LING610
Syntactic Theory
Fall 2022

<<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. 30-Sept. 6:  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    Multiple center embedding ex's    Trees vs. sets    More notes  Equivalent derivations
Optional, but of interest:
Bever&Langendoen 1971 (on 'garden path sentences'; see esp. p.437)
Lasnik 2018 Syntactic Structures: Formal Foundations  (See pp.137-143)
-Readings for Sept. 6: Finish previously assigned readings, then add SSR: pp.35-56; Syntactic Structures pp.33-48.
Strong vs. weak generative capacity   Descriptive vs. explanatory adequacy    LSLT on acquisition
[[Completely optional:
Chomsky LSLT discussion of no recursion in the base.   Lasnik paper on coordination, etc.
Lasnik&Kupin 1977 (new formalization in terms of reduced phrase markers) ]]
-> HW 1, due Monday Sept. 12  1:00 PM. [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. 13: SSR to p.105. Syntactic Structures Chapter 7
->->HW1 revision (if you choose) due Monday, Sept. 19. [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. 20: SSR to p.134
[[Optional: Lasnik, H. 2021. Levels of representation and semantic interpretation Sections 1-3.]]  (This relates to the class discussion about the syntax-semantics interface); Ross 1969 on tree pruning; Lasnik 2018 Syntactic Structures: Formal Foundations  (pp.146-149 for my discussion of Chomsky's analysis of lack of do-support in "Who left?")]]
-Readings for Sept. 20: SSR to p.163; 'Wish list' HO on the more restrictive, more explanatorily adequate theory of Ts we are working towards.
[[Optional: Lasnik 1981; Ross 1969  (Aux's as main verbs) ; Chomsky Aspects pp.132-137 (on eliminating generalized transformations in favor of recursion in the base AND the principle of the cycle); Lasnik 2015 "Aspects of the Theory of Phrase Structure"]]
-> HW 2 , due Monday Oct. 3,  1:00 PM. [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. 27: Continue Sept. 20 readings
<<<Some things that came up on Sept. 29: Grimshaw 1979 vs. Pesetsky 1982, Ch.1 (on whether we need subcategorization ('c-selection')); Chomsky Aspects pp. 75-79 (on whether selectional features are syntactic or semantic); Chomsky 'Remarks on Nominalization'>>>
-Readings for Oct. 4:
 Next topic:  Case Theory and A-Movement
    "X-bar, Case, Passives, and Government " Handout
->->HW2 revision (if you choose) due Monday, Oct. 10. [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. 11: Continue "X-bar, Case, Passives, and Government " Handout; A Course in GB Syntax  pp.1-5; Chomsky&Lasnik 1993 section 1.2 [This paper was reprinted as Chapter 1 of Chomsky's 1995 book.]
<<Some things that came up on Oct. 13: Chomsky 1980 p.25-26 for his 1st version of Case assignment (applying at DS), and his 1st approach to WH-phrases and Case. Davis 1984 p.116 has a simpler version of the latter: Case can be assigned at DS or SS (which I generalized in class to Case assignment can apply anywhere in the course of a derivation). Lasnik&Freidin 1981 pp.411-412 for the argument that WH-trace requires Case. Davis 1984 pp.196-199 for an argument vs. the LGB treatment of ECM and for an elegant alternative.>>
-Readings for Oct. 18: Finish Oct. 11 readings
<<Some things that came up on Oct. 18: Baker,Johnson,Roberts on passive; Lasnik 1981 (on 'want' problem>>
<<Some things that came up on Oct. 20: Fodor&Fodor 1980 (on optionally transitive verbs); Depiante diss. (on null complement anaphora); Bouchard diss. (pp. 432-460 (on Case vs. government for distribution of PRO)>>
[[Optional suggested reading: Lasnik 2008 "On the Development of Case Theory" ]]
[[Optional reading: Vergnaud's 1977 letter to Chomsky and me (giving comments on the ms. of "Filters and Control") inventing Case theory, as published in Freidin and Lasnik, Syntax:
Critical Concepts]]
-> HW 3 , due Monday Oct. 24,  1:00 PM.   [[This is my current plan. If we need more discussion, I will extend the due date.]]
Next topic: Binding Theory
-Readings for Oct. 25: Overview of Chomsky's BT handout; Lasnik and Uriagereka Course in GB Syntax. Chap. 2  <<For a much more extensive history of BT, you could take a look at my Some Milestones in the Development of Binding Theory. See pp. 35-37 for summary of the origins of Condition C in Lasnik 1976>> For the LGB part of the discussion, here's a HO with some Governing Category computations.
<<Some things that came up on Oct. 27: McCawley idiom list>>
->Squib assignment 'Proposal' due Monday Nov. 14; squib due Thursday Dec. 15
-Readings for Nov. 1: Continue Oct. 25 readings
->->HW3 revision (if you choose) due Friday, Nov. 4, 12:00 noon. [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".]]]
<<Some things that came up on Nov. 3:  May (1977) thesis.(About QR). Here's a kind of Reader's Digest version of the thesis; Huang 1982 thesis (Ch. 4.2 about 'covert' wh-movement); LGB pp.196-197 (for Chomsky's argument that the binding conditions apply at S-structure, and not at LF, or not just at LF).
-Readings for Nov. 8: Finish the Overview of BT HO; HO on Indexing and interpretation in GB; Some Milestones in the Development of Binding Theory, pp. 35-37 for summary of the origins of Condition C in Lasnik 1976; Governing Category computations; Lasnik 1981 (for detailed discussion of the indexing interpetation problem).
[[Optional: Lasnik 1976 (early version of Condition C)]]
<<Some things that came up on Nov. 8: LGB pages 220-221 on GC without government; Chomsky&Lasnik 1993/1995 pp. 92-101 on problems of interpretation of indices leading to BT without indices.>>
<<2 papers by Fiengo and me, in response to "Conditions on Tranformations" (accepting the framework but rejecting 2 specific analyses): Reciprocals; Tough-movement
-> HW 4 , due Wednesday Nov. 16,  1:00 PM
Next topic: WH-Movement (A-bar Movement) and Bounding Theory - Islands, Subjacency, and refinement s of the ECP :
-Readings for Nov. 15-22:
Subjacency Intro handout
'Brief Historical Overview of Subjacency/Islands'
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>
<<Something that came up Nov. 17: A 2011 LI squib, "Resumption Still Does Not Rescue Islands".>>
Nov. 22   Discussion of HW4.  HW4 Notes
<<Something that came up in class: Lasnik&Saito 1991 "On the Subject of Infinitives"
-Readings for Nov. 29: Continue Nov. 15-22 stuff and add the following: ECP HO; ECP HO part 2; Hybrid theory of barriers HO.Hybrid theory+addendum
<<The topic of ellipsis and its nature came up. Here's an old HO of mine about this: Lasnik 2006 "On Ellipsis". We'll discuss it some next time.>>
>->HW4 revision (if you choose) due Wed. Nov. 30 2:00 pm [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".]]]
-> HW 5 , due Friday Dec. 9,  6:00 PM
<<Something that came up Dec. 6: Lasnik, H. 1999. On the locality of movement: Formalist syntax position paper >>
Dec. 13  Discussion of HW5   HW5 Notes
If there's time, we'll talk more about ellipsis. Lasnik 2006 "On Ellipsis"
>->HW5 revision (if you choose) due Saturday, Dec. 17

Typos in Syntactic Structures Revisited

-p. viii 8 lines from bottom. "Cédric" should read "Cedric".
-p.7 line 5. "the in (6)" should be "man in (6)
-p.43 (121)a. This ex. should read "John says he is tired"
-p.57 (14)b. should be deleted. [And then, of course, (14)c. becomes (14)b].
-p.58 (22). The last symbol on the 1st line of this ex. Should be 'Verb', not 'V'.
-p.76 mid. Lasnik's reply to Vukic should begin "Yes, clearly SAI is ..."
-p.82 3rd line below (87). The end of this line should read "...a do will be ..."  [instead of "a # will be"]
-p.82 1st line below (88). "...a PM that consists of ..." should read "... a PM that contains a string that consaists of ..."
-p.113 (158). The leftmost daughter of S should be C (instead of NP).
-p.116 (163). The SC of Transformation 2 should read  "X1 - X2 - X3 -> r + X1 - X2 - X3"
-p.121 line 7. TK>TM should be TM>TK.
-p.130 4th and 5th lines of 1st full para. Replace "transformational" by "PS".
-p.206. The Warner entry in the References should be  12, 153-172
-p.213 (i.e. the beginning of the list of rules from Syntactic Structures). The last symbol in the SC of T12 Passive should be X1 (instead of X2).
-p.213 Phrase structure rule 3. In the second expansion of NP, the final 'l' should be on the same level as the subscript 'p'.

If you find any more typos, please let me know.

Lasnik publications 
Chomsky publications
pdf locker