ANTH 3590/7590, Introduction to Syntax, Fall 2010

Place and time: Newcomb 208, MWF 3-3:50

Prof. Harry Howard

862-3417 (voice mail 24 hours a day)
Newcomb Hall 322-D
Office hours: MTR 4-5 and by appointment

Objectives: The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the philosophy and techniques of syntactic analysis as developed by Noam Chomsky and his followers. No knowledge of linguistics is presupposed, nor does one have to be adept at the kind of grammatical analysis taught in English classes. You do not even have to "speak right". Everybody has a grammar in his or her head which is worthy of study.

Outcomes: For you to demonstrate your understanding of syntactic analysis, you will perform the following tasks:

take a quiz almost every Monday, during the first 10 minutes of class, covering the material since the previous Monday. No make-up quizzes will be given, but you may drop one. The quizzes numbered between asterisks are not on a Monday. [(11-1) * 7.5% = 75%] present a final project on the final exam day [20%] participate in an electrophysiological (EEG) experiment [5%] note that there is no credit for class participation

Code of Academic Integrity

“The integrity of Newcomb-Tulane College is based on the absolute honesty of the entire community in all academic endeavors. As part of the Tulane University community, students have certain responsibilities regarding work that forms the basis for the evaluation of their academic achievement. Students are expected to be familiar with these responsibilities at all times. No member of the university community should tolerate any form of academic dishonesty, because the scholarly community of the university depends on the willingness of both instructors and students to uphold the Code of Academic Conduct. When a violation of the Code of Academic Conduct is observed it is the duty of every member of the academic community who has evidence of the violation to take action. Students should take steps to uphold the code by reporting any suspected offense to the instructor or the associate dean of the college. Students should under no circumstances tolerate any form of academic dishonesty.” For further information, point your browser at http://college.tulane.edu/honorcode.htm. Violations of the Code of Academic Integrity will not be tolerated in this class. I will rigorously investigate and pursue any such transgression.

Students with disabilities who need academic accommodation should:

• Contact and register with the Office of Disability Services (ODS). For more information, visit the ODS website at http://erc.tulane.edu/disability/.
• Bring official notice to me from the ODS indicating that you need academic accommodation. This should be done before the first quiz.
  

Schedule of readings and assignments, Fall 2010 Textbook: Andrew Radford (2009) English Sentence Structure.
Date	Day	Topic	Readings, exercises, etc	Q	ppt	mp3
Aug. 23	1	Introduction to the course; taxonomic grammar	1.1 - 1.2
25	2	UG, FL	1.3 - 1.5
27	3	Parameters, summary	1.6 - 1.8 + Ex 1.1 - 1.2
30	4	Phrases & clauses	2.1 - 2.4
Sept. 1	5	Testing structure, c-command	2.5, Ex 2.1
3	6	C-command	2.6 - 2.7	*Q1*
6		Labor Day	(no class)
8	7	Bare phrase struc; Null subjects	Ex 2.2; §2.8; 3.1 - 3.2,
10	8	Null auxiliaries, null tense	3.2 - 3.4
13	9	no class - University Senate meeting	Quiz on Blackboard	Q2
15	10	Null tense & null complementizers	3.5 - 3.6
17	11	Null complementizers 2	3.7
20	12	Defective clauses; Null determiners & null quantifiers	3.8-3.9	Q3
22	13	no class - lecture on Aging seminar	Ex 3.1 - 3.2
24	14	Exercise §3.1
27	15	Exercise §3.2		Q4
29	16	V-to-C movment	§4.1-3
Oct. 1	17	V-to-T movement	§4.4
4	18	Aux-to-T movement	§4.5-6	Q5
6	19	Negation, do-support, summary	§4.7-9, Ex 4.1
8	20	Ex 4.2 on board; WH-questions	Ex 4.2; §5.1-2
11	21	WH movement as copy deletion & What triggers movement	§5.3-4	Q6
13	22	Pied-piping	§5.5
15		Fall Break	(no class)
18	23	Pied-piping of superordinate prepositions & Long-distance wh-movement	§5.6-7
20	24	Multiple wh-questions	§5.8 - end
22	25	Exercise 5.1
25	26	Exercise 5.2 Relative clauses		Q7
27	27	A-movement. Belfast English, idioms; Argument structure & theta roles; Unaccusatives	§6.1-5
29	28	Passivization	§6.6-7
Nov. 1	29	Raising, raising vs. control	§6.8-9	Q8
3	30	Summary, Ex 6.1-2	§6.10, Exercises 6.1-2			----
5	31	Agreement & feature valuation; Expletives, Uninterpretable features	§7.1-4
8	32	Expetive it, expletive there	§7.5-6	Q9
10	33	More on expletives, Agreement & A movement	§7.6-7
12	34	EPP and control and raising clauses; Ex. 7.1	§7.7-8
15	35	EPP and person agreement	§7.9	Q10
17	36	Defective clauses with expletive subjects	§7.10
19	37	Split projections 1	§8.1-2
22	38	Split projections 2	§8.3
24-26		Thanksgiving break	(no class)
29	39	Split projections 3	3¢8.4-5
Dec. 1	40	Quiz 11		*Q11*
3	41	Party, course evaluations
13		presentation of final project	1-5 pm

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