Current Issues in the Syntax/Semantics Interface:
Degree Constructions Cross-linguistically
LING 483 Special Topics 1 (CRN 5084) LING 682 Selected Topics 1 (CRN 5535)
TTh 13:05 - 14:25 1085 Dr. Penfield Rm 002
Junko Shimoyama
Office hours: Tuesday 14:30-16:30 & by appointment Office location: 1085 Dr. Penfield, Rm 219
Phone: 514-398-4867
E-mail: ‘Mail’ under ‘Course Tools’ on myCourses Course Description
This course explores current cross-linguistic issues in the interface between syntax and semantics. Our particular focus will be on the grammar of comparison and degree (e.g., comparatives, superlatives, degree questions). Degree systems are known to interact with a whole range of other phenomena, e.g.,
wh-movement, focus, ellipsis, plurality, modification, quantification, modality, and negation. We will explore some of these phenomena in detail. Our point of departure is the degree systems in English and Japanese, and students will be expected to conduct comparative studies with other languages of their interest.
Prerequisites
LING 360 (Intro to Semantics) and LING 371 (Syntax 1); or permission of instructor.
Course Requirements and Method of Evaluation Homework assignments: 30% (2 x 15%)
Presentation: 15%
Final paper proposal: not graded Final paper presentation: 10%
Final paper (max. 10 pages): 35%
Contributions to class discussions: 10%
1
Homework Assignments
Assignment 1: due Thursday, September 30 Assignment 2: due Thursday, October 21
Unless otherwise indicated, you may discuss written assignments with
one partner. However, you must write up the assignments on your own. If you choose to work in pairs, write down the name of your partner. Make sure you try to solve the problems on your own first before you meet and discuss them with your partner. Near identical answers will be treated as probable cases of scholastic dishonesty and will be reported to the Office of the Dean of Students.
Presentation
You will present a summary of one of the articles listed under ‘Related readings’
in the Schedule, or picked by you in consultation with the instructor. More details to come when the number of participants is more or less set.
Final Paper
You will choose a topic of your interest that relates to the topics covered in the course.
First meeting: weeks 2 -4 Second meeting: weeks 5-7
Final paper proposal: due Thursday, October 28 Final paper presentation: weeks 13 & 14
Final paper: due Wednesday, December 8, noon Course Policies
• Submission of written work will only be accepted in class, at the beginning of class on the due date. No electronic submission of assignments will be accepted, unless there are special circumstances.
• No late assignments will be accepted unless you contact me with a
legitimate excuse preferrably before the due date or within 24 hours of the missed assignment, followed up with a valid written document. There will be no extra credit work or reweighting of grades in this course.
• If you have specific questions about assignments, please try to ask them in person whenever you can to avoid unfortunate miscommunication due to the nature of e-mail communication. Limit the use of Mail on WebCT to other purposes and trivial questions that can be handled easily. If you have
no choice but to ask questions via Mail, I will try to answer them as quickly as I can, but please note that my response time could be around 24 to 48 hours.
• I will try to post handouts on WebCT by 5 p.m. on the day before class. If anything prevents me from doing so in time, I will bring copies to class.
Remember to bring handouts from a previous class if any materials are left undiscussed.
Academic Integrity and Other Statements
• McGill University values academic integrity. Therefore all students must understand the meaning and consequences of cheating, plagiarism and other academic offences under the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures (see http://www.mcgill.ca/integrity for more information).
• In accord with McGill University’s Charter of Students’ Rights, students in this course have the right to submit in English or in French any written work that is to be graded.
Schedule (revised: Sept 9, 2010)
(subject to change)
Wk Date Topic Required readings Related readings Notes
1 Sep. 2 Introduction
2 Sep. 7 Case study in variation Shimoyama (2010) Beck et al.
(2004); Kennedy (2007)
mtg1
Sep. 9 Sudo (2010)
3 Sep. 14 Background building Beck (to appear) mtg1
Sep. 16
4 Sep. 21 Parameters Beck et al. (2009) mtg1
Sep. 23
5 Sep. 28 Ellipsis Bhatt and Takahahi (2010) Bhatt and Taka- hashi (to appear);
Merchant (2009);
Bouchard (2010)
mtg2
Sep. 30 Lechner (2001,
2004); Xiang (2003); Lin (2009)
asst1
6 Oct. 5 Measure phrases Bogal-Allbritten (2010) Sawada and Grano (2009);
Svenonius and Kennedy (2006)
mtg2
Oct. 7
7 Oct. 12 Degree movement Heim (1999) mtg2
Oct. 14
8 Oct. 19 Structural diagnostics Shimoyama (to appear) Vander Klok (2009)
Oct. 21 asst2
9 Oct. 26 NP/DP parameter Boˇskovi´c and Gajewski (to appear) Miyagawa (2008)
Oct. 28 proposal
10 Nov. 2 Degree questions TBA Nov. 4
11 Nov. 9 Negative island Shimoyama & Schwarz Nov. 11
12 Nov. 16 Contrastiveness Tomioka (2009) Wagner (2010)
Nov. 18 13 Nov. 23 TBA
Nov. 25 Presentations 14 Nov. 30 Presentations
Dec. 8 Final paper due at 12 noon
To be expanded
References
Baker, Mark C. 2003. Lexical categories: Verbs, nouns, and adjectives.
Cambridge Univ Pr.
Beck, Sigrid. to appear. Comparison constructions. In Semantics: An
international handbook of natural language meaning, ed. Klaus von Heusinger Maienborn, Claudia and Paul Portner. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Beck, Sigrid, Sveta Krasikova, Daniel Fleischer, Remus Gergel, Stefan Hofstetter, Christiane Savelsberg, John Vanderelst, and Elisabeth Villalta.
2009. Crosslinguistic Variation in Comparison Constructions. Linguistic Variation Yearbook9:1–66.
Beck, Sigrid, Toshiko Oda, and Koji Sugisaki. 2004. Parametric variation in the semantics of comparison: Japanese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics
13:289–344.
Bhatt, Rajesh, and Shoichi Takahahi. 2010. Review of Lechner (2004). Ms.
University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Nihon University.
Bhatt, Rajesh, and Shoichi Takahashi. to appear. Reduced and unreduced phrasal comparatives. Natural language and linguistic theory .
Bogal-Allbritten, Elizabeth. 2010. Decomposing adjectival meaning in Navajo.
Ms. University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Boˇskovi´c, ˇZeljko, and Jon Gajewski. to appear. Semantic Correlates of the NP/DP Parameter. In Proceedings of NELS 39.
Bouchard, David- ´Etienne. 2010. Degree quantifiers. Ms. PhD thesis proposal, McGIll University.
Giannakidou, Anastasia, and Suwon Yoon. to appear. The subjective mode of comparison: metalinguistic comparatives in Greek and Korean. Natural language and linguistic theory.
Heim, Irene. 1999. Notes on superlatives. Ms. MIT.
Kennedy, Christopher. 2007. Modes of comparison. In Proceedings from the Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, volume 43, 141–165.
Chicago Linguistic Society.
Lechner, Winfried. 2001. Reduced and phrasal comparatives. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory19:683–735. URL
http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1013378908052, 10.1023/A:1013378908052.
Lechner, Winfried. 2004. Ellipsis in comparatives. Mouton De Gruyter.
Lin, Jo-wang. 2009. Chinese comparatives and their implicational parameters.
Natural Language Semantics17:1–27. URL
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11050-008-9033-3, 10.1007/s11050-008-9033-3.
Matsui, Ai, and Yusuke Kubota. to appear. Comparatives and Contrastiveness:
Semantics and Pragmatics of Japanese Hoo Comparatives. In Proceedings of Formal Approaches to Japanese Linguistics, volume 5.
Merchant, Jason. 2009. Phrasal and clausal comparatives in greek and the abstractness of syntax. Journal of Greek Linguistics 9:134–164.
Miyagawa, Shigeru. 2008. Genitive subjects in Altaic. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL4), volume 56, 181–198. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics.
Rett, Jessica. 2008. Antonymy and evaluativity. In Proceedings of salt xvii. CLC Publications.
Sawada, Osamu, and Thomas Grano. 2009. Scale structure, coercion, and the interpretation of measure phrases in Japanese. Ms. University of Chicago.
Schwarz, Bernhard, and Junko Shimoyama. to appear. Negative Islands and obviation by wa in Japanese degree questions. In Proceedings of SALT 20, ed.
David Lutz et al. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.
Shimoyama, Junko. 2010. Cross-linguistic (non-)variation in clausal comparatives. Ms. McGIll University.
Shimoyama, Junko. to appear. Degree quantification and the size of noun modifiers. In Japanese/Korean Linguistics, volume 18. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Shimoyama, Junko, and Bernhard Schwarz. to appear. Japanese wa: Negative Islands and anti-exhaustivity. In Proceedings of FAJL 5, ed. Ryan Bennett et al. Cambridge: MIT Working Papers in Linguistics.
Stassen, Leon. 1985. Comparison and universal grammar. Blackwell.
Stassen, Leon. 2005. Comparative constructions. In The world atlas of language structures, ed. David Gil Martin Haspelmath, Matthew S. Dryer and Bernard Comrie, 490–493. Oxford University Press.
Sudo, Yasutada. 2010. Hidden nominal structures in japanese clausal compaaratives. Ms. MIT.
Svenonius, Peter, and Christopher Kennedy. 2006. Northern Norwegian degree questions and the syntax of measurement. In Phases of interpretation, ed.
M. Farascarelli, 133–161. Mouton de Gruyter.
Tomioka, Satoshi. 2009. Contrastive topics operate on Speech Acts. In Information structure: Theoretical, typological, and experimental
perspectives, ed. Malte Zimmermann and Caroline F´ery, 115–138. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Ultan, Russell. 1972. Some features of basic comparative constructions. In Stanford working papers on language universals, volume 9, 117–162.
Stanford University.
Vander Klok, Jozina. 2009. Adjectival modification in Javanese. Ms. Evaluation paper, McGill University.
Wagner, Michael. 2010. Contrastive topics decomposed. Ms. McGIll University.
Xiang, M. 2003. A phrasal analysis of Chinese comparatives. In Proceedings from the Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, volume 39, 739–754. Chicago Ling Society.
