Meeting time. Mondays 4-7, Room: KCB 102.

Instructor. Paul Hagstrom, 621 Commonwealth Ave., room 105. Email: hagstrom@bu.edu (likely to get a quick response). Phone: 617-353-6220. Office hours: 11am-12pm T-R

Prerequisites. CAS LX 522 (“Syntax I”), or equivalent.

Short description.
Investigation of syntactic commonalities and differences across languages. Scrutiny of evidence and argumentation from past and current analyses, focusing on construction of strong arguments. Topics include movement, passives, question formation, syntactic micro-structure, and interaction with semantics, pragmatics, and phonology.

Course goals:

This course assumes basic familiarity with the Principles & Parameters approach to syntax and the Minimalist Program framework, as covered in CAS LX 522. This course is devoted to exploring the ideas and argumentation from the actual linguistic literature, reading articles which have extended the theory in various directions. We will focus on functional heads and developing the structure of the clause, historical developments in the theory of syntax, and alternatives to the syntactic framework outlined in CAS LX 522. As part of this course, you will also get experience in formulating, writing, and presenting your own research in syntax.

Course Requirements. Homework. Your homework will be to do the readings, which will often be accompanied by short summaries or exercises. These will be graded, but the lowest grade will be dropped. Leading discussion. Everyone will lead the discussion on the readings twice during the course of the semester. These are required but are not graded, and will be done in groups of two (or occasionally three). Final project. The final project is essentially a literature review and will consist of four parts. The proposal for the topic you would like to explore will be due Nov 9. The paper will be a summary of what you’ve discovered–it should be at most 15 pages long, and should summarize and synthesize different approaches to the topic you’ve found, with your own critical commentary. A draft of the paper will be due Nov 30. The paper draft is required, but will not be graded. The final paper will be due Dec 10, the last day of classes (the day before finals period begins). The presentation is a summary of your paper for the class, run “conference-style” during the last two class periods of the semester, with your part about 20 minutes long followed by 10 minutes afterwards for discussion & questions

Homework. Whenever feasible, homework can be emailed to me at hagstrom@bu.edu. Text-only is preferred, but you may also send PDF, RTF, or Microsoft Word files. Postscript files are less welcome, and don’t even bother sending Word Perfect files. Wherever email won’t work for any reason (e.g., for tree diagrams), homework can be turned in at the beginning of class. Be aware that if you use any special fonts, I may not be able to read your homework—be sure you know how to “include” nonstandard fonts (or send it to me early, so I can let you know if I was unable to read it).

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

Readings. There is no textbook for this course. Individual readings (articles, book chapters) will be assigned throughout the semester.

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. You can read the CAS Academic Conduct Code online, or get a copy from CAS Advising.