Welcome!
Syntax
LING20006
Dr Jonathon Lum
Welcome!
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Coronavirus information
https://unimelb.edu.au/coronavirus for updates
https://students.unimelb.edu.au/student-
support/coronavirus for support and info
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https://unimelb.edu.au/coronavirus
https://students.unimelb.edu.au/student-support/coronavirus
Subject website (Canvas)
http://www.lms.unimelb.edu.au
You can log in using your university email
address.
Check notification settings:
– Go to ‘Account’ > ‘Notifications’
– Check ‘Announcement’ is set to ‘Notify me right away’
Make sure you’re checking your university emails every day (or set up
automatic forwarding to an inbox you check)
Please download and read the Subject Guide and FAQ
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http://www.lms.unimelb.edu.au
Lectures
Timetable:
Monday 1pm
Zoom
Wednesday 4.15pm
Zoom
Zoom lectures
• Join via ‘Zoom’ section of subject website.
• Please stay on ‘mute’ unless asking a question.
• Your video can be on or off.
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Recording of lectures
• Available on Canvas: Lecture Capture
• Posted later on the same day or the next
morning
• Listen to the lectures in order, and before the
following week’s tute activity.
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About the lectures
• Useful addition to other materials (readings, tute
materials) – but not sufficient by themselves
• The lecture notes will generally be PDFs/Word docs,
not slides.
• Attendance is not recorded – not a hurdle
requirement.
• BUT: students who don’t come to lectures don’t do
well…
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Syntax Lecture attendance
2 random syntax lectures were audited for
attendance:
Average mark (two assts.)
Attended neither lecture: 54%, 64%
Attended one lecture: 64%, 70%
Attended both lectures: 74%, 76%
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Tutorials
• Tutors: me, and Henry Leslie-O’Neill, a research
assistant and former Honours student in Linguistics.
• You need to be registered in a tutorial through
Allocate+.
• Attendance is recorded (hurdle requirement: attend
at least 8 tutorials).
• No tutorials in Weeks 1 and 12.
• Any issues with your timetable?
https://students.unimelb.edu.au/your-course/manage-your-course/class-
timetable/timetable-help/timetabling-assistance-form
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https://students.unimelb.edu.au/your-course/manage-your-course/class-timetable/timetable-help/timetabling-assistance-form
Tutorials
• We will send out a Zoom invite by email/Canvas
announcement the day before the tute.
• To change your tute time permanently, you need to
change your enrolment through Allocate+. But please
tell us if you are doing this so we can update our
attendance lists.
• To swap just for one week, you can email Henry
and/or me to make a request.
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Tutorial exercises
• The tute exercise for the following week will be
released each Wednesday. (E.g. I’ll upload the Week
2 exercise this Wednesday.)
• You must attempt the tutorial exercise before
attending the tute.
• The exercises are hard! Don’t worry if you can’t solve
every problem – just have a go.
• If you haven’t had a go in advance, you probably
won’t be able to follow the class discussion.
• Will help you prepare for the assessment (but don’t
expect the assessment to be too similar, either).
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Office hours
Jonathon: Wednesday 1pm, Zoom. Other times
by appointment: send me an email
(jonathon. .au)
Henry: Tuesday 11am, Zoom (but not all weeks)
(henry. .au)
(But check LMS for latest information –
sometimes office hours change)
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mailto:jonathon. .au
mailto:john. .au
Textbook
• Paul Kroeger: Analyzing Grammar
• Cambridge UP, 2005
• about $60
• Can buy online
• Hard copy or e-book
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Readings
• See the Subject Guide for the list of readings.
• Not all readings are from the textbook.
• You must complete the readings in order and
on time.
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Other resources
• Other readings (see Subject Guide)
• Other introductory Syntax textbooks
(especially Tallerman’s and Carnie’s textbooks
– see FAQ and Subject Guide for details)
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Assessment
(a) 2 x Assignments (50% in total)
Assignments will be submitted on LMS.
Assignment 1. 25% (Wk 6)
Assignment 2. 25% (Wk 10)
Success at the assessment is strongly tied to lecture and tutorial
attendance.
(b) Online exam (50%)
Covering whole semester’s content – more details will be
released as we get closer.
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Plagiarism, etc.
OKAY to talk in person without notes and in
broad terms with each other, but you MUST
write up your own answer ON YOUR OWN
NOT OKAY to use the web, unless the exercise
specifically tells you that you can.
Don’t set up online groups to discuss
assessment.
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Hurdle requirements
• Attend at least 75% of tutorials (8/10)
• Hand in all assigned work
• Extensions: are possible, but you need a good
reason
• What’s a good reason?
– Illness (medical certificate is best)
– Unforeseen emergencies
– Extreme hardship
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Lateness
• Work handed in late without an extension is
penalized by 10% per working day:
“Unless an extension has been granted, for essays/assignments
submitted after the due date, the mark a student is awarded for their
work will be reduced by 10% for each day the work is late. This
means that after three days, a student originally awarded 75% will
be awarded 45%. Unless an extension has been granted,
assignments submitted later than 5 working days (or 1 week if due
on a weekend) after the due date will not be marked, and will receive
no marks. ”
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Preparation
• LING10001 ‘The Secret Life of Language’, or
equivalent, is good preparation for Syntax – though
note that Syntax is a big step up.
• If you haven’t done LING10001, you should seriously
consider doing it and then coming back to Syntax
another year.
• Otherwise, get yourself a copy of An Introduction to
Language by Fromkin et al. Read the introductory
chapter and the chapters on word classes,
morphology and syntax.
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Some assumptions
• At least average or better competency in
English.
• That you can read the textbook and other
materials.
• That you are willing to do 5.5 hours work on
the subject each week out of class.
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Caveat emptor
Syntax might not be the subject for you if:
• You have no background in linguistics and you don’t have time to do
any preparatory reading (see above).
• You don’t have time to keep up with the readings and classes – e.g.
if you have a full-time job, this might be very difficult.
• You don’t like problem-solving or don’t like seeing unfamiliar stuff in
assessments. You can’t rely on library/internet research or rote
learning to do well at the assessment.
• You require assessment feedback very early in the course.
• You are a big fan of powerpoint slides and struggle to follow the
PDF/Word doc lecture materials.
• You want each week to be a discrete topic rather than each week
building on the last.
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If I haven’t scared you off…
Syntax is the subject for you if:
• You love solving puzzles.
• You like challenges.
• You love learning about weird and wonderful things from languages
all around the world.
• You don’t mind building up your skills from week to week, and
finding out that something we believed in only the week before was
kind of wrong (e.g., we’ll keep updating a set of Phrase Structure
Rules from week to week).
• You’re serious about linguistics and want to go on to 3rd year
subjects and even Honours or postgraduate study.
• Or even if you’re not serious about continuing with linguistics, but
you want to have some fun learning about this stuff!
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Structure of the subject
• Topic 1, Weeks 1-6: Arguing for syntactic
categories
• Topic 2, Weeks 7-8: Grammatical relations
• Topic 3, Weeks 9-12: Clause types and
complex sentences
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What is ‘syntax’ anyway?
Literally ‘stand together’ (Greek)
The way in which, and the study of how, words
form ‘groups’ (phrases), and how these
groups behave in sentences.
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Knowledge of syntax
• Just like with morphology, phonology, etc.,
you have native speaker intuitions about how
phrase formation (i.e. syntax) works in your
language.
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Knowledge of syntax
• Part of your knowledge of syntax is knowing
how words of particular syntactic classes will
behave in sentences.
• Grubbitch: the act of wandering around the
bar and drinking the dregs of abandoned
drinks
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Knowledge of syntax
• Yesterday, I ___ so much that people were
looking at me funny.
• On Saturdays, I like to ___ before going to
football training.
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Knowledge of syntax
Another part of your knowledge of syntax is
knowing the right way, and the wrong way, to
put words together:
• *Yesterday, grubbitched so I people much that
looking funny were me at
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Why should we care?
• Like other branches of linguistics, we want to
understand what it is (the categories or units)
that humans are manipulating in order to
produce these forms, and how (the processes)
they manage this.
• This is therefore part of the broader
enterprise of Cognitive Science.
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Which version of syntax?
• The version we’ll be studying in this subject is
a fairly conservative version of
Transformational Generative syntax, of the
Chomskyan kind, up until the late 80s or so
(when it started to turn into something that is
much harder to teach at an introductory level)
• Still forms part of the standard assumptions of
most linguists, and linguistic research in
general (not just in syntax).
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What counts as data?
• The primary source of data in this kind of
linguistic approach is native speaker intuitions
• and in particular, acceptability judgements
(sometimes called ‘grammaticality
judgements’)
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What counts as data?
“Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an
ideal speaker-listener, in a completely
homogeneous speech-community, who knows its
(the speech community’s) language perfectly and
is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant
conditions as memory limitations, distractions,
shifts of attention and interest, and errors
(random or characteristic) in applying his
knowledge of this language in actual
performance.” (Chomsky 1965)
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Native speaker intuitions
Both of these are fine:
Who do you want to kiss? Who do you want to kiss the puppy?
Which of the following sounds more natural:
a. Who do you wanna kiss?
b. Who do you wanna kiss the puppy?
c. Both sound equally natural
d. Both sound equally unnatural
e. I have no idea what is going on with this example
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How about this?
A woman spills her coffee and it lands on her
lap. What is she most likely to say?
A. Damn! I spilt coffee on me.
B. Damn! I spilt coffee on myself.
C. Either.
D. Neither.
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The goals of linguistic theory (Chomsky
1965)
Levels of adequacy:
• Describing linguistic phenomena
• Explaining linguistic phenomena
• Understanding the cognitive basis of language
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Next lecture
• Wednesday 4.15pm
• Categories, constituency and functions
• Reading:
For today and Wednesday: Textbook (Kroeger) Ch 1,
also a few recommended readings on LMS. Also, get
started on Ch. 2 and 3 of Kroeger if you can, and the
Radford paper.
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Questions?
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