Generative Syntax II

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

This course is the second in a series of four courses and its main objective is to provide the student with a working knowledge of the philosophy and methods of generative grammar. This course seeks:(1) to provide a practical and thorough review and expansion of the theory of Principles and Parameters; (3) to introduce the basics of the Minimalist Program; (4) to guide the student in the writing of professional and publishable abstracts and squibs; (5) to give the student tools to evaluate squibs and articles. After this course the student is expected: - to have a complete knowledge of the principles of the theory of Government and Binding - to understand how the different principles of the Minimalist Program came about - to apply the principles to analyze data of English, Spanish, Greek, Albanian, Vietnamese, among many other languages. - to be able to translate analyses from the Government and Binding framework to the Minimalist Program. - to be able to read and criticize major articles that motivated the Minimalist Program - to be able to write a 5-8 page squib describing and analyzing a theoretical problem BASIC BIBLIOGRAPHY L. Haegeman (1994) Introduction to Government and Binding Theory. N. Chomsky (1995) The Minimalist Program N. Hornstein et al. (2005) Understanding Minimalism A. Radford (2009) An introduction to English sentence structure. D. Adger (2003) Core Syntax: A Minimalist Approach.