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This seminar aims to give participants a good understanding of a broad range of issues in syntax. After revising the material covered in the introductory courses, the course will cover (among other things) functional categories (determiners, auxiliaries and complementizers), passive, question formation, infinitives, negation and relative clauses. We will focus on English data, but use data from other languages (including German) as a basis for comparison. The seminar will introduce (and critically discuss) the approach to language mainly associated with Noam Chomsky (variously known as the “principles and parameters theory”, “generative grammar” and, in its more recent versions, “minimalism”). Part of the rationale for using this approach is that it (rightly or wrongly) enjoys mainstream status and is the only theory with which familiarity is presupposed in international linguistics journals. |
