LING306-11S2 (C) Semester Two 2011

Topics in Syntactic Theory

30 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 11 July 2011
End Date: Sunday, 13 November 2011
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Friday, 22 July 2011
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Friday, 7 October 2011

Description

This course follows on from second-year syntax, covering selected advanced topics and current research in syntactic theory.

Minimalism is a syntactic research program that has been very influential over the past 15 years.
This course provides a practical introduction to Minimalist syntactic analysis. Building on the
theoretical foundations of transformational syntax covered in LING 206, we will take a closer look
at current approaches to binding theory, theta-roles, phrase structure, and movement. We
will discuss different case and agreement systems and examine the nature of raising and control
structures. A particular focus of our investigations will be the study of syntactic differences and
similarities between a wide range of languages, which we will try to account for in terms of
morphosyntactic features and parameter settings. To this end all course participants are asked to
collect and analyse data from a language other than English. Students may therefore find it
helpful to have some familiarity with another language and/or ready access to a native speaker.

Prerequisites

LING201 or LING206 or LING211 or LING217

Restrictions

LING301, LING311

Course Coordinator

Heidi Quinn

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage 
Weekly workshop preparations 20%
Discussion of data & findings in class 10%
Test 13 Sep 2011 30%
Written assignment 14 Oct 2011 40%

Textbooks / Resources

Required Texts

Adger, David; Core syntax: a minimalist approach ; Oxford University Press.

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $1,191.00

International fee $5,175.00

* 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 .

All LING306 Occurrences

  • LING306-11S2 (C) Semester Two 2011
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