Introduction to Syntax Session 1

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But Languages Differ! • How can language be an instinct if languages differ? • Proposal: Languages differ primarily in terms of what words are used, and in a set number of “parameters”. • These things are learned but the rest (the basic architecture of the grammar) is innate. • A particular language is not innate, it is acquired, but the basic tools (principles) that any given language uses are built in. 27.05.2008 Some slides are adapted from material of A. Carnie 16
Presentation Topic 1 Nature versus Nurture Chomsky has argued that the ability of humans to use language is innate (an instinct). Most linguists nowadays subscribe to that idea. On this view it is predicted that human languages exhibit interesting generalizations. It is these generalizations that linguists investigate. One of the core arguments for the innateness of the human language capacity is the poverty of stimulus argument. There is a very recent debate whether this argument is actually compelling. Read the following papers of the proponents and opponents of the linguistic nativism thesis and give a short and clear representation of their views. Think about your positioning. Which arguments do you find more convincing? 27.05.2008 Some slides are adapted from material of A. Carnie 17
Page 1 and 2: Introduction to Syntax Session 1 In
Page 3 and 4: The Plan • The topics that are di
Page 5 and 6: Homework • Homework exercises are
Page 7 and 8: Presentations • The final version
Page 9 and 10: What is Syntax? • The scientific
Page 11 and 12: How do we acquire languages? • We
Page 13 and 14: Subconscious knowledge • We have
Page 15: Language as an instinct • Noam Ch
Page 19 and 20: Parts of Speech • We will go thro
Page 21 and 22: Lexical Ambiguity • Words can hav
Page 23 and 24: umfahren has two meanings: Lexical
Page 25 and 26: Morpho-syntactic Ambiguity • An E
Page 27 and 28: Syntactic Structure • Ambiguities
Page 29 and 30: Parsing Preferences • Unexpectedl
Page 31 and 32: Garden Path Sentences Peter sagt, d
Page 33 and 34: Presentation Topic 2 Overview Artic
Page 35 and 36: Picture NPs • NPs of the “Xself
Page 37 and 38: Presentation Topic 3 Picture-NPs--
Page 39 and 40: • E.g. X-bar theory says that com
Page 41 and 42: Expletives • There are verbs that
Page 43 and 44: Presentation Topic 4 Paper for pres
Page 45 and 46: Word Order • Languages exhibit di
Page 47 and 48: Presentation Topic 5 Paper for pres
Page 49 and 50: Presentation Topic 6 Word Order in
Page 51 and 52: Embedded Clauses in German • As p
Page 53 and 54: Presentation Topic 7 Embedded Claus
Page 55 and 56: DP- and WH-Movement • Not only ve
Page 57 and 58: WH-Movement in Bavarian • But the
Page 59 and 60: Empirical Evidence for Traces • I
Page 61 and 62: Presentation Topic 9 Pullum’s Pap
Page 63 and 64: Crosslinguistic Evidence for Little
Page 65 and 66: Presentation Topic 10 Little vP and
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Raising and Control • Raising and
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Dena is reluctant to leave. ⇒ tha
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Syntactic Frameworks • Finally, w
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Session Planning 01 October 16 Intr
Page 75 and 76:
Session Planning 08 December 4 Head
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Session Planning 14 January 15 Expa
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Introduction to Syntax Session 1

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