Syntax 4, LING 675 /
Seminar in Syntax, LING 775
Winter 2015, Jessica Coon
“Case and Agreement”
This course examines topics in the syntax of case, agreement, and the interactions between the two. Broadly speaking, we are investigating the relationship between a predicate and its arguments, and how theoretical accounts of these relationships have developed over the past few decades. We will look at not only morphological reflexes of case (on nominals) and agreement (on predicates), but also the theoretical mechanisms which have been proposed to underly these phenomena, including argument licensing (“abstract Case”) and the relation Agree. We begin with foundational readings on case and agreement, and then see how these theories have developed to cover a wide range of empirical phenomena in languages such as Icelandic, Hindi-Urdu, Dinka, Kaqchikel, Tsez, Tagalog, Nez Perce, and Sakha. Specific topics will include: the relation between abstract and morphological case; theories of structural vs. dependent case; failed agreement and uninterpretable features; the Person Case Constraint and clitic doubling; different alignment types, including ergativity and split ergativity; long distance agreement; and partial agreement.
Requirements:
LING 675: homework assignments, short class presentation, final paper
LING 775 (Pass/Fail): homework assignments, class presentation