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Current issues in generative syntax.
Comparative syntax is the study of syntactic differences between languages. Its aims are to identify core properties that all languages have in common, and to provide a theoretical account of the ways in which the syntax of one language or variety may differ from that of another. This course offers first-hand experience of comparative syntactic research, and provides students with the practical skills and theoretical knowledge needed to pursue more advanced studies in the field.We will decide as a class, which syntactic topics we would like to focus on, and we will spend the first semester reviewing some of the existing literature on the class topics. This year we are particularly lucky to have Professor Richard Kayne from New York University teaching into the class in Term 1. This means that we have the unique opportunity to read some of Richard’s work on comparative syntax together and discuss it with him in the first four weeks of the course.In the second semester, our weekly sessions will be dedicated to discussions and readings that are directly relevant to the topics and languages that the individual course participants decide to do their research projects on. Throughout the year, every student will collect and analyse relevant data from a language of their choice, and we will use our weekly meetings to compare these data and discuss their implications for the theoretical approaches presented in the readings. While individual student projects are likely to focus on data from one language, we will also consider how the approaches we discuss can account for the cross-linguistic similarities and differences in the data we have amassed as a class.
Through their experiences with this course, students are anticipated to be able to: read and critically evaluate existing work on syntactic theory and comparative syntaxwork both independently and collaboratively to identify and compare patterns found in syntactic data from different languagesformulate and test hypotheses on the basis of patterns in observed and elicited datadraw on existing approaches to develop a theoretical account of the observed generalisationscommunicate their findings effectively, both orally and in writingput together a well reasoned and clearly structured paper on a syntactic topic
Subject to approval of the Programme Director.
Heidi Quinn
Data collection - throughout the year Critical review - due early in Term 3 Oral presentation - due early in Term 4Written assignment - due at the end of Semester 2
There is no set text for this course. Copies of relevant readings will be distributed in class.You are encouraged to check out Richard Kayne’s publications on the following website: http://linguistics.as.nyu.edu/object/RichardSKayne.html
Library portalThe course outline is available on LEARN (only for students enrolled in this course). LEARN
Domestic fee $1,562.00
International Postgraduate fees
* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.
For further information see Language, Social and Political Sciences .