Winter 2008, University of Oregon * CRN 22973 * 145 Straub, MW 11:30-12:50
Professor:  Doris Payne, 346-3894, 229 Straub, http://www.uoregon.edu/~dlpayne/
Office hours:  Wed 3-5

Course Goals
Course Requirements
Readings
Tentative Schedule
Paper

COURSE GOALS:

• To provide a broader perspective on syntactic theory, via a selective introduction to theoretical issues and movements.
• To develop skill in syntactic argumentation via critical reading of advanced literature and an original paper.
• To master selected concepts in functionalism, the generative traditions, and Construction Grammar.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

• Reading, informed participation in class discussion, presentations of chapters, exercises as assigned: 20%
• Research paper,  25-40 pages: 80%

READINGS: It is expected that you will have reading assignments completed and ready for discussion by the date listed on the syllabus.

Prerequisite reading:  Radford, Andrew.  1981. Student's Guide to the Extended Standard Theory. Chapters 1 through 3 (including exercises)

Course readings:

• Croft, William.  2001.  Radical Construction Grammar.  Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Fillmore, Charles, Paul Kay, & Mary Catherine O'Connor. 1988. Regularity and idiomaticity in grammatical constructions: the case of let alone. Language 64. 501-538.
• Fried, Mirjam & Jan Östman. 2004. Construction Grammar, A thumbnail sketch. In Mirjam Fried and Jan Östman(eds.), Construction Grammar in a Cross-Language Perspective, 11-86. (Constructional Approaches to Language, Volume 2). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• Goldberg, Adelle. 2006. Constructions at Work. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (selected chapters)
• Goldberg, Adelle.  1995.  A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure.  Chicago:  University of Chicago Press. (selected chapters)
• Payne, Doris L. 1997. "Argument structure and locus of affect in the Maasai External Possession construction." Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (23S), Special volume on Syntax in African Languages, 98-115.
• Payne, Doris L. 1999. "What counts as explanation? A functionalist approach to word order." Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics, ed. by Michael Darnell, Edith Moravcsik, Frederick Newmeyer, Michael Noonan, and Kathleen Wheatley, 137-165. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins.
• Radford, Andrew. 1981. Ch. 7 "Constraints", fromTransformational Syntax: A student's guide to Chomsky's Extended Standard Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Rosen, Carol. 1984. "The interface between semantic roles and initial grammatical relations." Studies in Relational Grammar 2, ed. by David M. Perlmutter and Carol G. Rosen, 38-77. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE:

PAPER:  Your term paper is expected to:

• be 25 to 40 double spaced pages, in proper linguistic style; references, citations, examples, section headings and numbering, etc. should follow the style of the journal Language.
• be empirically based, using data from some particular language
• pose, and then address, one or more specific hypotheses
• employ linguistic argumentation

Prospectus:  Make sure you get approval from me before fully proceeding.  This approval will come in the form of a written "OK" on your written prospectus.  You are expected to resubmit a revised prospectus until you do get a written "OK". The prospectus should be one to two pages in length, and contain at least:

• Language name
• List of resources (originally-collected data, grammars, etc.)
• Two to three paragraphs explaining the problem, stating your hypothesis, and some idea of how you will go about addressing the hypothesis.

Sample paper topics (you are not limited to these):

• Argue for distinct parts of speech in some relatively unstudied language (if you choose this, your problem had better have some interest to it). E.g.:
  
  Boas' grammar of Lakota posits Nouns, StativeVerbs, and Active Verbs as parts of speech. However, evidence from Auxiliary use, degree words, and Person marking shows that Boas' Stative Verbs divide into two distinct subtypes, which I term Stative Verbs versus Adjectives.  Altogether, we must acknowledge at least four distinct parts of speech in Lakota.
  
  
• Argue for why some Construction (in the formal sense) in some particular language must be taken as a Construction, and cannot just be the product of a Generative-type account. E.g.:
  
  The Maa External Possession construction cannot be accounted for by the Theta Criterion unless an abstract zero-form derivational morpheme is posited.  A Construction Grammar approach does not require an abstract zero morpheme, and is therefore preferable.
  
  
  The Kifuliiru Cleft Construction has particular "pragmatic" conditions of use, concerned with contrastive focus.  As Generative Grammar excludes pragmatics from the domain of "linguistics", it has nothing to say about this aspect of speaker knowledge.
  
  
• Grammatical Relations:  Argue for the emic system of grammatical relations in XXX Lg. using constituent order, case marking, pronouns, and also considering the semantic "linking" problem. E.g.:
  
  Lg. X has syntactic roles (in the sense of Croft 2001) that I term Absolutive, Ergative, and G.  The Absolutive and Ergative relations are typologically run-of-the-mill, show up in intransitive and transitive main independent clauses in assertions, and express semantic roles of Agent and Change-of-State-Patients.  The G relation is relevant only in Cleft and Relative Clause constructions.  It uses a different case marking system that that found in main independent clause assertions, and treats transitive Experiencers the same as ditransitive Goals, and differently from both Agents and Patients in these constructions.
  
• Voice
• Constituency
• Constituent ("word") order
• Complex predicates
• Complex clauses
• etc.