Foundations of Linguistics – LG510
Timetable: Thursday 3-4, room 4.722 (syntax); Friday 12-1, room 5A.106A (phonology)
Course supervisors
syntax: Prof. Andrew Radford, Office 4.132, Telephone 2215, email: radford@essex.ac.uk
Office hours = Mondays 2-3, Thursdays 1-2
phonology: Dr Wyn Johnson, Office 4.209, Telephone 2082, email: wyn@essex.ac.uk
Office hours =
Availability
This module is open to students on the graduate programmes in Applied Linguistics, Language Acquisition
and Psycholinguistics and Neurolinguistics.
Contents and Format
This module comprises two segments, one (taught by Wyn Johnson) providing an introduction to recent
work in phonology, the other (taught by Andrew Radford) providing an introduction to recent work in
syntax. Each segment consists of 10 weekly one-hour classes.
The syntax segment will be based on photocopies of a coursebook written by Andrew Radford entitled
Foundations of Syntax (an updated version of his 1997 Syntax book), distributed by Prof. Radford in class:
these will be sold to students at a price which covers only photocopying costs (5p per page). Topics to be
covered in successive weeks are: 1 Principles and Parameters; 2 Categories and features; 3 Syntactic
structure; 4 Null constituents; 5 Head Movement; 6 A-bar movement; 7 A-movement; 8 Shells; 9 Case
and agreement; 10 Phases.
The phonology segment will cover: The articulation of speech sounds and the international phonetic
alphabet; Discovering and describing sound patterns; Translating phonetic parameters into phonological
distinctive features for the description of segments of sound; Feature dependencies; The structure of
syllables and stress patterns. It will be based on the following coursebook:
Roca, I. and Johnson, W. (1999) A Course in Phonology, Blackwell.
Aims and Objectives
LG510 aims to:
(i)
provide you with an introduction to contemporary work in phonology and syntax
(ii)
familiarise you with the basic descriptive and theoretical apparatus associated with these areas of
linguistics, enabling you to analyse samples of relevant data for yourself
(iii)
tell you something about the grammatical structure and the sound structure of English
(iv)
help you appreciate the relation between linguistic theory and data
(v)
provide you with a sufficient grounding in phonology and syntax to enable you to cope better with
modules which presuppose some background knowledge in these areas, and with writing your
dissertation (which is judged in large measure by the linguistic insights it offers).
Assessment
Assessment for LG510 will be based on two half-assignments, one on phonology and one on syntax. The
assignment for the Syntax segment will involve writing up (in 1,500 words + 10%) the answers to
designated exercise material in the course-book, and must be handed in by the last Friday of the first term
(week 10): further details of the syntax assignment are given overleaf. The assessment for the phonology
segment will take the form either of a short descriptive essay or an exercise involving analysing data and
producing an appropriate set of rules and explanations (to be written up in 1,500 words ( + 10%) and to be
handed in by the first Monday of the second term (week 11): Wyn Johnson will provide you with further
details of the phonology assignment.
Syntax coursebook
The syntax segment of the module is based on a new draft manuscript which is an updated version of
Andrew Radford’s 1997 book Syntax: A Minimalist Introduction (published by Cambridge University
Press): the first 8 chapters are updates of related material in the 1997 book (with new concepts, notations
and analyses presented), but the last two are entirely new. Each chapter contains around 17 pages of text
material plus a couple of exercises for class discussion and homework.
If you’ve done a course on Principles-and-Parameters Theory (or Minimalism) before, a lot of the
material will be familiar. If not, you may it hard to get used to the particular way of thinking about syntax
which the book introduces you to. You will also find that the book gets cumulatively more complex as you
go along, since each chapter presupposes all the material in the earlier chapters as well as introducing new
material. Analyses presented in earlier chapters will sometimes be revised in the light of new material
introduced in later chapters. It’s a good idea to go back and re-read the earlier chapters regularly: if you
do, you’ll find that things gradually start to click. You will make it in the end: almost half the students on
the introductory syntax course I taught last year ended up with distinction marks – and nobody failed!
You may spend a lot of your first term (cursing me and!) wondering why we inflict an obligatory syntax
segment on you, when all you really want to do is study first and/or second language acquisition, language
disorders, or psycholinguistics. The answer is that important research in these areas is informed by (and in
turn serves to inform) work in syntactic theory – hence, a good understanding of key concepts in syntax is
essential. Moreover, the overall quality of your eventual dissertation is likely to depend in large measure
on the extent to which the analyses you present of your data are linguistically informed – and in the case
of syntax, that means ‘informed by recent research in syntax’.
Format of syntax classes
The syntax segment of the course will be taught via classes which adopt an informal hands-on approach.
The class will mainly be devoted to working through the exercise material at the end of each chapter in the
coursebook, with the aim of giving you a feel of what it’s like to do syntax (rather than just reading about
how other people do it). My role will be to show you how to develop an analysis of various types of
sentences, rather than simply providing you with the ‘right answer’ to the exercise material. The reason
for focusing on exercise material is that past experience tells me that students generally have few real
difficulties in understanding the text material in the coursebook (if they read it carefully and often
enough!), but have enormous difficulties in working out answers to exercise material: hence, as much time
as possible in class will be devoted to ‘hands-on’ practical analysis of exercise material.
It’s important not to be inhibited about suggesting ideas or analyses of your own in class: OK, so you may
occasionally come up with the ‘wrong answer’ – but this is an invaluable learning opportunity for both
you and your classmates, since people generally learn far more from a ‘wrong’ answer (because it raises
the question of how you arrived at the answer, and why or indeed whether it is the wrong answer) than
from a ‘right’ answer. So, from a pedagogical point of view, it’s a good thing to be wrong now and then!
We will work through the coursebook at the rate of one chapter a week (e.g. chapter 1 in week 1, chapter 2
in week 2, etc.). I will expect you to do the following preparation each week:
• Read the appropriate chapter of your coursebook in advance of the class
• Make a note of any parts of the text which you don't understand or want to ask questions about
or comment on – and e-mail me about them or (if there is time) ask about them in class
• Prepare answers to the exercises at the end of the relevant chapter, for class discussion
Syntax assignment
Assessment for the syntax segment of LG510 is based on a single assignment to be handed in to the
Graduate Secretary by 4pm noon on Friday of week 10. The syntax assignment involves writing up (in
1,500 words, ±10%) the answers to a few (say between 2 and 5) of the example sentences from one or
more exercises in the coursebook (excluding material from the exercises in chapters 1-3, i.e. excluding
material from exercises I-VI inclusive). Work which does not fall within the specified length limit or is
handed in late will be penalised in accordance with the standard departmental penalties (see below).
Advice on writing your syntax assignment for LG510
It is entirely up to you to choose which examples from which exercises you tackle: one possibility would
be (say) to tackle three examples from the same exercise; another would be to tackle one example from
one exercise, another from another, and a third from yet another (perhaps from different chapters of the
coursebook). Although you are free to choose which examples from which exercises you tackle, you
should bear the following points in mind:
• Avoid repetition: don't answer 3 examples from the same exercise if they are all making the
same point and you end up saying the same thing 3 times over (albeit for different examples)
• Your mark ultimately depends on the quality of your argumentation, not on whether you arrive
at what (in terms of your coursebook) is the ‘right answer’. It's better to analyse three
examples in depth than simply to list the ‘right answer’ to a dozen examples without showing
any apparent awareness of why the answer you give is the ‘right’ one
• The coursebook introduces you to a wide range of concepts and constructs: the greater (and the
more complex) the range of concepts and constructs which you can show evidence of having
mastered, the higher your eventual mark is likely to be. In practical terms, what this generally
means is that good answers to exercises taken from later chapters in the book are likely to
attract higher marks than good answers to exercises from earlier chapters.
• If you so choose, you can write up the answers to exercises which are discussed in class, since
the skill in syntax is not to know what the answer is, but why it is the answer. However, if you
do this, bear in mind that you'll be expected to go beyond what was said in class, adding
additional arguments and observations of your own. (If you don’t, you may lay yourself
open to accusations of cheating – see below.)
• The required overall length is 1,500 words (±10%). Work which is longer or shorter than this
will be penalised in accordance with the standard departmental penalty of 3 marks per 500
words or part thereof: to avoid falling foul of length restrictions, you should indicate the length
of the main text of your assignment (excluding the list of references) at the end.
• Late work is penalised in accordance with standard departmental practice: a fixed penalty of 1 mark
per (whole or part) working day is imposed, where a working day is defined as a weekday
during which the University if officially open. If you want an extension to the assignment deadline, you
need to fill out an extension application form obtainable from the Departmental Graduate Office, room
3.322; but bear in mind that your application can only be approved if there are extenuating
circumstances (See the relevant regulations in our departmental graduate handbook).
Assessment criteria for the syntax assignment
Your syntax assignment for LG510 will be marked according to criteria which include:
i relevance to question(s) asked in the exercise(s) tackled
ii comprehensiveness of answer(s)
iii level of theoretical understanding
iv level of descriptive insight
v originality
vi robustness/completeness/conciseness of argumentation and conclusions
vii appropriate use of evidence
viii appropriate use of technical terminology and formalism
ix appropriate use of references to relevant research
x overall coherence, organisation, presentation and style of work
Cheating
University regulations prescribe severe penalties for cheating (including marks penalties and in extreme
cases expulsion from the University). One form of cheating which causes problems every year is
plagiarism (i.e. misrepresenting other people’s work as your own), not only where plagiarism is deliberate
but also in cases where it arises out of negligence – e.g. forgetting to acknowledge the source of some key
idea(s) or argument(s). Common forms of plagiarism in syntax (which you must avoid at all costs)
include: copying or closely paraphrasing (without due acknowledgement) part of a textbook/monograph/
article/dissertation/internet publication/lecture handout; citing arguments taken from other works without
acknowledging the relevant source; citing work done in collaboration with other students without
acknowledging which part of the work is attributable to your collaborator(s); citing arguments suggested
(whether in classes, conversation or correspondence) by staff or other students without acknowledging the
source. [Full details of the University cheating regulations can be found at the following Website address:
www2.essex.ac.uk/academic/calendar/cheating.html.] Partly in order to avoid accusations of
plagiarism, it’s important that your assignment should include a set of references listing all and only those
works which you have cited in your text. Your syntax coursebook should be cited in the following format:
Radford, A. (2001) Foundations of Syntax, coursebook for LG510, University of Essex
How you can help yourself
The topics discussed in successive chapters of your coursebook become cumulatively more complex. It's a
good idea to go back over the material covered in earlier chapters every so often, to remind yourself of
concepts and constructs introduced in earlier chapters. Previous generations of graduate students have
found it helpful to form student self-help study groups to discuss the relevant material (both text and
exercise material) before/after classes.
How I can help you
If you have specific queries about particular points of syntax relating to the material covered in this
module, the best thing to do is e-mail me on radford@essex.ac.uk: if it’s a relatively minor query, I’ll
e-mail you back with the answer as soon as I can; if it raises a more substantial issue of general interest,
I’ll discuss it in the next class. Likewise, if you have specific comments on particular parts of the
coursebook (e.g. parts which you didn’t follow or which seemed to you to be problematic, unconvincing
or just plain wrong), e-mail them to me. I’d also be grateful if you let me know of any typographical errors
you spot – so that I can pass on the information to the rest of the class! If you have more serious academic
or personal problems which are likely to affect your performance on the module, come and see me in my
office hours (listed on the first page of this course description).
Attendance
Please note that the University requires staff to keep a record of attendance at all classes.