| Week |
Month |
Date |
Topic |
Content |
Videos |
Readings |
| 1 |
Apr |
2 |
Syntax: Theory vs. Data |
empirical foundations, corpus vs. judgment data, constituency, part of speech, arguments vs. adjuncts, grammatical functions |
Müller's Introduction to Grammatical Theory |
Müller (2023) Ch. 1
Schutze (2011)
Mahowald, Graff, Hartman, Gibson (2016) |
| 4 |
| 2 |
9 |
Government and Binding Theory |
Phrase Structure Grammars, The X̄ Schema, the T-model, theta criterion, case principle, movement |
Müller's intro to PSGs
Müller's intro to X̄
Müller's intro to GB part I
Müller's intro to GB part II
Müller's intro to GB part III |
Müller (2023) Ch. 2+3
Carnie (2007) Parts 2+3+4 |
| 11 |
| 3 |
16 |
Minimalist Grammars |
basic architecture, valence, feature checking, agreement, little-v, move, merge |
|
Müller (2023) Ch. 4
Bossi and Diercks (2024)
Adger (2003): Core Syntax |
| 18 |
| 4 |
23 |
Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar |
Haed-feature convention, meta-rules, feature descriptions, Structure sharing, cyclic structures, unification |
Müller's intro to GPSG
Müller's intro to Feature Descriptions |
Müller (2023) Ch. 5+6
Gazdar (1981) |
| 25 |
| 5 |
30 |
Lexical Functional Grammar |
constituent-structure, functional-structure, completeness and coherence in LFG |
Müller's intro to LFG |
Müller (2023) Ch. 7
Borjars (2020)
Asudeh & Toivonen (2009)
Dalrymple: Lexical Functional Grammar. Syntax and Semantics Series |
| May |
2 |
| 6 |
7 |
Categorial Grammar |
rules, forward application, backward application, lambda calculus |
Müller's intro to Categorial Grammar |
Müller (2023) Ch. 8
Steedman (2022)
Hockenmaier and Steedman (2007) |
| 9 |
| 7 |
14 |
Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar |
Feature Structures, Head-Complement Schema, Linearization rules, Projection of head properties, Inheritance hierarchies and generalizations |
Müller's Intro to HPSG |
Müller (2023) Ch. 9
Sag, Wasow, and Bender (2003): Syntactic Theory, A Formal Introduction |
| 16 |
| 8 |
21 |
Construction Grammar |
Constructions and sub-constructions, the head-complement construction, variants of construction grammars |
Goldberg: Good enough language production |
Müller (2023) Ch. 10
Goldberg (2003)
Sag (2012): Sign-Based Construction Grammar |
| 23 |
| 9 |
28 |
Tree Adjoining Grammar |
Elementary Trees, Substitution, Adjunction, Passives and Long Distance Dependencies in TAG |
|
Müller (2023) Ch. 12
Kroch and Joshi (1985): The Linguistic Relevance of TAG |
| 30 |
| 10 |
Jun |
4 |
Dependency Grammar |
nucleus and satellites, No-tangling principle, No-dangling principle, and Sentence-root principle |
Manning Dependency Parsing Video |
Müller (2023) Ch. 11
de Marnaffe and Nivre (2019) |
| 6 |
| Assessment |
| Analytic Skills |
40 Points |
Assignments |
40 Points |
8 sentence diagramming assignments each owrth 5 points
1. The excited students read a book about syntax.
2. Did the excited students read a book about syntax?
3. What did the excited students read?
4. A book about syntax was read by the excited students.
5. He read a book about her.
|
| Research Skills |
60 Points |
| Midterm Abstract |
20 Points |
A one page abstract (12 point font, Times New Roman, 1 inch margins) modeled as a submission to a conference like LSA. Bibliography/references can be in the second+ page(s) and do not count towards the page limit. |
| Peer-review |
10 Points |
Write a 1-page peer-review of a midterm abstract assigned to you. Read the golden rule for peer-reviews here or Brian Lucey's tips on writing peer-reviews. |
| Final Abstract |
30 Points |
Expand your previous abstract to a two page abstract submission to a conference like NELS or WCCFL. |
| Policies |
| Late Submission |
Late assignments will be graded as though they were not late, but then 5% of the grade earned will be deducted for each day the assignment is late, with a maximum penalty of 50%. All late work must be turned in by the Friday before your final exam. This policy can be waived if lateness is due to medical reasons or other special circumstances. |
| Submission Format |
Submit your assignments using Canvas. Files should be in PDF. Typed assignments should use Times New Roman (12pt), 1 inch margins, 1.5 line spacing. Handwritten assignments must follow similar margins and spacing and must be legible. If the answer cannot be determined due to illegibility, no points are assigned to that answer. Do not include your name or any identifying information in the assignment. In order to avoid grading biases, assignments are graded anonymously. |
| Grading |
We use the following grading scale:
A+ = 100-97 A = 97-93, A- = 93-90, B+ = 90-87, B = 87-83, B- = 83-80, C+ = 80-77, C = 77-73, C- = 73-70, D+ = 70-67, D = 67-63, D- = 63-60, F = 60-0.
For any submission, if you believe there have been grading mistakes, you can ask for re-grading. The assignment will be graded by a new grader and the second grade will be recorded. |
| Integrity |
We follow the UC Davis code of academic conduct. You are permitted to work together on the assignments. However, you must write up and submit your own unique assignments. |
| Accessibility
|
Students who may need an academic accommodation based on the impact of a disability must initiate the request with the UC Davis Student Disability Center. Professional staff will evaluate the request, recommend reasonable accommodations, and prepare a letter of accommodation for the faculty. Students should contact the SDC as soon as possible since timely notice is needed to coordinate accommodations.
|
| Addressing the Instructor
|
I prefer Masoud and he/his/him for pronouns. No titles or last name needed.
|
| Philosophy |
| Participation |
We believe that our class benefits enormously from you sharing your thoughts and questions. Your background, life experiences, knowledge, thoughts, and ideas make you unique, and our classroom diverse. This diversity of perspectives is the foundation of learning in a classroom. At a larger scale and within a scientific community, it is also a major contributor to scientific progress. Therefore, sharing your thoughts and questions can help us learn and build a wider, stronger community of scholars.
Some of you may worry that your classmate's asking questions and sharing ideas may disrupt the class progress. Judging when to ask a question or share an idea is tricky but also part of education. Instead of discouraging it, we would like to practice it together. Here is flowchart that you might find useful. Ultimately, we trust your judgments.
|
| Questions |
We genuinly believe that there are no "stupid" questions in a classroom. The point of going to a class is to learn together and questions are our best tool to achieve that. It is easy to show that your question will help us learn no matter what. Your question is either:
(1) not framed well; in which case you give us a chance to explain the topic better. Chances are we did not explain it well the first time and many of your classmates are wondering about it too.
(2) framed well and has an answer we know; in which case we can help you as well as your classmates who have the same question learn it too! You have also helped us consolidate our knowledge by explaining it again.
(3) framed well but has an answer we do not know; in which case we can find the answer together and your question has helped all of us learn!
(4) framed well and does not have an answer yet; in which case you found a research topic someone can start working on and benefit the field!
As you see, your question has helped our learning either way. So please ask!
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