Optimization in Grammar

Spring 2003-4

Linguistics 227
T 3:15-5:30 P.M.
Room 160-B37 (Wallenberg Center)
changed to Gates 100

Joan Bresnan
office: Jordan 420-022
ph: (650) 723-0144 (office), (650) 723-4284 (dept)
em: bresnan@stanford.edu
www:

http://www-lfg.stanford.edu/bresnan/

Gerhard Jäger
em: gjaeger@stanford.edu
www:

 http://www.ling.uni-potsdam.de/~jaeger/

Course description: This is a small and informal, theoretically oriented seminar devoted to current topics in optimization-based approaches to syntax, primarily variants of OT. This year the seminar will have guest lectures/discussions by Gerhard Jaeger, Elena Maslova, Judith Aissen, David Beaver, and Brady Clark. The topics will include:

• optionality and gradient judgments
• learnability
• cumulativity
• discourse and pragmatics
• bidirectionality
• language change and directionality

Required for this course:

All suggested readings are available on or through the web. It is recommended to download the Praat computational system to experiment with analyses:

http://www.praat.org