McGill Fall 2014 LING 721 Advanced Seminar 1

Questions, focus, and friends

Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine
michael.erlewine@mcgill.ca
Office: 215
Office hours: Wednesday 11–12:30am and by appointment
Hadas Kotek
hadas.kotek@mcgill.ca
Office: 215
Office hours: Friday 1:30–3pm and by appointment

Syllabus PDF (but always see Schedule below for the latest)

Readings (ask for password)

Schedule

DayTopicReadings (Required)Assignments
3/9Introduction
Movement
8/9Review: Compositional semanticsHeim & Kratzer (1998) sec. 2.1–2.3, 2.5
10/9Review continued, quantifiers in subject positionH&K sec. 4.1–4.3; 5.1–5.2.3; 6.1–6.5Assignment 1
15/9Quantifier Raising; predicate abstractionH&K ch 7 (pages 178–198); Dating game imageAssignment 1 DUE
17/9Only as a quantifierRooth (1985) pp 27–32, 88–94; Horn (1969), Bayer (1996) sec. 2.3
22/9Only continued; discussion of language reportsMatthewson (2004); skim: Skopeteas et al (2006) & Renans et al (2011)Language report 1
24/9Wh-movement and the semantics of questionsGeorge (2011) pp 1–17, Karttunen (1977), Groenendijk & Stokhof (1984), Hagstrom (1998), Kotek (2014)Assignment 2
29/9Case study: HungarianÉ Kiss (2002) ch. 4; Szabolcsi (1981), Brody (1990), É Kiss (1998), Szendrői (2003)
1/10Characteristics of A'-movementChomsky (1977) "On wh-movement" short FAQAssignment 2 DUE
6/10More characteristics of A'-movementRoss (1967), Engdahl (1983)
8/10Case study: Defaka (and Dinka)Bennett et al (2012); Bennett (2009), Van Urk and Richards (to appear)
13/10Thanksgiving: No class
Alternative computation
15/10Rooth/Hamblin alternative computationRooth (1985) pp 41–59, 67–80; Hamblin (1973)
20/10Case study: Mandarin ChineseHuang (1982) pp 492–502, 524–530
22/10Unifying focusRooth (1992); Rooth (1996), Kadmon (2001)Language report 1 DUE
27/10Case study: Japanese wh-quantificationShimoyama (2006)Assignment 3
29/10Backwards associationErlewine (2014a); Erlewine (2014b) pp 78–114
3/11More backwards associationErlewine (2014b) pp 122–142
5/11The syntax of pied-pipingCable (2008); Heck (2009), Cable (2010)Assignment 3 DUE, Language report 2
10/11Computing pied-pipingKotek (2014) pp 57–70;
12/11AWF using covert focus movement with pied-pipingKrifka (2006); Drubig (1994), Wagner (2006), Horvath (2007)
Advanced topics
17/11Intervention effectsKim (2002); Beck (2006), Tomioka (2007), Mayr (2013)
19/11Case study: Asante Twi (Kwa)Kobele & Torrence (2006)
24/11Intervention effects in English questionsPesetsky (2000) ch. 5, Kotek (2014) ch. 4
26/11Intervention and pied-pipingKotek & Erlewine (to appear); Erlewine & Kotek (2014)
1/12Alternative questionsHan & Romero (2004)
3/12More alternative questionsBeck & Kim (2006)
4/12Covert focus-movement and NPIs (starting at 1pm)Wagner (2006)Language report 2 DUE