 Department of English Language and Literature |
||||||
 |
||||||
 |
||||||
|
||||||
Return to Undergraduate Schedule Return to Graduate Schedule |
English 441/541: English Grammars This course is a descriptive approach to the study of English syntax and in that guise addresses a fundamental question of linguistic theory: What do human beings know when they acquire a language? Given the empirical nature of this question, descriptive linguistics does not endeavor to tell speakers and writers how they should use their language, but rather sets itself the task of recording, representing, and archiving the actual linguistic performances/usages of speakers and writers. The chief instructional objective of the course is to learn to do some basic grammatical analysis of English syntax and in the process also learn to extrapolate principles of universal grammar. Huddleston and Pullum's A Student's Introduction will be our basic text for this course but Radford's English Syntax will provide a basic framework of explanatory principles drawn from Chomsky's Minimalist Program. Not being a theoretical purist, I will not hesitate to invoke and propose pragmatic explanations for syntactic structure wherever/whenever theoretical statements exhibit certain limits. A Student's Introduction is a required text for both undergraduate and graduate students. Radford's text is a required text for graduate students only and recommended for undergraduates. Both of these texts address the basic questions related to the composition of universal grammar— language as a symbolic gift. |
|||||
|
||||||