Un salto nella storia della sintassi (2021/2022)

Course code
cod wi: DT000237
Name of lecturer
Alessandra Tomaselli
Coordinator
Alessandra Tomaselli
Number of ECTS credits allocated
2
Academic sector
L-LIN/14 - LANGUAGE AND TRANSLATION - GERMAN
Language of instruction
English
Location
VERONA
Period
A.A. 21/22 dottorato dal Oct 1, 2021 al Sep 30, 2022.

Lesson timetable

Go to lesson schedule

Learning outcomes

At the end of the workshop the students will be able to discuss some of the foundamental topics which characterize the syntactic research of the last two centuries:

1) Is sentence structure an exocentric or an endocentric construction?
2) What define syntactic recursion? (From the crucial role of sentence embedding to the definition of merge)
3) What justify the assumption of empty categories? Why are they crucial for syntactic analysis?
(movement/displacement as a fundamental aspect of grammar)
4) What is the role of linguistic variation?

Syllabus

A glimpse into the history of syntax

The workshop will take Graffi’s study 200 Years of Syntax (Benjamins, 2001) as starting point focusing on the following chapters:
- What is syntax? (Ch 3) (April, the 7th)
- The analyses of the sentence and of the word groups (Ch 4) (April, the 14th)
- Structuralist approaches to sentence analysis (Ch 6) (April, the 21st)
- The Chomskyan program (Ch 10) (April, the 28th)

The discussion will be guided by four questions:
1) Is sentence structure an exocentric or an endocentric construction?
2) What define syntactic recursion? (From the crucial role of sentence embedding to the definition of merge)
3) What justify the assumption of empty categories? Why are they crucial for syntactic analysis?
(movement/displacement as a fundamental aspect of grammar)
4) What is the role of linguistic variation?

Reference books

See the teaching bibliography

Assessment methods and criteria

Active attendance of the workshop (at least 6 hours)

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