LING20006: Syntax

Assignment 1 (25%): This was about analysing a given foreign data set with no translations. Part 1 involved identifying/explaining word classes, sentence structures, and grammatical morphemes, before predicting a new grammatical sentence. Part 2 introduced more sentences, and made us revise our initial analysis and identify/explain possible ambiguities. I personally found this assignment difficult and muddled my way through it. Despite the first two tutorials covering something similar, I had no previous experience with identifying morphemes and the like, and couldn't keep up. Don't be afraid to bombard your tutor with questions though! Mine (Kate Horrack) was a lifesaver.

Assignment 2 (25%): This was a four-part assignment about X-bar syntax and the complement/adjunct distinction. We had to distinguish between ambiguous sentences, draw tree diagrams, argue for complements/adjuncts, identify problems/solutions of X-bar theory, and detail any new rules. Phrase structure rules were provided.

Take-home Exam (50%): The exam format differs from year to year, with some involving one question with many structured parts, and others testing a variety of topics. Ours was a bit of both, and touched on complex sentences, grammatical functions, and relative clauses. I was told that this was the last year for Syntax take-home exams, however.

Note: Students could collaborate on the assignments as long as they submitted their own versions, but NOT the final exam.

I went in with the preconception that Syntax was dull and difficult, but unexpectedly found myself liking it. Both Peter and Kate were enthusiastic, engaging, friendly, and helpful, which I think made the subject less dry and intimidating. Make no mistake though: Syntax is a difficult subject with a heavy workload. I found some areas unbearably technical and struggled a lot, although this was partly compounded by having not taken The Secret Life of Language as well as my own laziness in not keeping up with the readings and tutorial exercises. You don't have to be a native speaker of English to take this subject, but it will be easier if you are. Be prepared for lots of confusion and second-guessing, but remain diligent and you will be rewarded.

Yes, with screen capture.

Peter Hurst

No.

4.5/5

The textbook was Analyzing Grammar: An Introduction by Kroeger (2005). It held some readings and was used during a few tutorials, but I don't know how essential it ultimately was as I never bought it. A subject reader was also available from the co-op

Contact Hours: 2 x 1 hour lectures and a 1 x 1 hour tutorial per week. Tutorials ran from week 2-12. There were also optional reading groups held amongst the students.

2013, Semester 2

H2A

2 x Assignments (25% each), 1 x Take home exam (50%)

Firstly I will start by saying that this is not an easy subject. If you have no interest in linguistics, English, languages, grammar or problem solving, then stay well away. Although the workload is pretty light, if you have no idea what is going on, then there is a fair chance that you will fail. This subject is pretty much like maths. If you get what is going on, it is wonderful. If you don't then it might as well be Chinese. It is recommended that you have done some prior LING study (i.e. Secret Life of Language) to do this subject. I would probably agree that this will make your job a whole lot easier, especially for the first 3 or 4 weeks. It would be very challenging if you have not done any linguistics or at least VCE English Language beforehand.

That aside, what you learn in the subject is pretty much the principles of sentence structure and grammar in both English as well as in other languages. To be honest, the assessment focuses mostly on English stuff and it is this stuff which gets rather hard and complex. When you do other languages it is usually less complex and slightly easier because I guess they are being more lenient seeing as it is a foreign language. You don't have to know any languages other than English to do this subject.

The lectures for this subject were average and moderately useful. The tutes were also average but you definitely need to go along because firstly, attendance is compulsory and less than 75% will result in a fail. Secondly, the tutes teach you how to solve all the stuff which is important for the assessment, so make sure you go, participate and write everything down. The lecturer was also decent in that he said he didn't care if we collaborated on assignments, so long as we all wrote out our own work.

The first assignment was pretty straight forward. 2/5 of it was just getting given English words in a sentence and then using evidence to argue for whether the underlined words were verbs, nouns, adjectives etc. The rest of the assignment involved analysing a foreign data set with NO translations (ours was an Aboriginal language) and then grouping the words into lexical classes (verb, noun, adjective etc.) and giving reasons. Whilst this sounds hard, it really isn't that bad and they show you how to do it in the tutes.

The second assignment on the other hand was much harder. The whole thing was about analyzing English sentences, and drawing tree structures for these sentences and then arguing for the tree you draw. This assignment is mainly about something called the complement/adjunct distinction. You get given phrase structure rules to help draw your trees, but it is not so formulaic because the sentences that they give you are often ambiguous and therefore require you to think very hard about the structure which you assign them. You also should draw your tree diagrams on the computer. I found a program called 'Tree Form' very helpful for this. At the end of this assignment there was also some sentences which did not follow the given phrase structure rules, and you had to explain why.

Both of the assignments had a nasty trick in them. It is pretty obvious as to what the trick is, as it will most likely be the part of your analysis which doesn't really make sense or fit in with the rest of the data. You pretty much just have to keep working on it and you'll eventually work it out though.

As for the take home exam, I cannot really remember much of it, other than it being rather difficult and having only 4 days to do it. I also had 2 actual exams in these 4 days, so you need to manage your time well. The take home exam pretty much addressed only the final topic, which was complex sentence constructions. This is the hardest topic and requires a fair level of understanding. Still, if you can do the tute problems you should be fine. I remember a particularly annoying question about subject/object raising and subject/object control on the exam, so make sure you understand this well. Complement clauses and relative clauses are also an important part of this topic and came up on the exam. You just need to work through the paper until you have solid evidence and reasoning to argue for your answers. If you can do this, you can be sure you have the right answer. If not, then you probably have the wrong answer. I was really scared by the take home exam and wasn't sure if I had done it right, and ended up with 49/50 on it, so just make sure you back yourself and fully answer the questions. Also, just note that the lecturer was really anal about people NOT collaborating on the take home exam, and seeing as it is a small subject, there is a fair chance you'll get caught, so don't do it.
As for this subject on the whole, if you get what is going on, then it is somewhat of a bludge. You don't really have to learn anything by heart as there is no true exam. Just make sure you are familiar with everything and you can look up specifics at your leisure. I did minimal study, and just spent countless hours on the assignments and exam, because this is all that really matters. There's no point learning the extra stuff unless you're really into it. If you really enjoy analysing things and solving problems, then this is definitely the subject for you. If not, then steer clear!

Yes, with screen capture. Still useless though because the lecturer often writes on the board.

Brett Baker

No, but if you ask nicely I guess they might give it to you.

4/5

Analyzing grammar: an introduction'. Paul Kroeger. 2005. Cambridge University Press. This textbook is good, but not great. It covers some of the stuff you learn well, and other stuff not at all. Probably not worth buying, but luckily it can be found online pretty easily. There is also a very crappy reader for the subject available from the bookshop. You probably have to buy it because it will have 1 or 2 useful pages, but it mostly has stuff in it which is already in the lecture slides. Thankfully it is cheap.

There are also a whole bunch of very badly organised readings on the LMS. Don't read them unless the lecturer tells you to. There was one really useful one which pretty much told you exactly how to answer an exam question, because it used the same example. The lecturer made an effort of putting it up a couple of days before the exam so it was pretty obvious that you should read it.

2 x 1 hour lectures per week, 1 x 1 hour tutorial per week (starting in week 2)

2011, Semester 2

97 H1