Department of Linguistics and Oriental Languages

Linguistics 620

Advanced Formal Syntax

Unification Grammars

Formal descriptions of language

This course will serve as an introduction to constraint-based approaches to grammar. The key idea behind the constraint based approach to language is that a grammar is viewed as a set of constraints relating different kinds of linguistic representations, in particular, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and phonological. On this view phenomena that are accounted for via sequences of derivational steps in other frameworks become alternative relations between semantic and syntactic, or phonological and phonetic properties. In syntax this means there is no notion of movement relating underlying and surface forms. In fact there are only surface forms related to meanings in a variety of ways. The interesting question becomes: How are generalizations such as locality effects captured in such framework? We will examine the basic underlying mechanisms and get a fresh alternative look at some of the phenomena covered in your introductory syntax course. In doing this we will review some of the basic motivations for movement analyses, and look at phenomena such as lomg distance dependencies, clitics, head-movement, and word-order variation.

Practice

The course textbook will be Syntactic Theory: A Formal Introduction, by Emily Bender, Ivan Sag, and Thomas Wasow. in the campus bookstore. There will also be additional readings available online.

For more information, visit the course website at http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~gawron/formal_syn/.

Prerequisites and Grading

No Prerequisites.

Grading will be based on exercises, presentation, and final paper. Breakdown in the syllabus.

Place and Time