LINGUIST 401Introduction to SyntaxFall 2008, Hasbrouck 109, TTh 1.00-2.15http://people.umass.edu/bhatt/401/Rajesh Bhatt224 South CollegeOffice Hours: TTh 11.00-12.00 or by appointment7-0797, [email protected]:What syntactic properties are shared by all natural languages? What syntactic propertiesdistinguish them? What do we know when we know a language? What are syntacticproperties? How do we construct a theory of syntax? This course aims to equip stu-dents with the ability to address these questions in a precise and informed way. The top-ics include those that are central to a proper understanding of syntax: phrase structure,movement, grammatical relations, case, complementation, anaphora, and long-distancemovement.• Implicit knowledge, grammaticality, and related issues• Constituency• Categories• Syntactic trees• X-bar theory• Case and NP-Movement– Passivization– Raising and Control– Exceptional Case Marking– Expletives• Binding Theory• Wh-Movement• Head MovementPrerequisites:Linguist 201 (Introduction to Linguistics) or the consent of the instructorRequirements:• participation in class (10%)• regular homework assignments (roughly once a week, around 10 in all, 40%) andwritten questions (once a week, 20%)• two take-home exams, the first assigned on October 9 and due on October 16 andthe second assigned on December 4 and due on December 11. (15% each)Some Policies:• I expect you to participate in class and pay attention. If I notice that you are notpaying attention, I will ask you to leave the lecture and not grade your assignmentfor the week.• You are welcome to work together on the regular assignments, but unless the as-signment is a group assignment, the actual assignments should be submitted inid-vidually. Please list the names of everyone you worked with at the top of eachassignment.• I prefer typed assignments. If you turn in handwritten assignments, they need to bevery neatly written. Please turn in physical copies of your assignments; electroniccopies will be accepted only under special circumstances.• You cannot work together on the exams.• The assignments and exams will address only material that we covered in class(and appropriate extensions of it). So active and engaged participation in the classmeetings is essential to your success on them.• I will drop your lowest regular-assignment grade (even if it is a 0) if you participatein one of the experiments being run by UMass Linguistics researchers this semester.These experiments typically involve speaking, writing, or listening.• Unless indicated otherwise, assignments will be due in class a week from the dayon which they were assigned. Late assignments will only be accepted in the case ofmedical or other emergencies.I will make the assignments available online on the website and occasionally distributeshort, compulsory reading assignments through the website. In addition to these, thereis a required text.Required Text:Syntax: A Generative Introduction, Andrew Carnie, Blackwell Publishing, 2nd edition,2007. (ISBN 1-4051-3384-8) (ordered at UMass textbook