Meeting time. 12:30–2:00pm Tuesdays and Thursdays, in room KCB 104.

Instructor. Paul Hagstrom, 621 Commonwealth Ave., room 105. Email: hagstrom@bu.edu (likely to get a quick response). Phone: 617–353–6220 (x3–6220). Office hours: 2–3 M, 3–4 TR

Prerequisites. CAS LX 250 (Introduction to Linguistics), or consent of instructor.

Short description. A general introduction to the study of first and second language acquisition within the framework of generative grammar, focused on the development of syntax. Topics include: the status/development of functional categories, verb-movement, finiteness, null subjects, binding, and questions.

Course description:

After a general introduction to the study of language acquisition within the principles and parameters framework of generative grammar (defining the central concepts and laying out some of the theoretical issues), we will cover a number of topics of current relevance to the field, including: the status of functional categories, verb movement and finiteness, null subjects, binding theory, and wh-questions. The course will cover both first and second language acquisition. We will also spend some time discussing issues of experimental design and argumentation. By the end of this course, you should be familiar with the major concepts in the study of language acquisition from a theoretical perspective.

Course Requirements. Readings. There will be readings from the textbook and/or from the literature for each class session. Homework. There will be weekly homework assignments, concentrated mostly in the first two-thirds of the course, including a lab exercise using the CHILDES database, and the design of a small experiment. Final project. There is a final project for this course, which involves designing, running, and writing up a small experiment testing some property of language acquisition. The project is broken up into several milestones, during the last third of the course. Just before spring recess, a project proposal will be due, with the basic outline of the property to be investigated and the means by which it will be explored. At the end of March, a (possibly revised) design version is due. Data must then be collected and a short status report is due in early April, and another in mid-April. A complete (but short, around 10 pages) final project writeup will be due at the end of the course, as well as a brief presentation of the project in one of the last class periods. There is no final exam.

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.

Textbook. There is a textbook for this course. Jürgen Meisel (2011), First and second language acquisition (Cambridge University Press). There will be additional readings in the form of articles from the academic literature as well.

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 in the hallway outside my office, in a folder labeled LX540. You may take the readings out for no more than an hour to make a personal photocopy, and then they should be returned to the folder so that others may photocopy them.

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.