Reading journal: Spring Term, Weeks 2 and 3

The Acquisition of Syntax by Children

Bloom, P. (1990). Subjectless sentences in child language, Linguistic Inquiry, 21, 491-504.

Hyams, N. (2008). The acquisition of inflection: a parameter-setting approach. Language Acquisition, 15, 192-209. 

Vainikka, A., G. Legendre and M. Todorova (1999). PLU-stages: an independent measure of early syntactic development. Cognitive Science: Technical Report, 99 (10), 2-25.

Valian, V. (1990). Null subjects: a problem for parameter setting models of language acquisition. Cognition, 35, 105-122.

Westergaard, M. (2009) Usage-based vs rule-based learning: the acquisition of word-order in wh-questions in English and Norwegian. Journal of Child Language, 36, 1023-1051.

Topics in Syntax

Chomsky, N. (1991). Some notes on economy of derivation and representation. In: R. Freidin (ed.): Principles and Parameters in Comparative Grammar. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press. Ch. 14.

Chomsky, N. and H. Lasnik (2005). The theory of principles and parameters. In: Chomsky, N. The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, Ch.1.

Johnson, K. (1991). Object positions. Natural language and linguistic theory, 9(4), 577-636.

Advanced Topics in Syntax and Semantics (audited UG module)

Chomsky, N. (1986). Knowledge of language: its nature, origin and use. Praeger: New York, pp.164-186.

Schlenker, P.  (2005). Non-redundancy: towards a semantic reinterpretation of binding theory. Natural Language Semantics, 13, 1-92.