For next Tuesday 4/16, please read the following book chapter, which can be downloaded from the “Readings” section of this website:

Greenbaum, Sidney & Randolph Quirk. 1990. A Student’s Grammar of the English Language, Chap. 12 (“Pro-forms and Ellipsis”). Essex: Longman.

For next week, please read the following book chapters, which can be downloaded from the “Readings” section of this website:

Greenbaum, Sidney & Randolph Quirk. 1990. A Student’s Grammar of the English Language, Chap. 5 (“Nouns and Determiners”) & Chap. 6 (“Pronouns”). Essex: Longman.

If you have not yet completed the following reading (which was originally assigned for last week, but we are running a bit behind), then please do so for Tuesday 4/2:

Section 3.5 (“Word Order”) of Fischer, Olga & Wim van der Wurff. 2006. Syntax. In A History of the English Language, R. Hogg & D. Denison (eds), 109-198. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

There are two readings for next week:

Chapter 14 (“The Verb-Second (V2) Phenomenon”) of Santorini, Beatrice & Anthony Kroch. 2007-. The Syntax of Natural Language: An Online Introduction Using the Trees Program.

Section 3.5 (“Word Order”) of Fischer, Olga & Wim van der Wurff. 2006. Syntax. In A History of the English Language, R. Hogg & D. Denison (eds), 109-198. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Both readings can be downloaded from the “Readings section of this website.  For the first reading, an online version is available as well, at the following link (links to individual chapters can be found on the left side of the homepage):

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/syntax-textbook

Both of them deal with the following, closely related topics, which will form the basis of our discussions for the next several days:

• the canonical word order in embedded and main clauses amongst the Germanic languages
• changes in the word order in embedded and main clauses throughout the history of English
• the overall relation of modern English word order to that found in the other Germanic languages

For this Thursday 3/21, please read the following book chapter:

Chapter 6 (“The Verb-Raising Parameter”) of Santorini, Beatrice & Anthony Kroch. 2007-. The Syntax of Natural Language: An Online Introduction Using the Trees Program.

The first part of the chapter reviews our previous discussion of the English verbal system, and can be skimmed.  The second half of the chapter addresses the historical development of the Modern English verbal system, which will be the topic for Thursday’s discussion.

As usual, I’ve posted a PDF copy of the chapter in the “Readings” section of this website.  If you’d prefer to read an online version, the entire book is available at the following link (links to individual chapters can be found on the left side of the homepage):

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/syntax-textbook

For this Thursday (3/7), please read the following book chapter, which can be downloaded from the “Readings” section of this website:

Greenbaum, Sidney & Randolph Quirk. 1990. A Student’s Grammar of the English Language, Chap. 3 (“Verbs and Auxiliaries”). Essex: Longman.

As the chapter title suggests, the reading presents an (entirely descriptive) overview of the English verb and auxiliary system.  Additionally, I’ve made available Chap. 4 (“The Semantics of the Verb Phrase”) of the same book, which provides a lucid discussion of the meaning differences between various verb forms and auxiliaries.  While you do *not* have to read this chapter, it is full of useful information, so I’ve gone ahead and posted it anyway.

Note: our discussion of the material in these chapters will continue after we return from spring break.

For next Tuesday (3/5), please read the following article, which can be downloaded from the “Readings” section of this website:

Zwicky, Arnold & Geoffrey Pullum. 1983. Cliticization vs. inflection: English n’t. Language 59: 502-513.