Roger Martin, Linguistic Inquiry, 32:1:141-166, (2001).
  Reading 2: Movement and Control by Norbert Hornstein, Linguistic Inquiry, 30:1:69-96, (1999).
  Reading 3: Movement out of Control by Idan Landau, Linguistic Inquiry, 34:3:471-498, (2003).
  Reading 4: Movement under Control by Cedric Boeckx and Norbert Hornstein, Linguistic Inquiry, 35:3:431-452, (2004).
  Reading 5: Severing the distribution of PRO from Case by Idan Landau, Syntax (2006) (see also Landau (2004), Rap Version, and Landau (2008) in NLLT).
  Reading 6: Movement Resistant Aspects of Control by Idan Landau, in New Horizons in the Analysis of Control and Raising, ed. by William D. Davies and Stanley Dubinsky, Dordrecht: Springer, 293-325, (2007) .

Assignments

• [1]: Report on Ch. 1 of Aspects, assigned Sep. 2, due Sep. 9
• [2]: Applying Constituency Tests, assigned Sep. 9, due Sep. 16
• [3]: Exercise on do-support and verb movement, assigned Sep. 16, due Oct. 7
• [4]: Exercise on concealed questions and null complement anaphora, assigned Oct. 7, due Oct. 15
• [5]: Exercise on CPs and Case, assigned Oct. 21, due Oct. 28
• [6]: Exercise on Unaccusatives in Hebrew and Italian, assigned Nov. 4, due Nov. 12
• [7]: Exercise on Passives in English, German, Hindi-Urdu, and Ukrainian, assigned Nov. 15, due Nov. 25
• [8]: Exercise on the Complex Passives in Danish and other things, assigned Dec. 12, due Dec. 19