intro to syntax query

Ron Kuzar kuzar at research.haifa.ac.il
Fri Apr 24 11:45:55 UTC 2009


Dear Shannon and all,
Having been unsatisfied with teaching materials, I have designed my own
set of PPT presentations for my Intro to Syntax course. It is bare-bone
syntax in the sense that it is mainly designed to make the students
acquainted with syntactic terminology, not with syntactic theory. It is,
however, biased by a constructionist approach. Most of the course is
devoted to the major sentence patterns: verbal, copular (nominal,
adjectival, and prepositional), existential, extraposition, and locative
inversion. It also has chapters on it-cleft and wh-cleft sentences.
At the moment I have 11 presentations, and I intend to add another 2, so
it will cover a 14 week semester (including 1 midterm). It is a course
of one (1.5 hr) meeting a week, but it can also be the basis for a
heavier schedule.
I'll be glad to make it available to anybody interested and to get your
feedback on it.
Below is a list of items touched upon in the course. It may be slightly
inaccurate, because I made it two years ago, when I first designed the
course. Meanwhile I have introduced some changes. But you get the spirit
of it.
Best
Ron Kuzar
----------
> Introduction to Syntax
> 
> 1. MORPHO-SYNTAX and PHRASAL SYNTAX:
> Word classes:
> verb, noun, adjective, preposition, adverb.
> Phrases: NP, AP, PP, AdvP, VP
> Phrase: head and modifier.
> NP modifiers:
> specifier: article, demonstrative, quantifier, possessive.
> Other modifiers: AP, NP, PP.
> Diagnostic tests for structure.
> Verb complex: grammatical verb (modal, auxiliary), lexical verb.
> phrases as sentence constituents.
> Valency: predicates and arguments.
> Word classes of predicates: V, N, A, and P.
> Lexical (not grammatical) verbs have valency.
> Grammar and lexicon.
> Possible number of arguments: Zero- to three-place predicates
> intransitive, (mono-)transitive, ditransitive.
> Zero-place predicates: expletives.
> It: pronoun or expletive.
> Case: nom., acc.
> Pronouns have case, phrases - abstract case.
> Phrasal parts of sentence: subject, (direct) object, oblique (object), 
> indirect object, adjuncts.
>
> 2. SENTENTIAL SYNTAX:
> Sentence patterns: verbal, copular (3 kinds), existential, extrapositional 
> (2 types), and locative inversion.
> Sentence patterns are constructions.
>
> The verbal sentence:
> Different predicate-argument structures in the V sentence.
> Markedness.
> Unmarked word order.
> Word order alternations.
> The maximal formula of the V sentence.
> V sentence: the (functionally) unmarked sentence pattern.
> Agent(ivity).
> All agentive sentences are V sentences.
> Prototype and unmarkedness.
> Agentive V sentence: prototypical.
> Narratives:The central role of agentive events (and sentences) in 
> narratives.
>
> Copular sentences:
> Sub-patterns: nominal, adjectival, prepositional.
> The copula be.
> The predicate-argument structure of copular sentences.
> The maximal formula of N, A, and P Cop sentences.
> Non-maximal realizations.
> The function of Cop sentences: reporting states.
> Done via the assignment of the content of the predicate to the subject.
> N assigns equation; A - attribution, P - relation.
> The unmarked V sentence can also express states.
> Linking verbs as copula.
> Distribution in the N, A, and P patterns.
> Verbs as linking or lexical verbs.
> Idiomatic linking verbs (rest assured, fall silent).
> Word order alternations in Cop sentences.
>
> Existential sentences:
> Expletive there.
> Differentiating locative and expletive there.
> Expletive there as a subject.
> The existential pattern formula.
> Existential be = lexical verb (has valency).
> The post-verbal NP: the existent: subj. or obj.?
> Other types of existential verbs.
> Marked word order.
>
> Locative inversion:
> The locative phrase: an adjunct.
> Types of locative phrases: participP, PP, AdvP.
> Constraining LocP: deictic.
> Constraining V: existential.
> The final NP is a spectacle (vivid presentation).
> The formula of the LI pattern.
> Comparing LI and existential sentences.
>
> Extraposition (XP) sentence pattern:
> (Morpho-syntax and phrasal syntax: infinitive and gerund
> Phrases: InfP and GdP.
> InfP and GdP: phrase or clause?
> Some syntactic positions of InfP and GdP.
> Nominals: InfP, GdP, and that-clause)
> Nominals in valency.
> Nominals are components in extraposition sentences.
> It is an expletive.
> The formula of the XP sentence.
> Sub-patterns: evaluative, quotative.
> Adding an affectee to the formula.
> Maximal formula of XP sentences.
> Omission of that.
> Is the nominal subj. or obj.?
>
> Structural alternations: Wh-cleft:
> Structural vs. order alternations: added elements in str. alternations
> Alternations vs. patterns: alternations work across patterns.
> The formula of Wh-clefts.
> Wh-cleft and simplex.
> Tense of the copula in Wh-clefts
> Linking verbs cannot replace the copula in Wh-clefts.
> Sentential function of Wh-clefts: identification.
> Discourse function of Wh-cleft: the identified is new.
> Inverse order of Wh-clefts.
> Various discourse functions of inverse Wh-clefts.
>
> Structural alternations: It-cleft sentences.
> The formula of the it-cleft sentence.
> Copula be: no linking verbs.
> That or zero.
> Sentential function of it-clefts: identification.
> Different discourse functions of it-clefts.
> Prosodic alternation of it-clefts.
> It- vs. Wh-clefts: partial equivalences.
===============================================
                       Dr. Ron Kuzar
Address:       Department of English Language and Literature
                       University of Haifa
                       IL-31905 Haifa, Israel
Office:           +972-4-824-9826, Fax: +972-4-824-9711
Home:           +972-77-481-9676, Mobile: +972-54-481-9676
Email:            kuzar at research.haifa.ac.il
Homepage:  http://research.haifa.ac.il/~kuzar
===============================================



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