Syllabus
Benjamin Beaver
LNG 6650
ENGLISH SYNTAX
Spring, 2015
Office hours: By appt.
1. COURSE DESCRIPTION
e-mail: bbeaver@ciu.edu
This course is a detailed study of the form, meaning, and use of English, especially designed for
the teacher of English as a second language, with special attention to making the aspects of
grammar teachable.
II.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
By the end of the course, the student should be able to demonstrate a command of the major areas
of English syntax including the following:
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
H.
I.
J.
K.
L.
M.
N.
O.
P.
Word classes
Phrase structure rules
The verb, including tense, aspect, mood, and voice
Negation and question formation
The article system
Reference and possession
Partitives, collectives, and quantifiers
Indirect Objects
Adjectives
Prepositions
Phrasal verbs
Nonreferential it and there
Phrases and clauses
Logical connectors
The Relative clause
Complementation
In addition, the student should also be able to analyze the English of a non-native speaker for
syntax and present that analysis in a coherent paper.
III.
TEXTBOOK
Payne, Thomas E. Understanding English Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2011.
IV.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The following books are available in the CIU library, and may be useful, especially for the
L2 analysis project:
Asher, R. E., ed. in chief. The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. New York:
Pergamon, 1994. [REF. P29 E48]
Azar, Betty S. Understanding and Using English Grammar, 3rd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall Regents, 1999.
Bright, William, ed. in chief. International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, 3 vols. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1992. [REF. P29 .I58]
Campbell, George L. Compendium of the World’s Languages. 2nd ed. New York:
Routledge, 2000. [REF. P371 .C36 2000]
Celce-Murcia, Marianne, and Diane Larson-Freeman. The Grammar Book: An ESL/EFL
Teacher's Course. 2nd ed. Boston: Heinle and Heinle, 1999.
Comrie, Bernard, ed. The World's Major Languages. New York: Oxford University Press,
1990. [REF. P371 .W6]
Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1987. [REF. P29 .C64]
________. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. 2nd ed. New York: Basil Blackwell.
[REF. P29 .C65]
Everaert, Martin and Henk van Riemsdijk, eds. The Blackwell Companion to Syntax. vol. 15. Malden, MA, USA : Blackwell Pub., 2006. [REF. P291 .B53 2006]
Gary, Jane and Carl Rubino, eds. Facts about the World’s Languages: An Encyclopedia of
the World’s Major Languages, Past and Present. New York : H.W. Wilson Co.,
2001. [REF P371 .F33 2001]
Lyovin, Anatole V. An Introduction to the Languages of the World. New York: Oxford,
1997. [P371 .L96]
Ohio State University. Language Files, 8th ed. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2001.
Quirk, Randolph; Sidney Greenbaum; Geoffrey Leech; and Jan Svartvik. A Comprehensive
Grammar of Contemporary English. London: Longman, 1985. [REF. PE1106
.C65]
Quirk, Randolph, and Sidney Greenbaum. A Concise Grammar of Contemporary English. San
Diego: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1973. [PE1112 .Q5]
Ruhlen, Merrit. A Guide to the Languages of the World. [REF. P203 .R8]
Trask, R. L. A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics. London ; New York : Routledge,
1993.
Some books on language families:
Abondolo, Daniel, ed. The Uralic Languages. New York: Routledge, 1998. [REF. PH 14
.U67]
Comrie, Bernard, and Greville G. Corbett. The Slavonic Languages. New York: Routledge,
1993. [PG41 .S58]
Harris, Martin, and Nigel Vincent, eds. The Romance Languages. New York: Oxford, 1988.
[PC43 .R6]
Hetzron, Robert, ed. The Semitic Languages. New York: Routledge, 1997. [PJ3021 .S46]
Johanson, Lars, and Eva Agnes Csato, eds. The Turkic Languages. New York: Routledge,
1998.
Price, Glanville, ed. Encyclopedia of the Languages of Europe. Malden, Mass. : Blackwell,
2000, 1998. [REF P380 .E53 2000]
A good starting point for research on the Worldwide Web is The Linguist List at
www.linguistlist.org. Within this source, you can often get helpful information (or links to
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helpful information) under Language Resources: Languages and Language Families, which
you can go to directly by using http://linguistlist.org/langres/index.html. Note: the extent and
helpfulness of the information varies from language to language. You should also search the
web using something like ‛French Language' or ‛Afrikaans Language.'
You may find helpful sources at www.netlibrary.com.
V.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Contact Info: So that I may be able to contact you, if you do not use your CIU address for
e-mail, please have your mail forwarded to the address you use.
Weekly Reading Assignments: A guide to the reading is given under each day's assignments.
Some of the exercises at the end of each chapter may be written in preparation for class. Others
we will use for class discussion.
Quizzes: Each week there will be a quiz at the beginning of the class time. Some of the
questions will cover the previous week’s class content, and others will cover the current reading
assignments. The quizzes may vary, however, depending on course needs.
Language Analysis Project: This assignment is intended to be a continuation of the project from
LNG 5720 in the Fall Semester and is to be an analysis of syntactic aspects of the language you
are working on and of your subject’s speech.
The syntax section of your Language Analysis Project will have three parts–the first two based on
library research and the third on the same recording you made in Linguistics:
1. Language Type and Phrase Structure Rules: What word order characterizes the language?
State this order in terms of subject, verb, and object and in terms of whether the language is
head-initial or head-final. Demonstrate this and each of the following constituents with at
least one sentence or phrase that shows the appropriate order and the Phrase Structure Rule
written out. (Some sources offer interrogative and imperative sentences as examples of word
order; however, since these result from transformations of a basic structure, they should not
be used for this purpose.)
a. The Verb Phrase: Does an object NP precede or follow the verb? Does the auxiliary
precede or follow the verb?
b. The Noun Phrase: How are the following ordered in relation to the head noun in the
noun phrase: an adjective, a possessive NP, a prepositional phrase, a relative clause? Do
they precede or follow the noun they modify?
c. The Prepositional Phrase: What kind of adpositions does the language use-- prepositions
or postpositions?
d. Do these phrase orderings fit the language type consistently? If not, can you determine
why not?
2. Other syntactic differences from English: In your reading, what other differences from
English syntax do you find? You should spell out clearly the following:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
How does the language indicate negation?
How does it structure yes/no questions?
How does it structure wh- questions?
How does it make passive sentences?
What other interesting syntactic features does it have?
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3. Analysis of recorded speech: Analyze any non-standard syntax in your subject’s speech and
present examples to illustrate each feature. Compare your results with what you expected
from the two previous parts of this section.
VI.
GRADING
The course grade comprises the following segments:
Quizzes
25%
Language Analysis Project
25%
Exams (2)
50%
VII.
SCHEDULE OF TOPICS AND ASSIGNMENTS
Date
Jan 13
Jan 20
Jan 27
Feb 3
Feb 10
Feb 17
Feb 24
Mar 2
Mar 9
Mar 16
Mar 23
Mar 30
Apr 6
Apr 13
Apr 20
Apr 27
Chapter/Assignment (Chapters are to be read before class.)
Introduction, Chapter 1 (History), Chapter 2 (Typology)
Chapter 3 (Lexicon), Chapter 4 (Morphology)
Prayer Day – No class
Chapter 5 (Nouns), Chapter 6 (Verbs)
Chapter 7 (Syntax Basics)
Chapter 8 (More trees)
Catch-up/Midterm Practice
Midterm Exam
Spring Break – No class
Chapter 9 (Complementation)
Chapter 10 (Modification)
Chapter 11 (Auxiliaries), Chapter 12 (TAM)
Chapter 13 (Voice)
Chapter 14 (Clause Combining)
Chapter 15 (Pragmatics)
Final Exam
Recommendations for Learning Support:
Students with physical, emotional, ADD, or learning disabilities that need academic accommodations should
make requests through the Academic Success Center (ASC). These requests will be kept confidential. Requests
may be made throughout the semester, and ideally they would be initiated as early as possible. The ASC is
located on the first floor of Rossi Student Center (803-807-5611, academicsuccess@ciu.edu). If you already
receive services through the ASC, please contact me so that we can make your academic experience in this class
as successful as possible.
Plagiarism:
Plagiarism is taking the work of someone else and passing it off as your own. Basically, it is stealing someone
else’s work! [Watch the short video “Me? Plagiarize?” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdMg7Yu4mPs , also
posted on the course website.] When you copy and paste the writings of others and do not make a note that this is
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their work, you are plagiarizing. When you represent the idea of another in a specific way and do not give them
credit for the idea, you are plagiarizing.
Plagiarism is wrong, pure and simple. Don’t do it! You will fail the course if you plagiarize. Our culture does not
teach us about plagiarism. We live in a world that passively and sometimes actively promotes stealing the work of
others, even though it is technically illegal to do so. We will discuss this the first day of class, so if/when you have
any questions about plagiarism, please ask the professor or grad assistant(s).
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