Advanced English Syntax
Code: 100188 ECTS Credits: 6| Degree | Type | Year | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2500245 English Studies | OT | 3 | 2 |
| 2500245 English Studies | OT | 4 | 2 |
Contact
- Name:
- Susagna Tubau Muntaņa
- Email:
- susagna.tubau@uab.cat
Use of Languages
- Principal working language:
- english (eng)
- Some groups entirely in English:
- Yes
- Some groups entirely in Catalan:
- No
- Some groups entirely in Spanish:
- No
Prerequisites
English level required: C2. With C2 the student can straightforwardly understand practically everything s/he reads or hears, summarise information from different oral and written sources, reconstruct facts and arguments and present them in a coherent way, express himself/herself naturally and fluently, distinguishing subtle meaning nuances even in the most complex situations.
Knowledge of basic syntactic notions as the ones covered in the second year subject English Syntax (100223).
Objectives and Contextualisation
- To identify the structure of English sentences and the elements these are made of.
- To recognize the operations and processes that underlie characteristic constructions in English such as different types of yes-no and wh-interrogatives, passives, raising, non-finite clauses or those including expletive elements.
- To be able to assess different syntactic analyses for specific constructions.
Competences
- English Studies
- Critically assessing the scientific, literary and cultural production in the English language.
- Describe synchronously the main grammar units, constructions and phenomena of the English language.
- Develop critical thinking and reasoning and knowing how to communicate effectively both in your mother tongue and in other languages.
- Distinguish and contrast the various theoretical and methodological models applied to the study of the English language, its literature and its culture.
- Generate innovative and competitive proposals in research and professional activities.
- Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
- Students must develop the necessary learning skills in order to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
- Working in an autonomous and responsible way in a professional or research environment in English or other languages, in order to accomplish the previously set objectives.
Learning Outcomes
- Analysing the fundamental syntactic operations.
- Apply the acquired knowledge to the generation of innovative and competitive research on a basic level.
- Applying the acquired methodologies of work planning to work in an environment in the English language.
- Applying the acquired scientific and work planning methodologies to the research in English.
- Communicating in the studied language in oral and written form, properly using vocabulary and grammar.
- Critically assessing the analysis and syntactic, morphological and lexicological elements submitted during the course.
- Demonstrate a master of the specific methods of individual academic work that prepare the student for a postgraduate specialised education in the same or a different field of study.
- Effectively communicating and applying the argumentative and textual processes to formal and scientific texts.
- Identifying and understanding new syntactic elements.
- Mastering the advanced knowledge and scientific methodologies related to linguistics, literature, history and culture that prepare the student for a postgraduate specialised education in the same or a different field of study.
- Produce new professional initiatives.
- Students must be capable of comprehending advanced academic or professional texts in their own language or the another acquired in the degree.
- Students must be capable of precisely arguing ideas and opinions in their own language or another acquired in the degree.
- Understanding and deepening in the conceptual and theoretical foundations needed in order to carry out a syntactic analysis of a sentence from different points of view.
Content
1. Introduction: Core concepts
2. Subjects and objects
3. The Deteminer Phrase (DP)
4. The Complementizer Phrase (CP)
5. Wh-movement and locality
Methodology
Directed activities:
Lectures and group discussions.
Supervised activities:
Exercises and projects.
Back-up tutorials to help in the realisation of exercises and projects.
Autonomous activities:
Reading of manuals and chapters of textbooks.
Elaboration of study diagrams, summaries and texts.
Practical exercises (individual and in group).
Projects (individual and in group).
Use of the Virtual Campus.
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Activities
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| Lectures and group debate | 50 | 2 | 1, 3, 4, 2, 7, 14, 8, 5, 9 |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| Classroom exercises, individual tutorials and assessment | 25 | 1 | 1, 3, 4, 2, 7, 14, 8, 5, 9 |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| Reading, revision, exercises and projects, and use of the Campus Virtual | 50 | 2 | 1, 3, 4, 2, 7, 14, 8, 5, 9 |
Assessment
This course is assessed on the basis of four parts: two partial exams (35% and 35%), an assignment (20%) and a series of classroom exercises to encourage class attendance (10%).
On carrying out each evaluation activity, lecturers will inform students (on Moodle) of the procedures to be followed for reviewing all grades awarded, and the date on which such a review will take place.
REASSESSMENT
Students with a final course mark of 3.5/10 who have taken the two mid-terms and submitted the assignment are eligible for reassessment.
The reassessment exam will be a written test, at a time assigned by the Faculty, which will synthesise the contents of the course.
Students will obtain a *No avaluable (Not assessed) course grade if they have completed no more than 35% of the course assessment.
In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.
VERY IMPORTANT: Plagiarism in any of the exercises will automatically lead to FAILING (0/10) the exercise, which cannot be reassessed. If the student plagiarises a second time, s/he will fail the course. PLAGIARISM means copying a text (and this includes a single sentence) from unidentified sources and pretending it is part of one's own production (THIS INCLUDES COPYING SENTENCES OR FRAGMENTS FROM THE INTERNET, WHICH ARE INCLUDED WITHOUT ANY CHANGES TO THE TEXT THAT IS PRESENTED AS ONE'S OWN) and it is a serious academic offence. Students must learnto respect others' intellectual property and to always identify the sources they use. It is absolutely necessary for students to become entirely responsible for theoriginality and authenticity of their texts.
Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Assignment | 20% | 8 | 0.32 | 1, 3, 4, 2, 13, 12, 7, 14, 8, 5, 11, 9 |
| Classroom exercises | 10% | 2 | 0.08 | 1, 2, 13, 6, 10, 7, 14, 8, 5, 9 |
| Midterm 1 | 35% | 7.5 | 0.3 | 1, 6, 12, 10, 14, 8, 5, 9 |
| Midterm 2 | 35% | 7.5 | 0.3 | 1, 3, 4, 2, 7, 14, 8, 5, 9 |
Bibliography
COURSE BOOKS:
Adger, David. 2003. Core Syntax. A Minimalist Approach, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Edelstein, Elspeth. 2020. English Syntax. A Minimalist Account of Structure and Variation. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Koeneman, Olaf & Hedde Zeijlstra. 2017. Introducing Syntax. New York: Cambridge University Press.
OTHER REFERENCES:
Aarts, Bas. 1997. English Syntax and Argumentation, London: MacMillan.
Haegeman , Liliane & Jaqueline Guéron. 1999. English Grammar. A Generative Perspective, Oxford: Blackwell.
Llinàs, Mireia, Capdevila, Monterrat, Dominguez, Joaquín, Moyer, Melissa, Pladevall, Elisabet & Susagna Tubau. 2014. [SECOND EDITION]. Basic concepts for the Analysis of English Sentences. Bellaterra: Servei de Publicacions.
Ouhalla, Jamal. 1994. Introducing Transformational Grammar. From Rules to Principles and Parameters, University Press London: Eduard Arnold.
Radford, Andrew. 1997. Syntax: A Minimalist Introduction , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Radford, Andrew. 2004. Minimalist Syntax. Exploring the Structure of English, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Radford, Andrew, Martin Atkinson, David Britain, Harald Clahsen & Andrew Spencer. 1999. Linguistics. An Introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Roberts, Ian. 1997. Comparative Syntax, London: Arnold.
Software
Not applicable.