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2022/2023

Descriptive and Prescriptive Grammar: From Clause to Utterance

Code: 105824 ECTS Credits: 6
Degree Type Year Semester
2503998 Catalan Philology: Literary Studies and Linguistics FB 1 2
2504380 English and Catalan Studies FB 1 2
2504388 Catalan and Spanish Studies FB 1 2

Contact

Name:
Xavier Villalba Nicolas
Email:
xavier.villalba@uab.cat

Use of Languages

Principal working language:
catalan (cat)
Some groups entirely in English:
No
Some groups entirely in Catalan:
Yes
Some groups entirely in Spanish:
No

Teachers

Sebastiā Salvā i Puig

Prerequisites

None.

Objectives and Contextualisation

Provide the student with a solid knowledge of the functioning of syntax of the Catalan sentence, both from a descriptive and normative point of view.

Competences

    Catalan Philology: Literary Studies and Linguistics
  • Act with ethical responsibility and respect for fundamental rights, diversity and democratic values.
  • Analyse the phonetic, phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical and semantic properties of the Catalan language, its evolution over time and its present structure.
  • Critically read and interpret texts.
  • Demonstrate a mastery of the rules of the Catalan language, its linguistic bases and all its application in the academic and professional fields.
  • Display teamwork skills.
  • Innovate in the methods and processes of this area of knowledge in response to the needs and wishes of society.
  • Interpret the political, social and cultural factors that affect the use of the Catalan language and its evolution over time and at the present day.
  • Produce written work and oral presentations that are effective and framed in the appropriate register.
  • Students must be capable of applying their knowledge to their work or vocation in a professional way and they should have building arguments and problem resolution skills within their area of study.
  • Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.
  • 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 to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
    English and Catalan Studies
  • Act with ethical responsibility and respect for fundamental rights and duties, diversity and democratic values.
  • Analyse the main phonetic, phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical and semantic properties of the Catalan and English languages, their evolution throughout history and their current structures.
  • Apply the concepts, resources and methods acquired during the study of variations of English and Catalan language, be it in a historical context or in the current global social and multilingual context.
  • Carry out effective written work or oral presentations adapted to the appropriate register in different languages.
  • Critically apply the different instruments of analysis to different types of linguistic data.
  • Demonstrate knowledge of the rules of Catalan and mastery of its foundations and applications in the academic and professional fields.
  • Demonstrate the ability to work autonomously and in teams with the aim of attaining the planned objectives in multicultural and interdisciplinary contexts.
  • Innovate in the methods and processes of this area of knowledge in response to the needs and wishes of society.
  • 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.
  • Use digital tools and specific documentary sources to gather and organise information.
    Catalan and Spanish Studies
  • Act with ethical responsibility and respect for fundamental rights and duties, diversity and democratic values.
  • Analyse the main factors of linguistic variation in the Catalan and Spanish languages, whether historical-political, diatopical, semantic or pragmatic and their historical evolution and current state.
  • Analyse the main phonetic, phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical and semantic properties of the Catalan and Spanish languages, their historical evolution and their current structure.
  • Carry out effective written work or oral presentations adapted to the appropriate register in different languages.
  • Demonstrate knowledge of the rules of Catalan and Spanish and mastery of their applications in the academic and professional fields.
  • Demonstrate the ability to work autonomously and in teams with the aim of attaining the planned objectives in multicultural and interdisciplinary contexts.
  • Innovate in the methods and processes of this area of knowledge in response to the needs and wishes of society.
  • 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.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Analyse linguistic structures.
  2. Analyse the most problematic phonetic, phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical and semantic properties of the present-day language.
  3. Analyse the principles of lexical semantics that affect the internal structure of words and their syntactic combination.
  4. Analyse the syntactic structures of simple, complex, modalised and discursively marked clauses.
  5. Analyse various types of linguistic data.
  6. Analyze linguistic structures.
  7. Analyze properties phonetic, phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical and semantic language that current problems arise.
  8. Analyzing linguistic structures.
  9. Apply the principles of correctness required in the standard language and the different registers and variants.
  10. Correctly identify linguistic units.
  11. Describe the combinatory processes for creating linguistic units.
  12. Describe the process of creating combinatorial linguistic units.
  13. Distinguish the systematic from the normative aspects in the study of language.
  14. Fix the errors in the use of language to non-native speakers.
  15. Gain a greater capacity for reading, interpreting and critically analysing literary and linguistic texts.
  16. Identify principal and secondary ideas and express them using correct language.
  17. Identify the main and secondary ideas and express them with linguistic correctness.
  18. Identify the origin of errors made by non-native speakers when using the language.
  19. Identify the source of errors in the use of language by non-native speakers.
  20. Identify the source of errors in the use of language to non-native speakers.
  21. Identifying the main and secondary ideas and expressing them with linguistic correctness.
  22. Interpret texts in depth and provide standpoints from which to analyse them critically.
  23. Locate specialised and academic information and select this according to its relevance.
  24. Maintain an attitude of respect for the opinions, values, behaviors and practices of others.
  25. Make appropriate use of the knowledge acquired in order to collect data and handle documentary sources in the study of Catalan language and literature.
  26. Match the known internal and external properties of the language to the different conditions of use.
  27. Plan work effectively, individually or in groups, in order to fulfil the planned objectives.
  28. Plan, organise and carry out work in a team.
  29. Produce normatively correct written and oral texts.
  30. Produce written and oral texts with correction rules.
  31. Produce written work and oral presentations that are effective and framed in the appropriate register.
  32. Properly apply the knowledge gained to data collection and management of documentary sources application to the study of Catalan language and literature.
  33. Resolve errors in the use of language by non-native speakers.
  34. Respect the opinions, values, behaviour and customs of others.
  35. Strengthen the capacity of reading, interpretation and critical analysis of literary texts and language.
  36. Students must be capable of applying their knowledge to their work or vocation in a professional way and they should have building arguments and problem resolution skills within their area of study.
  37. Troubleshoot errors made by non-native speakers when using the language.
  38. Use technological resources (digital and audiovisual) to acquire knowledge and apply it in language and literature.
  39. Work independently in the synchronic and diachronic study of Catalan language and literature.
  40. Work self-sufficiently on the synchronic and diachronic study of Catalan language and literature.
  41. Write text commentaries from a critical standpoint.

Content

  1. Descriptive and normative syntax
  2. Syntactic units and their structure
  3. The sentence
    1. Utterances, sentences and fragments
    2. Sentence structure
    3. Syntactic functions and positions in the structure
  4. The order of words
    1. Basic and marked word order
    2. Grammatically-based alterations of basic order
    3. Information-based alterations of basic order

Methodology

Learning activities are organized as follows:

1) Directed activities (40%)

2) Supervised activities (30%)

3) Autonomous activities (30%)

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 39 1.56 26, 3, 1, 4, 11, 10, 18, 34, 37
Text discussion and problem analysis at class 15 0.6 26, 3, 1, 4, 2, 9, 11, 10, 18, 34, 36, 37
Type: Supervised      
Essay 35 1.4 25, 31, 16, 34, 28, 29, 40, 38
Exercises 10 0.4 1, 25, 9, 11, 31, 10, 16, 36, 41, 40, 38
Type: Autonomous      
Reading 15 0.6 25, 16, 22, 15, 41
Study 30 1.2 25, 22, 15, 40

Assessment

The evaluation is continuous. Students must provide evidence of their progress by completing assignments and tests.

To pass the course you must obtain a minimum grade of 5.

The detailed calendar with the content of the different sessions will be exposed on the day of presentation of the subject. It will also be posted on the Virtual Campus, where students can find a detailed description of the exercises and practices, the various teaching materials and any information necessary for the proper monitoring of the subject. In the event that the tests cannot be carried out in person, their format will be adapted (maintaining their weighting) to the possibilities offered by the UAB virtual tools. Homework, activities and participation in class will be done through forums, wikis / or exercise discussions through Teams, ensuring that all students can access it.

In the event that the student commits any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade of an assessment act, this assessment act will be graded with 0, regardless of the disciplinary process that may be instructed. In the event of several irregularities in the evaluation acts of the same subject, the final grade for this subject will be 0.

Review

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.

Failed students may recover suspended assessment activities or compensate for those not submitted, provided they meet the following two conditions. First of all,they have completed assessable items corresponding to two thirds of the total grade of the course or module; second, they must have obtained a weighted average grade of the set of assessable items of at least 3.5. Neither the partial test, nor the complementary activity nor group deliveries can be re-evaluated. The maximum grade for recovery is 5.

Theteacher will inform the students of the recovery procedure through the Virtual Campus when he / she publishes the provisional final grades. Theteacher will be able to establish an evaluation activity for each activity passed or not presented or a single activity to cover all these activities.

Students will obtain a Not assessed/Not submitted course grade unless they have submitted more than 30% of the assessment items.

Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Complementary activity 10% 0.5 0.02 26, 5, 3, 1, 6, 8, 4, 2, 7, 25, 32, 9, 11, 12, 13, 10, 19, 20, 18, 16, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24, 34, 27, 28, 15, 35, 29, 30, 36, 41, 33, 14, 37, 40, 39, 38
Delivery of individual and group exercises 35% 2 0.08 1, 4, 2, 25, 9, 11, 31, 10, 18, 16, 22, 34, 28, 15, 29, 36, 41, 37, 40, 38
Final written test 40% 2 0.08 26, 3, 1, 4, 2, 11, 10, 16, 36
Partial written test 15% 1.5 0.06 26, 3, 4, 25, 31, 16, 22, 34, 28, 15, 29, 40, 38

Bibliography

 

Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua. Gramàtica normativa valenciana. Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua. Disponible en línia: http://www.avl.gva.es/gnv

Esteve, Francesc, Josepa Melià. 2016. Gramàtica zero. Universitat de València. Disponible per descarregar: https://www.uv.es/splweb/Documentos/gramatica_zero.pdf

Institut d’Estudis Catalans. 2016. Gramàtica de la llengua catalana. Institut d’Estudis Catalans. Disponible en línia: https://giec.iec.cat/inici

Solà, Joan, Maria Rosa Lloret, Joan Mascaró & Manuel Pérez Saldanya (eds.), Gramàtica del Català Contemporani. Barcelona: Empúries.

 

Descriptive and normative syntax

Pérez Saldanya, Manuel & Gemma Rigau. 2018. La Gramàtica de la llengua catalana de l’Institut d’Estudis Catalans. Llengua & Literatura 28. 227–236.

Rigau, Gemma. 2018. Norma i descripció gramatical. Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis Catalans. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzLW156CycI

 

Syntactic units and their structure

Bosque, Ignacio & Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach. 2009. Fundamentos de sintaxis formal. Lingüística. Madrid: Akal. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13398-014-0173-7.2. cap. 3. Las palabras y los sintagmas I: la estructura de los constituyentes.

 

The sentence

Bel, Aurora. 2008. Les funcions sintàctiques. In Joan Solà, Maria Rosa Lloret, Joan Mascaró & Manuel Pérez Saldanya (eds.), Gramàtica del Català Contemporani, vol. 2, 1075–1147. Barcelona: Empúries.

Bosque, Ignacio & Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach. 2009. Fundamentos de sintaxis formal. Lingüística. Madrid: Akal. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13398-014-0173-7.2. sec. 4.1-4.2.

 

Word order

Vallduví, Enric. 2008. L’oració com a unitat informativa. In Joan Solà, Maria Rosa Lloret, Joan Mascaró & Manuel Pérez Saldanya (eds.), Gramàtica del Català Contemporani, vol. 2, 1223–1279. Barcelona: Empúries.

Villalba, Xavier. 2019. El orden de palabras en contraste. Madrid: Arco/Libros.

Software

None.