<<CHECK this site very frequently. I will be regularly posting reading and HW assignments, and occasional class notes.>>
Student info page Discussion page.
-Readings for Aug. 31-Sept. 7: Syntactic Structures Revisited to page 35; Syntactic Structures to page 33 [Please have these 2 books available for class for the first few meetings]
Handout on 'dependencies'.
Note on infinity
-> HW 1, due Tuesday Sept. 14 10:00 AM Maryland time. [Homework revision policy.] [[[pdf submission by e-mail to Howard is required. Name your file "Familyname_HWn"; thus, if Howard were submitting this one, it would be "Lasnik_HW1".]]]
-Readings for Sept. 7: Week 2 notes; HO on equivalent derivations; HO on trees vs. sets
And start on next portion of SSR: pp.35-49.
[[Completely optional:
Chomsky LSLT discussion of no recursion in the base. Lasnik paper on coordination, etc. ]]
-Readings for Sept. 14: Syntactic Structures to p.40 and 61-69; SSR to p.56
[[Optional: Lasnik, H. 2021. Levels of representation and semantic interpretation Sections 1-3.]] <<This relates to the class discussion Sept. 9.>>
->->HW1 revision (if you choose) due Tuesday Sept. 21. [Homework revision policy.] [[[pdf submission by e-mail is required. Name your file "Familyname_HWnrev"; thus, if Howard were submitting this one, it would be "Lasnik_HW1rev".]]]
-Readings for Sept. 21: SSR to p.105. Syntactic Structures Chapter 7
-> HW 2 , due Tuesday Oct. 5 10:00 AM Maryland time. [Homework revision policy.] [[[pdf submission by e-mail to Howard is required. Name your file "Familyname_HWn"; thus, if Howard were submitting this one, it would be "Lasnik_HW2".]]]
-Readings for Sept. 28: Finish Sept. 21 readings.
-Readings for Oct.5
Finish the Syntactic Structures and Syntactic Structures Revisited readings previously assigned.
Syntactic Structures Revisited to page 165; A Course in GB Syntax pp.1-5
'Wish list' HO on the more restritive, more explanatorily adequate theory ot Ts we are working towards.
[Suggested reading: "Aspects of the Theory of Phrase Structure" ]
[Optional reading Lasnik 1981 ]
[[2 things that came up in class, just in case you want to take a look: Ross 1969 (Aux's as main verbs); Epstein&Seely 2006 (EPP)]]
->->HW2 revision (if you choose) due Tuesday Oct. 12. [Homework revision policy.] [[[pdf submission by e-mail is required. Name your file "Familyname_HWnrev"; thus, if Howard were submitting this one, it would be "Lasnik_HW2rev".]]]
-Readings for Oct. 12: Finish Oct. 5 readings
Next topic: Case Theory and A-Movement
"X-bar, Case, Passives, and Government " Handout
[[[Optional: My paper on the cycle. See pp.202-203 about Extension Condition and trees vs. sets.]]]
-Readings for Oct. 19: Finish "X-bar, Case, Passives, and Government " Handout
-Readings for Oct. 26: REALLY finish "X-bar, Case, Passives, and Government " Handout; A Course in GB Syntax pp.1-20; Infinitival Complements HO (slightly revised 10/25)
[[Optional readings: Baker, Johnson, Roberts on passive; Lasnik 2008 "On the Development of Case Theory"]]
-> HW 3 , due Tuesday Nov. 2 10:00 AM Maryland time. [Homework revision policy.] [[[pdf submission by e-mail to Howard is required. Name your file "Familyname_HWn"; thus, if Howard were submitting this one, it would be "Lasnik_HW3".]]]
[[[Optional readings about two kinds of infinitival complements: Stowell 1982 on Tense of Infinitives;
Martin 1996 thesis; Martin 2001 LI Null Case and Distribution of PRO (This 3rd item presents the highlights of the 2nd)]]]
<<Here's the idiom list I mentioned.>> <<The Lasnik&Fiengo Tough-movement paper, in case you are interested.>>
Next topic: Binding Theory
-Readings for Nov. 2: Overview of Chomsky's BT handout; Lasnik and Uriagereka Course in GB Syntax. Chap. 2
->Squib assignment 'Proposal' due Monday Nov. 15; squib due Thursday Dec. 16
->->HW3 revision (if you choose) due Friday Nov. 12. [Homework revision policy.] [[[pdf submission by e-mail is required. Name your file "Familyname_HWnrev"; thus, if Howard were submitting this one, it would be "Lasnik_HW3rev".]]]
[[[For those interested
in Bouchard's theory of PRO, here is his 1982 MIT thesis. (See especially 5.2.1)]]]
-Readings for Nov. 9: We will continue to review Case and theta theory and HW3, so "X-bar, Case, Passives, and Government " Handout; A Course in GB Syntax pp.1-20; Infinitival Complements HO (slightly revised 10/25). Then, back to BT, so Overview of Chomsky's BT handout; Lasnik and Uriagereka Course in GB Syntax. Chap. 2.
<<Here's Sportiche 1988 on floating quantifiers. And here's a paper of mine that discusses 'Q-lowering': Lasnik 2012; finally, on the Discussion page I listed a few more possible 'believe' type verbs.>>
-Readings for Nov. 11-16: Overview of Chomsky's BT handout <I've slightly revised this HO, so you might want to re-download it>; Lasnik and Uriagereka Course in GB Syntax. Chap. 2; Lasnik 1981 (on need for semantic interpretion rules for indexing relations).
[[[I take back what I said about HW4. We can make enough progress on BT this week and next that HW4 WILL be due (just) before Thanksgiving. That way, you won't have to fuss with it during Thanksgiving break, and we will subsequently have enough time to do justice to island constraints (and even a bit on ellipsis).]]]
<<<Optional: For an overview of the development of BT from LSLT to Minimalism, you might take a look at the HO "Some Milestones in the Development of Binding Theory". Definitely look at pp. 35-37, based on Lasnik (1976), which was the origin of Condition C of BT.>>>
-> HW 4 , due Tuesday Nov. 23 (any time that day)
[[[pdf submission by e-mail to Howard is required. Name your file "Familyname_HWn"; thus, if Howard were submitting this one, it would be "Lasnik_HW4.]]]
Next topic: WH-Movement (A-bar Movement) and Bounding Theory - Islands, Subjacency, and refinements of the ECP :
-Readings for Nov. 23-30:
Subjacency Intro handout
'Brief Overview of Subjacency/Islands 1955- '
Irish successive movement footprints (McCloskey)
Nice handout by Jason Merchant on successive cyclicity
<Optional: Rizzi 1982 on WH-islands in Italian; Excerpt from Move Alpha summarizing Barriers framework>
-No class Thursday, Nov. 25 Thanksgiving holiday
-Novemeber 30: Discussion of HW4. See HW4 Notes. Here's the paper of mine that has a discussion of parameterization of Condition C: "On the Necessity of Binding Conditions".
Then back to the Subjacency stuff we didn't finish last week.
->->HW4 revision (if you choose) due Monday Dec. 6. [Homework revision policy.] [[[pdf submission by e-mail is required. Name your file "Familyname_HWnrev"; thus, if Howard were submitting this one, it would be "Lasnik_HW4rev".]]]
-Readings for Dec. 6-8: Continue the previous subjacency readings, and add Subjacency Revised HO, and Addendum on Italian. Then on to the ECP - ECP HO; ECP Part 2.
Finally, since I promised there would be something about ellipsis, here's an old conference handout of mine comparing 3 kinds of approaches:
On Ellipsis <Notice that Section III connects with our current topic.
-> HW5, due Saturday Dec. 11. There will be an extra (optional) class meeting to discuss it on Tues. Dec. 14 at 2:30 pm. <Note the change in time (as t here will be a faculty meeting that day that might run past 2:00.>
<<We talked a little about 'linearization', the process that turns a syntactic mobile into a phonological string (and how at least some island violations create linearization problems). I mentioned two major works on that topic: Fox and Pesetsky 2003; Uriagereka 1999.>>
->->HW5 revision (if you choose) due Monday Dec. 20. [Homework revision policy.] [[[pdf submission by e-mail is required. Name your file "Familyname_HWnrev"; thus, if Howard were submitting this one, it would be "Lasnik_HW5rev".]]]
1106 Marie Mount Hall
<lasnik [AT] UMD [DOT] edu>
(301) 405-4929
Office hours:
I intend to be in my office Monday afternoons, Tuesday mornings, and Wednesday all day (all covid permitting). Zoom meetings can also easily be arranged.
Subject matter
-The nature and source of syntactic knowledge
-Formalization of the infinitude of language
-Formalization of phrase structure
-Properties of syntactic transformations
-Syntactic information and lexical information
The following phenomena will be examined in detail:
-English verbal morphology; main verbs vs. auxiliary verbs; development of
theories of these phenomena over the years, driven by considerations of explanatory adequacy. "Head movement"
-'Passive' and related phenomena, where an expression occurs in subject position
but is 'understood' in another.
("John was arrested") "A-movement"
-Relationship between these phenomena and (abstract) nominal morphology. "Case
theory"
-Referential dependence, coreference, non-coreference. "Binding Theory"
-WH-movement and related phenomena ("Who did you see?") "A'-movement"
-Locality constraints on A'-movement: islands; Subjacency; ECP
-Ellipsis ("I like syntax and you will like syntax too")
-Chomsky 1957 Syntactic Structures
Walter de Gruyter 978-3110172799
-Lasnik (with Depiante and Stepanov) 2000 Syntactic Structures Revisited
MIT Press 978-0-262-62133-5 [See below for compilation
of typo corrections]
Recommended texts
-Chomsky 1965 Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Chapter 1 and other
selected portions)
MIT Press 978-0-262-53007-1
-Chomsky 1981 Lectures on Government and Binding (selected portions)
Walter de Gruyter 978-3110141313
-Lasnik and Uriagereka 1988 A Course in GB Syntax (selected portions)
MIT Press 978-0-262-62060-4[[Now out of print; I
will make the book available in the department pdf locker.]]