McGill Fall 2014 "Questions, focus, and friends"
Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine
michael.erlewine@mcgill.ca
Office: 215
Office hours: Wednesday 11–12:30am and by appointment
michael.erlewine@mcgill.ca
Office: 215
Office hours: Wednesday 11–12:30am and by appointment
Syllabus PDF (but always see Schedule below for the latest)
Readings (ask for password)
Schedule
| Day | Topic | Readings (Required) | Assignments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3/9 | Introduction | ||
| Movement | |||
| 8/9 | Review: Compositional semantics | Heim & Kratzer (1998) sec. 2.1–2.3, 2.5 | |
| 10/9 | Review continued, quantifiers in subject position | H&K sec. 4.1–4.3; 5.1–5.2.3; 6.1–6.5 | Assignment 1 |
| 15/9 | Quantifier Raising; predicate abstraction | H&K ch 7 (pages 178–198); Dating game image | Assignment 1 DUE |
| 17/9 | Only as a quantifier | Rooth (1985) pp 27–32, 88–94; Horn (1969), Bayer (1996) sec. 2.3 | |
| 22/9 | Only continued; discussion of language reports | Matthewson (2004); skim: Skopeteas et al (2006) & Renans et al (2011) | Language report 1 |
| 24/9 | Wh-movement and the semantics of questions | George (2011) pp 1–17, Karttunen (1977), Groenendijk & Stokhof (1984), Hagstrom (1998), Kotek (2014) | Assignment 2 |
| 29/9 | Case study: Hungarian | É Kiss (2002) ch. 4; Szabolcsi (1981), Brody (1990), É Kiss (1998), Szendrői (2003) | |
| 1/10 | Characteristics of A'-movement | Chomsky (1977) "On wh-movement" short FAQ | Assignment 2 DUE |
| 6/10 | More characteristics of A'-movement | Ross (1967), Engdahl (1983) | |
| 8/10 | Case study: Defaka (and Dinka) | Bennett et al (2012); Bennett (2009), Van Urk and Richards (to appear) | |
| 13/10 | Thanksgiving: No class | ||
| Alternative computation | |||
| 15/10 | Rooth/Hamblin alternative computation | Rooth (1985) pp 41–59, 67–80; Hamblin (1973) | |
| 20/10 | Case study: Mandarin Chinese | Huang (1982) pp 492–502, 524–530 | |
| 22/10 | Unifying focus | Rooth (1992); Rooth (1996), Kadmon (2001) | Language report 1 DUE |
| 27/10 | Case study: Japanese wh-quantification | Shimoyama (2006) | Assignment 3 |
| 29/10 | Backwards association | Erlewine (2014a); Erlewine (2014b) pp 78–114 | |
| 3/11 | More backwards association | Erlewine (2014b) pp 122–142 | |
| 5/11 | The syntax of pied-piping | Cable (2008); Heck (2009), Cable (2010) | Assignment 3 DUE, Language report 2 |
| 10/11 | Computing pied-piping | Kotek (2014) pp 57–70; | |
| 12/11 | AWF using covert focus movement with pied-piping | Krifka (2006); Drubig (1994), Wagner (2006), Horvath (2007) | |
| Advanced topics | |||
| 17/11 | Intervention effects | Kim (2002); Beck (2006), Tomioka (2007), Mayr (2013) | |
| 19/11 | Case study: Asante Twi (Kwa) | Kobele & Torrence (2006) | |
| 24/11 | Intervention effects in English questions | Pesetsky (2000) ch. 5, Kotek (2014) ch. 4 | |
| 26/11 | Intervention and pied-piping | Kotek & Erlewine (to appear); Erlewine & Kotek (2014) | |
| 1/12 | Alternative questions | Han & Romero (2004) | |
| 3/12 | More alternative questions | Beck & Kim (2006) | |
| 4/12 | Covert focus-movement and NPIs (starting at 1pm) | Wagner (2006) | Language report 2 DUE |
