Syntactic locality - AAA500188

• Title: Syntactic locality
• Guaranteed by: Department of the English Language and ELT Methodology (21-UAJD)
• Faculty: Faculty of Arts
• Actual: from 2023
• Semester: winter
• Points: 0
• E-Credits: 5
• Examination process: winter s.:
• Hours per week, examination: winter s.:0/2, C [HT]
• Capacity: unknown / 15 (unknown)
• Min. number of students: unlimited
• 4EU+: no
• Virtual mobility / capacity: no
• State of the course: taught
• Language: English
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan; enabled for web enrollment
• Guarantor: doc. Mgr. Radek Šimík, Ph.D.
• Teacher(s): doc. Mgr. Radek Šimík, Ph.D.

Annotation

Last update: doc. Mgr. Radek Šimík, Ph.D. (04.09.2023)

This seminar is concerned with the distance between two elements of a syntactic relation - called syntactic locality. In the sentence "Who brought the flowers?" all syntactic relations are local in the sense that they are realized within a single clause. In the sentence "Who do you think brought the flowers?" the subject interrogative pronoun "who" is in a long-distance relation to its predicate "brought (the flowers)" because the subject is realized in a different clause than its predicate. In the seminar, we investigate the distance that a syntactic relation can span and the various limits posed on the distance. Syntactic locality is affected by a multitude of factors - syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, information structural, and cognitive. There has been a lively debate - often based experimental data - as to which factors are crucial in which cases. Syntactic locality thus gives students a great chance of getting acquainted with various approaches to syntax - generative and cognitive - as well as with experimental approaches to syntax.

Aim of the course

Last update: doc. Mgr. Radek Šimík, Ph.D. (04.09.2023)

Working with the empirical area of syntactic locality, the seminar gives students a chance of getting acquainted with various approaches to syntax - generative and cognitive - as well as with experimental approaches to syntax. The particular goals are:

• learn about different types of syntactic islands and thereby
• learn more about syntax and syntactic relations,
• learn about different types of theories designed to explain islands and syntactic locality,
• learn about methods of testing particular predictions of the theories.

Literature

Last update: doc. Mgr. Radek Šimík, Ph.D. (04.09.2023)

Foundational

Ross, John. 1967. Constraints on variables in syntax. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology PhD dissertation. https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/15166

Erteschik-Shir, Nomi. 1973. On the nature of island constraints. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology PhD dissertation. https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/12991

Rizzi, Luigi. 1990. Relativized minimality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Kluender, Robert. 1991. Cognitive constraints on variables in syntax. La Jolla, CA: University of California, San Diego PhD dissertation.

Surveys and monographs

Sprouse, Jon and Norbert Hornstein (eds.). 2013. Experimental syntax and island effects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chaves, Rui P. and Michael T. Putnam. 2020. Unbounded depdency constructions: Theoretical and experimental perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198784999.001.0001

Further literature

Individual studies to be discussed will be provided in seminar.

Requirements to the exam

Last update: doc. Mgr. Radek Šimík, Ph.D. (04.09.2023)

• active participation in the seminar (maximum of 3 absences)
• reading assigned materials
• leading a topical discussion / written assignment (10 pages)

Syllabus

Last update: doc. Mgr. Radek Šimík, Ph.D. (04.09.2023)

• syntactic relations
• the notion of distance
• unbounded long-distance dependency
• locality constraints - islands
• types of islands
• coordination structure constraint
• complex NP island
• factive island
• negative island
• etc.
• theories of locality and islands
• syntactic theories
• semantic/pragmatic theories
• information structural theories
• cognitive theories
• empirical methodology for testing locality theories
• gradient acceptability