Meeting time. 3:30–5:00pm Tuesdays and Thursdays, in KCB 201.

Instructor. Paul Hagstrom, 621 Commonwealth Ave., room 105. Email: hagstrom@bu.edu (preferred). Phone: 617–353–6220 (x3–6220). Office hours: TR11-12, W2-3.

Prerequisites. CAS LX 522 (Syntax I), or consent of instructor.

Course description:

In this course, we will look in some depth at a few different topic areas that are of current interest in syntactic theory. This semester’s topics will probably include: phases and islands, syntax and the lexicon (morphosyntax), syntax and silence (ellipsis), and syntax and evolution (“biolinguistic” approaches).

Course Requirements. Readings. There is no textbook, but there will be readings assigned from various sources pertaining to each week’s topic. See the “Readings” page. Homework. There will be homework assignments roughly weekly (every 2 or 3 class periods) for the first half of the semester, corresponding to the papers we read. In addition, at the end of each major topic block, there will be short commentaries due, just recording thoughts on the topic we have covered. Project. In the second half of the course, you will work up a final project on a topic of interest to you. This will involve turning in a proposal, a reading list, doing independent research, presenting a brief summary to the class at the end of the semester, and writing your discoveries and thoughts in a paper.

Homework. Whenever feasible, homework (or project proposals, or final papers) can be emailed to me at hagstrom@bu.edu. Be aware that if you use special fonts, they will sometimes not come through. PDF and text-only documents are safest, but Microsoft Word, RTF, Postscript, LaTeX files will work. Please don’t send a WordPerfect file, I have never managed to find a way to open them properly. Or, you know, just hand in a paper copy. If I can’t read the file you send me, it doesn’t really count as having been handed in, so if there’s a risk of a font problem, try to send it to me early so I can verify that I can read the file.

Late assignments. Late assignments will not be accepted without prior arrangement.

Textbooks. There are no textbooks for this course, readings will be provided.

Readings. This course will sometimes rely on outside readings from the linguistics literature (journal articles, manuscripts, and excerpts from books). These readings will be available online from the readings page, contact me if you have difficulty and I can provide something for you to photocopy.

CAS Student Academic Conduct Code. As a member of a CAS course, it is essential that you read and adhere to the CAS Student Academic Conduct Code. In particular, several types of plagiarism (any attempt to represent the work of another as your own) are defined by this academic conduct code. A copy is available in CAS 105.