About the course
This goal of this course is to discover how the intellectual enterprise of modern theoretical linguistics fits into the larger scheme of our understanding of the mind and of cognitive science: why are the questions that we try to answer in generative linguistics important? What are the implications of our theories for questions and issues beyond linguistics?
Syllabus
(updated 2014-04-01)
Readings
(password-protected)
Schedule of Topics
- Week 1 - April 1 & 3 - Foundations
- T: Introduction
Th: Syntactic structures (canceled b/c of UAW strike)- Reading response prompt #1
- Week 2: April 8 & 10 - Foundations
- T: Syntactic structures
- Th: The challenge to behaviorism/associationism
- Week 3: April 15 & 17 - Foundations
- T: Structure-dependence redux
- Th: Aspects of the Theory of Syntax
- Week 4: April 22 & 24 - Competence and Performance
- T: Introspective judgments as data
- Th: Processing complexity
Week 5: April 29 & May 1 - Acquisition- T: Innate ideas - The meeting at Royaumont
- Th: What do children know and when
- Week 6: May 6 & 8 - Acquisition
- - Verb learning
- Week 7: May 13 & 15 - Interfaces
- - Thought
- - Number
- Week 8: May 20 & 22 - Interfaces
- - Space
- Week 9: May 27 & 29 - Frontiers
- - Animal communication
- Week 10: June 3 & 5 - Frontiers
- - Evolution
