First Semester 1437/1438 Course Details:
Course Title: Syntax - MA in Linguistics (731573-3) Class time: Thursday 1,2,3 (8:00-11:00)
Instructor’s Details:
Dr. Suzanne Bardeas
Office Hours: Monday 8:00 - 10:00, Tuesday 10:00 - 12:00, Thursday 11:00 - 1:00 Office Location: Building B, Third Floor, the English Department
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://uqu.edu.sa/smbardeas (under construction)
1 Course Description
This course introduces the student to some of the main issues in current syntactic theory within the framework of the Minimalist Program. The course takes the students through the basics, starting from features, building into syntactic structures, and then moving into more complex topics, such as movement and locality. The course will combine theoretical issues with practical analyses and syntactic problem solving. By the end of the course, the students will be ready to start research in the field, being able to identify syntactic problems, hypothesise solutions and take the necessary steps in order to test and validate their proposed analyses.
2 Textbook
• Adger, David. 2003. Core Syntax: a Minimalist Approach. New York: Oxford University Press.
3 Additional Readings
• Baltin, Mark and Chris Collins (eds.). 2001. The Handbook of Contemporary Syntactic Theory.
Blackwell Publishing
• Boˇskovi´c, ˇZeljko and Howard Lasnik. 2007. Minimalist Syntax: The Essential Readings. Black- well Publishing.
• Carnie, Andrew. 2013. Syntax: A Generative Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell
• Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The Minimalist Program. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
• Haegeman, Liliane. 2007. Thinking Syntactically. Blackwell Publishing.
1
4 Evaluation
Participation 10 %
Assignments 20 %
Project and presentation 20 %
Final Exam 50 %
5 Policies
1. Regular attendance and active participation in the class are required.
2. Please make sure you are familiar with the university’s elearning website (http://elearn.uqu.edu.sa).
The user name and password you should are the same as the other university electronic services, such as email and the E-Gate. This website is very important for the course, as you will find the class outlines, announcements, and other course material there.
3. Students are expected to complete the assigned reading before coming to class. It is advisable that the student takes notes during the reading and bring them to class.
4. Assignments and projects must be done individually, unless otherwise specified. The instructor has the right to reject any assignment or project she suspects may not be the student’s own work. Late submissions WILL be rejected.
5. The main project requires the student to identify a syntactic structure in any variety of the Arabic language which raises some questions. The student is required to explain the structure, why it can be the subject of investigation, and what type of data should be considered. The project should be submitted by dropbox on Elearn, and the deadline for submission is 10:00 p.m.
Thursday 23/3/1438.
6. Each student will be required to give a ten-minute presentation of her topic on Thursday 30/3/1438 during class time.
7. The course outline provided below is tentative and the amount of material to be covered each week will be confirmed in advance.
2
6 Course Outline
Week Date Assignment
Week 1 21/12 National Day Holiday Week 2 28/12 Introduction and Core Concepts Week 3 5/1 Morphosyntactic Features Week 4 12/1 Constituency and Theta Roles Week 5 19/1 Representing Phrase Structure (1,2,3) Week 6 26/1 Representing Phrase Structure (4,5,6) Week 7 3/2 Functional Categories I - TP (1,2) Week 8 10/2 Functional Categories I - TP (3,4,5) Starting 11/2 Ending 19/2 Mid-Term Break
Week 9 24/2 Subjects and Objects Week 10 2/3 Functional Categories II - DP Week 11 9/3 Functional Categories III - CP (1,2) Week 12 16/3 Functional Categories III - CP (3,4) Week 13 23/3 General Practice & Project Submission
Week 14 30/3 Presentations
Week 15 7/4 Final Exams Preparation
Starting 10/4 To 21/4 Final Exams
3
