LING 328 ­– Morphosyntactic Typology

TTh 2:40–4:00, Physics 121

Course Syllabus
Fall 2004

Matt Pearson

email:  matthew.pearson@reed.edu
phone:   7618   (from off-campus: 503-517-7618)
office hours:   Wednesday, 10:30–12:30 and 2:00–3:00

Content and focus of the course

This course deals with the issue of cross-linguistic variation. Even a cursory inspection shows that languages differ in their phonological properties, and of course in their vocabulary. However, languages also exhibit variation in other domains, including:

It is these lexical, morphological, and syntactic differences which we will focus on in this course.

One of the most important discoveries of modern linguistics is that morphosyntactic variation is both highly constrained and highly principled. By constrained, I mean that only a small subset of the logically possible grammars are actually attested. In other words, there are (non-obvious) limitations on the kinds of structural features that languages can have. By principled, I mean that languages do not vary in structure in random ways, but according to identifiable patterns. We can express these patterns as language universals, usually implicational statements of the form “If a language has feature X, it will also have feature Y”. Languages can thus be classified into types on the basis of shared combinations of features. Such a classification is called a typology. The study of typologies and their implications for theories of grammar is called Linguistic Typology. There are two broad questions which typologists seek to answer:

We will be addressing both of these questions. The course will thus contain both a descriptive component (a discussion of what kinds of phenomena are out there) and a theoretical component (a review of some recent attempts to explain aspects of cross-linguistic variation).

Course requirements, grading, and policies

Expectations

Students will be expected to attend class and participate in discussion, prepare and participate in in-class presentations, and complete all written work. The written work for the course consists of eight problem sets, along with a take-home final exam (the latter being essentially a long and comprehensive problem set which you have to do on your own). The take-home final will be handed out during the reading period. Details TBA.

Grading basis:  participation 20%
  problem sets 65%
  final exam 15%

Problem sets

You will notice that the problem sets count for over half of the final grade. In evaluating these problem sets, I will look for answers that are thorough, well-reasoned, and presented with clarity, creativity, conciseness, and precision. I’m less interested in how close you manage to get to the intended solution (in many cases I will be giving you data for which there is no definitive analysis anyway).

            It is impossible to do good scientific research in a vacuum. You are therefore encouraged —indeed, expected—to work on problem sets together, so long as you write up your answers in your own words. You should also feel free to come see me during office hours (individually, or better yet in groups) if you’re having difficulty with the homework. I am always willing to talk about any aspect of the course, and to give you whatever help you may need, so please take full advantage of my services!

            Due dates for assignments are given in the table below. These are, of course, subject to change. I will notify you of any changes as we go along. In general problem sets will be due every third class period, meaning that you will have between 9 and 12 days to complete each assignment.

Thursday, 9 September

problem set 1 due

Tuesday, 21 September

problem set 2 due

Thursday, 30 September

problem set 3 due

Tuesday, 12 October

problem set 4 due

FALL BREAK

Thursday, 28 October

problem set 5 due

Tuesday, 9 November

problem set 6 due

Thursday, 18 November

problem set 7 due

THANKSGIVING

Thursday, 2 December

problem set 8 due

Problem sets must be received by 5:00 PM on the day they are due. Assignments may be submitted in hardcopy or electronic format. Hardcopy versions should be turned in in class, or to my office. Electronic versions should be sent to me as email attachments (I strongly prefer PDF files, but will accept Word files as well; the staff in the IRCs can show you how to save and send your documents as PDF files if you are unfamiliar with this format).

            Problem sets must be turned in on time if you wish to receive full credit and comments. Late assignments will be penalized 10% of total possible points for each day they are late. A late assignment will not be accepted for credit if it is turned in after the problem set is returned to students, or after it is discussed in class, whichever comes first (also, late assignments will probably receive minimal comments, and may not be returned to you in a timely fashion).

In-class presentations

Given the breadth of the field, there are a number of areas which we won’t be able to cover as part of the regular syllabus. To help make up for this, you will each be asked to give a 40–50 minute presentation to the class on one of the topics listed below. You will also be asked to prepare a detailed handout for the class, including definitions and dis­cussion of important terms and concepts, and illustrative examples from various languages.

Presentations will be given once a week during the second half of the semester (dates listed below). You must choose the topic and date for your presentation, and consult with me on sources, before Friday, 1 October. Presentations will count for a portion of your participation grade, and the terms and concepts you discuss may be incorporated into the final exam.

Date

Name

Topic

Tuesday, 26 October

    

Tuesday, 2 November

    

Tuesday, 9 November

    

Tuesday, 16 November

    

Tuesday, 23 November

    

Tuesday, 30 November

    

Tuesday, 7 December

    

Course outline

The following outline lists the subjects I intend to cover in this course and the order in which I plan to cover them. I would like to set the pace of the course as we go along, so I have not assigned specific dates when the readings must be completed. We will decide on this in class.

A note on readings

There is no textbook for this class. Instead, you will be assigned selected chapters from various different textbooks, as well as articles from linguistics journals. Readings are listed after each unit, in the approximate order in which you should tackle them, with more elementary readings (usually from text­books) given first, followed by more technical readings. Readings are required unless explicitly listed as optional. Additional readings may be added as we go along.

            All books are available on reserve (a few readings, noted below, are also on e-reserve). Journal articles can be found in the Bound Periodicals section of the library. Articles from the journal Language are also available on-line, where they can be downloaded as printable PDF documents from Reed networked computers. To access these articles, just go to the Reed Library homepage, click on “Locating Resources”, and select “Electronic & Print Periodicals List”. Then enter the name of the journal (it’s listed as “Language (Baltimore)”). Click on the appropriate link, JSTOR or Project Muse, depending on the year of the article. Once in JSTOR/Project Muse, search for the article by title or author. You will be given options for downloading and printing. Ask for help from IRC or library staff if you get stuck.

            [N.B.—Note that there are two editions of Croft’s book Typology and Universals, both of which are on reserve for this course. These editions are very different from each other, so be sure you’ve got the right version before you start reading. I have assigned you chapter 1 and portions of chapters 2 and 3 from the second edition, and chapter 4 of the first edition.]

1. Introduction : Typology and universals

Cross-linguistic variation – Overview of typology – Methods of language sampling – The question of cross-linguistic comparability – Language universals (and ‘universal tendencies’) – Formulating language universals – Overview of Greenberg’s word order universals

  1. Whaley, Introduction to Typology [P204.W48 1997]
    chapter 1 “Introduction to typology and universals”
    chapter 2 “A (brief) history of typology”
  2. Croft, Typology and Universals, 2nd ed. [P204.C7 2002]
    chapter 1 “Introduction”
  3. Comrie, Language Universals and Linguistic Typology, 2nd ed. [P204.C6 1989]
    chapter 1 “Language universals” (optional: repeats many of the same points as Whaley and Croft from a slightly different perspective)
    chapter 2 “Language typology”, sections 2.1–2.2 (optional, but I would recommend at least skimming)
  4. Greenberg, Universals of Language, 2nd ed. [P23.C65 1961]
    chapter 5 “Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements” (Greenberg) (focus on sections 1–4; we will return to section 5 later)
  5. Croft, Typology and Universals, 2nd ed. [P204.C7 2002]
    chapter 3 “Implicational universals and competing motivations”, sections 3.1–3.2

2. Morphology and the lexicon: Categories and marking

Linguistic types and marking strategies – Sapir’s morphological types – On the notion ‘word’ – Lexical classes (part-of-speech systems) – Criteria for distinguishing and comparing lexical classes: noun, verb, adjective – Grammatical categories – Markedness theory – Head-marking versus dependent-marking (Nichols) – Categories of person and number in pronouns (Harley & Ritter)

  1. Whaley, Introduction to Typology [P204.W48 1997]
    chapter 7 “Morphemes” (optional: good for reviewing concepts from morphology)
  2. Croft, Typology and Universals, 2nd ed. [P204.C7 2002]
    chapter 2 “Typological classification”, sections 2.1–2.2
  3. Whaley, Introduction to Typology [P204.W48 1997]
    chapter 8 “Morphological typology” (you can skim sections 2.2-2.4, which introduce the Nichols article that we’ll read later)
  4. Comrie, Language Universals and Linguistic Typology, 2nd ed. [P204.C6 1989]
    chapter 2 “Language typology”, section 2.3 “Morphological typology”
  5. Dixon & Aikhenvald, Word: A Cross-Linguistic Typology [P128.W67 W67 2002; also available on e-reserve]
    chapter 1 “Word: a typological framework” (Dixon & Aikhenvald)
  6. T. Payne, Describing Morphosyntax [P241.P39 1997]
    chapter 3 “Grammatical categories”
  7. Shopen, Language Typology and Syntactic Description, vol. I [P204.L33 1985 v.1]
    chapter 1 “Parts-of-speech systems” (Schachter)
  8. T. Payne, Describing Morphosyntax, [P241.P39 1997]
    chapter 5 “Noun and noun-phrase operations”
    chapter 9 “Other verb and verb-phrase operations”
  9. Croft, Typology and Universals, 1st ed. [P204.C7 1990]
    chapter 4 “Markedness in typology”
  10. Nichols, “Head-marking and dependent-marking grammar” [available through JSTOR, or in Bound Periodicals: Language vol. 62 (1986), pp. 56-119]
    read entire article, but focus your attention on sections 1-3 (sections 4 and 5 can be skimmed)
  11. Harley & Ritter, “Person and number in pronouns: a feature-geometric analysis” [available through Project Muse, or in Bound Periodicals: Language vol. 78 (2002), pp. 482-526]
    section 3, on acquisition evidence for a feature geometry, may be skipped

3. Grammatical relations and case/agreement systems

Grammatical versus thematic and pragmatic relations – Predicate-argument structure and valency – Case/agreement systems: accusative, ergative, split ergative, and active systems – Relation-changing operations: passive and antipassive, direct/inverse and obviation – Animacy and definiteness effects – Transitivity as scalar notion (Hopper & Thompson)

  1. Comrie, Language Universals and Linguistic Typology, 2nd ed. [P204.C6 1989]
    chapter 3 “Theoretical prerequisites”
  2. Song, Linguistic Typology [P204.S66 2001; also available through e-reserve]
    chapter 3 “Case marking”, sections 3.1–3.4
  3. Lehmann, Syntactic Typology [P204.S9 1978]
    chapter 7 “Ergativity” (Comrie)
  4. Song, Linguistic Typology [P204.S66 2001; also available through e-reserve]
    chapter 3 “Case marking”, sections 3.5–3.10
  5. Shopen, Language Typology and Syntactic Description, vol. I [P204.L33 1985 v.1]
    chapter 2 “The major functions of the noun phrase” (Andrews)
  6. Song, Linguistic Typology [P204.S66 2001; also available through e-reserve]
    chapter 3 “Case marking”, sections 3.11–3.14
  7. Shopen, Language Typology and Syntactic Description, vol. I [P204.L33 1985 v.1]
    chapter 5 “Passive in the world’s languages” (Keenan)
  8. Shopen, Language Typology and Syntactic Description, vol. III [P204.L33 1985 v.3]
    chapter 6 “Causative verb formation and other verb-deriving morphology” (Comrie)
  9. Hopper & Thompson, “Transitivity in grammar and discourse” [available through JSTOR, or in Bound Periodicals: Language vol. 56 (1980), pp. 251-299]
    read the entire article, but focus your attention on sections 1-3 (section 4, on discourse, will not be discussed in detail in class)

4. Word order variation

Determining ‘basic’ constituent order – Major and minor constituent order types – Non-configurationality (Mithun) – Greenberg’s word order correlations revisited – Refinements to the Greenbergian typology (Dryer) – Explaining word order universals (Travis, Hawkins) – Non-configurationality revisited (Baker)

  1. Whaley, Introduction to Typology [ P204.W48 1997]
    chapter 6 “Determining basic constituent order”
  2. D. Payne, Pragmatics of Word Order Flexibility [P295.P64 1992]
    chapter 2 “Is basic word order universal?” (Mithun)
  3. Greenberg, Universals of Language, 2nd ed. [P23.C65 1961]
    chapter 5 “Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements” (Greenberg) (reread sections 1–4; read section 5 carefully)
  4. Dryer, “The Greenbergian word order correlations” [available through JSTOR, or in Bound Periodicals: Language vol. 68 (1992), pp. 81-138]
    read entire article
  5. Baltin & Kroch, Alternative Conceptions of Phrase Structure [P158.3.A48 1989]
    chapter 11 “Parameters of phrase structure” (Travis)
  6. Hawkins, “A parsing theory of word order universals” [available through e-reserve, or in Bound Periodicals: Linguistic Inquiry vol. 21 (1990), pp. 223-261]
    read entire article
  7. Baltin & Collins, The Handbook of Contemporary Syntactic Theory [P291.H246 2001]
    chapter 13 “The natures of nonconfigurationality” (Baker)

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Last updated: 3 September 2004