Syntax - 2nd semester
Code
711131052
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
Linguística
Credits
6
Teacher in charge
Ana Maria Lavadinho Madeira
Weekly hours
4
Teaching language
Portuguese
Objectives
By the end of the course, students should:
1. Have gained an understanding of syntax as an autonomous component of the grammar.
2. Be able to identify the object of study of syntax.
3. Distinguish between syntactic forms and functions, through empirical validation.
4. Have become familiar with constituent analysis as a tool for achieving generalisations about sentence structure.
5. Be able to identify the relationships between the lexicon and the syntax.
6. Have become familiar with the typology of verbal predicates.
7. Have developed an understanding of movement as a tool for the analysis of dependency relations in simple and complex sentences.
8. Have developed an understanding of non-derivational dependency relations.
Prerequisites
None
Subject matter
1. Language as an object of knowledge. The object of study of syntax.
2. Lexicon and syntax - subcategorisation, semantic selection and argument structure.
3. Immediate constituents and grammatical relations at the level of the sentence and of the noun phrase.
4. Lexical and functional structure - the internal structure of phrases: X-bar theory; motivation for functional categories: verb movement, subject movement, wh-questions and subordinate clauses.
5. Auxiliary verbs and typology of verbal predicates: transitive, unergative, unaccusative, predicative and object predicative verbs.
6. The properties of argument movement (passive and unaccusative constructions) and A-bar movement (interrogative and relative constructions).
7. Binding theory: the distribution of anaphors, pronouns and referential expressions.
Bibliography
Campos, Henriqueta Costa e Maria Francisca Xavier (1991) Sintaxe e Semântica do
Português. Lisboa: Universidade Aberta.
Duarte, Inês (2000) Língua Portuguesa. Instrumentos de Análise. Lisboa: Universidade Aberta.
Eliseu, André (2008) Sintaxe do Português. Lisboa: Caminho.
Mateus, Maria Helena, Ana Maria Brito, Inês Duarte & Isabel Hub Faria (2003) Gramática da Língua Portuguesa. Lisboa: Caminho (5a edição revista e aumentada).
Raposo, Eduardo (1992) Teoria da Gramática. A Faculdade da Linguagem. Lisboa: Caminho.
Teaching method
(a) Lectures
(b) Practical classes: practice exercises, problem resolution
Evaluation method
(a) Take-home exercises (20%).
(b) In-class exercise sets (30%).
(c) Written test covering the whole of the syllabus (50%).