Course Description
Acquisition Evidence for Fundamental Operations within a Minimalist
Framework (B Course)
Tom Roeper
|
This course will discuss first a theory of Defaults and the Initial
State of the acquisition device. Then we will examine evidence for
primitive operations of Merge and Agreement in naturalistic data and
language disordered data. We will develop a theory
of Multiple Grammars to account for apparent gradualism and the existence
of stages in acquisition. We will articulate the critical role of recursion
in differentiating grammars, with respect to compounds, concord phenomena,
and complementation (theory of mind). We will address the question of how
"triggering experience" utilizes interfaces between grammar and cognition. We will then look for similar principles in experimental data on more complex syntactic structures, reviewing current work on NP/DP distinction, wh-movement, there-insertion, temporal nouns, and articles. These topics then lead to a sketch of how discourse factors emerge in acquisition. Students will be asked to develop experiments for new structures and project their implications for both linguistic theory and acquisition. Individual conferences will be available for those who are developing experiments that they intend to carry out. Tom Roeper roeper@linguist.umass.edu The handouts that will be used in class can be downloaded here: Handout 1: The Emergence of Wh-Variables Handout 2: Acquisition of Quantification Handout 3: Semantic Aspects of Syntactic Defaults and Articles Handout 4: Superiority: Syntax or Semantics? Handout 5:Acquisition of wh-movement Handout 6: The Expletive Triggers Discourse Anaphor Handout 7: Multiple Grammars Theory Handout 8: Toward A Formal Distinction Between Agreement and Concord Handout 9: Where to find Disorders in Complex Syntax of 5yr Olds Handout 10: Finding Fundamental Operations: Feature Merging, Feature Splitting, Feature Command, and Abstract Agreement |