Topics in Morpho-Syntax

A 'topics' course is a course where students acquire specialized knowledge concerning a specific topic within a wider theme and where they acquire the specific skills needed to conduct research concerning this topic.  

 'Topics in morpho-syntax' provides an in-depth discussion of specific aspects of sentence/phrase structure and word structure (i.e., Syntax and Morphology) in natural language, mostly from the perspective of generative grammar (including the Minimalist Program). Typically, the topic will be approached by studying core phenomena of human language such as agreement and concord, movement, linearization, word- and phrase structure, case, ellipsis, and pronouns. These phenomena will be studied from a comparative-linguistic perspective, where comparison will take place at the micro-level (e.g. dialects of a language), meso-level (e.g. Germanic languages), and macro-level (languages from different language families) The course will additionally  look at the morphosyntax of languages from an interface perspective, including interfaces with pragmatics/discourse, semantics, phonology, emotion and socio-linguistics.  

Representative topics for this course include: language variation and language change, the nature of the computational system and the lexicon, the architecture of human language and its interfaces with other mental knowledge systems.. Contact the course coordinator if you want information about this year's topic in advance.