General Course Information

Instructor: Dr. Robert S. Carlisle
Section: 01; MW from 5:20-7:25 p.m.

Office: 201E Faculty Tower
Office Hours: Before and after class and by appointment.
Email Address: rcarlisle@csub.edu

Required Texts

Carnie, A. (2007). Syntax: A Generative Introduction (2nd. Ed.).. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Chomsky, N. (2002). On Nature and Language.. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Pinker, S. (2000). The Language Instinct. New York: Harper Perennial.

The purpose of this class is to introduce students to the government and binding version of the generative-transformational theory of syntactic analysis. Generative-transformational theory has been the major school of syntactic analysis in North America and western Europe for the last 40 years. The class will begin with an overview of the basic goals and assumptions of generative-transformational theory; special attention will be paid to the levels of adequacy, and the relationship of government and binding to universal grammar and to language acquisition.

Government and binding is a modularized approach to syntactic analysis, which means that it consists of a number of sub-theories which account for distinct syntactic phenomenon in the language. During the quarter the students will become familiar with many of these, including X-bar theory, case theory, theta theory, binding theory, control theory and trace theory.

At the end of this quarter, students will have learned enough about the overall theory to allow them to conduct syntactic analysis on basic syntactic phenomena in English. They will also be able to read and understand current articles on syntactic development in first and second languages.

A secondary purpose of the class is to examine the intellectual and scientific contributions of Noam Chomsky. We will sudy Chomsky's role in initiating the scientific revolution that resulted in the rejection of behavorial psychology as a valid theory of human cognition. We will also examine his subsequent role in developing the cognitive sciences in the last half of the twentieth century.

To complete the class, all students will complete a term paper, seven quizzes, a midterm, and a final. Students are also required to turn in exercises from from the first fourteen chapters of Syntax: A Generative Introduction. Students are encouraged to work on the exercises and the quizzes in small groups. However, each student must complete the term paper, midterm, and final individually. The final examination is in two parts. The first half consists of syntactic problems that the students will complete in class on the day of the final examination. The second half consists of short essay questions. The due dates for the quizzes and the midterm can be found in the schedule of classes.

The final grade will be calculated according to the following schema.

I have scheduled five hours of office hours per week for students, but I realize that many students have problems meeting with their instructors at specific times. Therefore, I actively encourage students to send me messages if they have questions about the content of the course. The questions should be as specific as possible and relate directly to the material being studied. More general questions should be asked during the class.

English 515 Course Syllabus