ADVANCED SYNTAX
Lecture course
handout 1
Lecture: 2 hours weekly
Tuesday 10.00-11.30 Gólyavár B
Instructor: Szécsényi, Krisztina
Office hour: Wed 13.00-14.00, Rm 323
Email address: kszecsenyi@gmail.com
The lectures deal with fundamental issues in the grammar and in particular the syntax of
English in the framework of modern grammatical theory. Emphasis in the latter part is placed
on arguments for and against proposals concerning grammatical structures and analyses. The
course aims at explaining what systematic regularities define language in general and English
in particular. The course offers sound foundations for any further study in English linguistics.
The following topics have already been discussed, you should find them familiar. This
semester we are going to go into further details in the structure of the DP and the clause
including some discussion of adjunction structures as well.
1) Language and Grammar
2) Constituents and structures
3) X-Bar Syntax
4) The structure of nominal expressions
5) The structure of the Verb Phrase
6) Lexicon, Thematic Roles
7) Case Theory
8) Wh-Movement: questions
9) DP Movement: passive
10) DP-movement: raising
Grading will be based on a two-hour final during the exam period (time and place to be
given). Exam based on handouts, lecture notes, textbook. An exam sample will be provided at
the end of the term.
In case you have any problems of understanding, see the instructor during her office hour or
make an appointment. Handouts downloadable from seas homepage.
THE CENTRAL QUESTIONS OF LINGUISTICS
1. What is language?
Difficulties of definition. Communication? cf. animal communication
(www.nytud.hu/nyelv_es_nyelvek/) . Natural languages vs. artificial languages
2. What do we know when we know a language?
Knowledge of language versus use of language. competence vs. performance.
A native speaker, by definition, has a perfect knowledge of his/her language.
There are no primitive/superior languages (debate on LingBuzz about Piraha).
Answers to question [2] must tackle problems like:
(1) Different forms, identity of (conceptual, thematic, logical, truth-functional) meaning
a. Bill claimed Jim to have hit Jack.
b. Jim was claimed by Bill to have hit Jack
c. Jack was claimed by Bill to have been hit by Jim.
Syntax HO #1, page 2
(2) Identical conceptual/thematic meanings - different quantifier scopes & logical meanings
a. Everybody in this room speaks two languages.
b. Two languages are spoken by everybody in this room.
(3) The interpretation of different pronominal forms
Binding theory: the module of the grammar regulating NP interpretation.
Poirot admires him.
Bertie hurt himself.
Bertie said that he felt rather ill.
Bertie expected him to feel a little better.
He expected Bertie to feel a little better.
full noun phrases: refer independently, select a referent from the universe of discourse,
referential expressions.
pronouns: select a subgroup from the wider domain of entities which we might want to talk
about. Features specified, coreference with something from context.
anaphors (reflexives, reciprocals): lack independent refernce, must be coreferent with
something, need an antecedent (a linguistic item they can be coreferent with)
Problems (1)-(3) and the like solved by relating form and meaning in sentences, over which
speakers are capable of making judgements. Operations are structure-dependent.
Sound (phonological structure) & meaning (semantic structure) are not directly relatable
have to be encoded on different levels: intermediate (syntactic) levels.
Syntax relates form and meaning
3. How do we come to have knowledge of (some) language?
Argument from ’poverty of stimulus’: how to acquire a richly articulated system of
knowledge on the basis of the scattered, chaotic, haphazard data available to the learner
(=child)? Can the learning process be based on conditioning (Stimulus  Response)?
Rules vs. imitation: systematic errors in language acquisition: goed – went
The number and length of sentences is infinite → need for deductive definition instead of
enumeration (sentences)
 postulation of language faculty: an innate language acquisition device specific to the
human species located in the brain determining stages of acquisition, allowing for crosslinguistic variety.
a. What does the language faculty contain?
Principles: general principles concerning language, universal: we are born with the same
capacity for language acquisition. Structure dependency, VP= V+Object, order not fixed; Whquestions
Parameters: different options given by the principles. Different parameter-settings lead to
differences between languages. OV or VO order within the VP; Wh-movement or Wh in situ
Syntax HO #1, page 3
Generative Grammar: a set of rules with the help of which you can generate all and only
the well-formed expressions of (a) language.
The three conditions for a good grammar:
1. generality: the range of sentences the grammar analyzes correctly.
2. selectivity: the range of non-sentences the grammar identifies as problematic.
3. understandability: the simplicity of the grammar itself.
Simple rules can produce complex phenomena if they interact in complex ways: e.g. chess.
3 X-BAR THEORY: the structure-building module
A module of GB (Government and Binding Theory) containing three very simple rewrite
rules to describe the structure of the expressions of a language:
1. the specifier rule:
XP  Specifier X’
2. the complement rule:
X’  X Complement
3. the adjunct rule (optional, recursive):
XP  XP, Adjunct
Other modules we discussed last term: Theta Theory, Case Theory


Lexical and functional categories (NP surrounded by DP, VP/vP surrounded by IP and
CP)
Movement for Case (DP-movement to satisfy the Case Filter) or scope (Wh-movement
for the wh-word to check the [+wh] feature in the CP defining the force of the clause)
Textbook:
Mark Newson, Basic English Syntax with Exercises, HEFOP, Budapest, 2006