This seminar is "advanced". Participation requires some background in generative syntax, such as the COG-A class from a previous year and/or knowledge of phrase structure, c-command, movement operations, and basic constraints on movement.
If one of the most central semantic units is the proposition, one of the most important syntactic units is the clause. In this course we will investigate the syntax of different types of clause, which will involve us in discussion of the interfaces between syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Questions we will investigate include the following:
Clauses come in different sizes—
1. a. I consider [Maria unsuitable]
b. He said [that on this occasion Maria would probably have been unsuitable].
—Are there any essential ingredients to a clause? If so, what are they? Can they vary from one language to another?
The most commonly assumed "clause types" are declaratives, interrogatives, and imperatives. More recently there has been a good deal of discussion of exclamatives—
2. a. She can run incredibly fast.
b. How fast can she run?
c. Run!
d. How fast she can run!
Does this make sense as a way to categorise clauses? What determines clause type? Is it a syntactic, a semantic, or a pragmatic notion? What can it tell us about the relation between syntax and interpretation?
We typically distinguish between subordination and coordination as ways in which clauses can be related to each other; related concepts are those of "subordinate" and "root" clause:
3. a. Luke claimed that Lucy was away.
b. Luke was around and Lucy was away.
What are the syntactic, semantics, and pragmatic hallmarks of "root" and "subordinate" status, and how can we account for the mismatches that have been observed? And what of parataxis as a third type of relation between clauses?
Grammars often refer to "adverbial clauses" in describing cases like the following:
4. They left [because it had got dark/before it got dark/when it got dark/if it got dark/although it was not dark].
What is the syntax of such clauses?
