The course begins with addressing the issue of what language is (not), focusing on language as a rule-goverened system and (briefly) on language as biological endowment (the main tenets of the innateness hypothesis). It then moves on to discuss the make-up of the (mental) Lexicon, with its conceptual and grammatical compartments and the properties of lexical and functional categories, focusing on the role of the latter as the glue of language. Moving on from the lexicon to syntax, we discuss next the building blocks of language, namely constituency (vs strings) and constituency tests. This will pave the way to introducing X-bar Theory as a universal theory for the structure of phrases (with different head-directionality parametrization). We will discuss the endocentricity of phrases, the properties of the head, how heads merge with Complements (c-selection), forming intermediate projections, and how these intermediate projections (X’) can further merge with other phrases (Specifiers) to form maximal projections (XPs). After addressing the (interpretational and structural) differences between arguments and adjuncts (mostly within VPs, but also DPs), we tackle (root) sentences as endocentric constructions built around the Inflectional head.

Reading:

Baker, M.C. 2001. The atoms of Language: the mind’s hidden rules of grammar, Oxford University Press
Carnie, A. 2013. Syntax. A Generative Introduction, 3rd edition, Wiley-Blackwell
Carnie, A., Siddiqi, D., & Sato, Y. 2014. The Routledge Handbook of Syntax, Routledge
Chomsky, N. 1957. Syntactic Structures, Mouton.
Radford, A. 2004. English Syntax: An introduction, Cambridge University Press
Pinker, S., 1994. The Language Instinct. William Morrow&Co.
Tallerman, M. 2014. Understanding Syntax, 4th edition, Routledge