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Cursus: TLRMV16114
TLRMV16114
Micro- and Macro-Variation in Syntax
Cursus informatie
CursuscodeTLRMV16114
Studiepunten (EC)5
Cursusdoelen
In this course, students will (i) acquire an understanding of theories on micro- and macro-syntactic diversity (Principles and Parameters-theory/Minimalist Program/(generative-)linguistic typology), (ii) develop the ability to identify and analyze data sets displaying syntactic diversity, (iii) develop the ability to critically evaluate existing analyses, to generate own hypotheses and to provide empirical and theoretical contributions to the study of syntactic diversity.
Inhoud
Linguistic diversity, just like linguistic sameness (universality), is a core property of human language. The theoretical focus of this course is on the design of (morpho)syntactic diversity. What makes an investigation of the variant part of human language challenging are the strong indications that grammatical variation is non-arbitrary, bounded and predictable. Thus, there is a system (a design) behind syntactic variation. In this course, you will learn about this design of diversity by addressing questions such as: (i) Which (morpho)syntactic properties display diversity? (ii) What is the role of functional categories in the encoding of variation? (iii) How do variant properties interact and correlate with each other? (iv) To what extent can variation be captured in terms of the Interface levels? We will investigate the design of syntactic diversity by comparing language systems at a micro-comparative scale (micro-differences among language systems that are extremely closely related) and at a macro-comparative scale (differences among language systems that are genetically or typologically less closely related/unrelated). We will do this by examining phenomena and construction types that have been studied in generative syntactic theory and in more 'conventional' typological/dialectological studies; for example, interrogative clauses, relative clauses, comparatives, exclamatives, possessives.  

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