Admission requirements
BA English language and literature, BA Linguistics or something comparable
Description
All humans can learn any language as a native tongue. For this reason, the most central hypothesis in current linguistic research is that all languages share abstract syntactic principles. The first goal of comparative syntactic investigations is to discover whether syntactic principles are shared in this sense and what kind of principles are shared this way. The second goal is to understand how these principles allow for variation among languages and how syntactic variables are connected. This leads to a general theory of syntax for natural languages. The first part of this course (Blok 1) is an introduction to comparative syntax. We discuss and compare the most imporant theories, such as Principles and Parameters, Minimalism, Parameter hierarchy and the different levels of syntactic variation, microvariation (between dialects), mesovariation (between typologically related languages) and macrovariation (between typologically different languages). We also discuss possible research methods in comparative syntax and get to know online databases that are available.
The second part (Blok 2) deals with microvariation in Chinese languages. Topics which we will pay special attention to include the syntax of aspects, verb doubling, the structure of noun phrases, low vs. high modality and object positions.In the second block we meet twice a week.
Course objectives
Students can understand the most important issues in comparative syntactic research of Chinese languages.
Students have insights into the most important theories in current comparative syntactic research
Students are familiar with the most important research methods theories in current comparative syntactic research and can use thier knowledge in their own research
Students can carry out their own comparative syntactic research on Chinese, including a presentation and writing of an essay
Timetable
The timetable is available on the MA Linguistics website
Mode of instruction
- Seminar
Course Load
Total 10 EC x 28 hours = 280 hours.
Weekly seminars: 13 X 2 = 26 hours
Preparation seminars: 13 x 3 = 39 hours
Literature study: 65 hours
Presentation: 20 hour
Own research, essay and presentation: 130 hours
Assessment method
paper and presentation of own research (70%)
presentation of a paper (20%)
active participation (10%)
Resit: students who fail the course may take the resit.
### Blackboard
Blackboard will be used for course materials.
Reading list
Blackboard (https://blackboard.leidenuniv.nl/) will be used to store course material when possible.
Registration
Enrolment through uSis is mandatory.
General information about uSis is available in [English])http://hum.leiden.edu/students/study-administration/usis-english.html) and Dutch
Students other than MA Linguistics need permission from the coordinator of studies before enrolling.
Contact
Please contact Student administration van Eyckhof for questions.
Remarks
This first part of this ourse is shared between Comparative Syntax in de MA Linguistics. In the first blok, all students follow the same classes, in the second blok there are 3 groups (Dutch, English and Chinese). The course instructor in the first blok is Sjef Barbiers. The course instructors in the second blok are Anikó Lipták (English),Sjef Barbiers & Jing Lin (Chinese), and Sjef Barbiers (Dutch).