11-721: Grammars and Lexicons

Fall 2007

Syllabus Lectures & Readings Recitation Schedule Homework & Grammar Writing Project Extra Credit Unix and Emacs Tutorial Resources

Course Info

Time:    Monday, Wednesday 1:30-2:50 pm
Place:   Newell-Simon Hall 3002; (starting November 7 the location will change) 

Instructors:
Lori Levin
Associate Research Professor
Language Technologies Institute
Newell-Simon Hall 4631
268-6193
Email: lsl[at]cs.cmu.edu
Office hours: by appointment and by chance

Teruko Mitamura
Research Professor
Language Technologies Institute
Newell-Simon Hall 4621
268-6596
Email: teruko[at]cs.cmu.edu
Office hours: by appointment and by chance

Teaching Assistant:
Cari Sisson
MLT Student
Language Technologies Institute
Newell-Simon Hall 3612
268-7945
Email: csisso[at]cs.cmu.edu
Office hours: by appointment (send me email, or stop by to setup a time)


Midterm

Date:   Friday, November 2
Time:  1 - 4 pm
Place:  ?  

Syllabus

 * Download Acrobat Reader.


Lectures & Readings

Date Topic Reading
Part 1: Phrase Structure, Categories, and Argumentation (Lori Levin)
Mon., Aug. 27 Syllabus and course requirements
 Kroeger, pp. 1-5
Sag, et al., Syntactic Theory, pp. 1-20
Pinker, The Language Instinct, Ch. 4 & 5
Manning, Probabilistic Syntax
Wed., Aug. 29 Preliminary definitions, Tests, Grammaticality, Lexical and Phrasal Categories
How do linguists study grammar?		 Schacter, Parts of Speech Systems, in Shopen (ed.)
Radford, pp. 50-69
Mon., Sept. 3 NO CLASS (Labor Day)  
Wed., Sept. 5 Tests for constituency, Phrase Structure Rules
A Distributional Approach to Parts of Speech		 Radford, pp. 69-166
Kroeger, pp. 22-52
Mon., Sept. 10 Constraining, generalizing, and eliminating categorial rules
Trees and Constituents
PP-attachement
x-bar trees 		Radford, pp. 167-286
Part 2: Simple sentences: Diversity and Universals (Lori Levin)
Wed., Sept. 12 Semantic Roles
Sub-constituents of NP in English

Van Valin, pp. 21-33
Andrews, The Major Functions of the Noun Phrase, pp. 62-70, 80-96, in Shopen (ed.)
Mon., Sept. 17

Grammatical Relations;
slides covered on 17th and 19th

Reflexive pronouns; behavioral property of subjects

Van Valin, pp. 33-41
Andrews, pp. 71-77, 97-108
Comrie, pp. 86-102, 124-136

Van Valin, pp. 41-43
Kroeger, pp. 88-89, 95-97
Andrews, pp. 117-118
Wed., Sept. 19

Passives, Dative Shift and Applicatives
coding properties (case + agreement) handout
grammatical relations,slides

Kroeger, pp. 53-80
Van Valin, pp. 59-69
Andrews, pp. 119-130
Keenan, Passive in the World's Languages, in Shopen (ed.)
Mon., Sept. 24

Topic and Focus;

Pragmatics slides

Cross Linguistic Variation

Kroeger, pp. 135-161
Comrie, pp. 62-65
Ward and Birner, Information structure and Non-canonical Syntax in Horn and Ward (eds.), The Handbook of Pragmatics
Grundel and Fretheim, Topic and Focus, Handbook of Pragmatics

Comrie, pp. 70-74, 110-116
Andrews, pp. 130-184
Van Valin, pp. 70-85
Part 3: Complex Sentences: Diversity and Universals (Lori Levin)
Wed., Sept. 26

Coordinating and Switch Reference

Complement Clauses

applicatives handout
passives handout
passives, slides

Van Valin, pp. 56-58
Comrie, pp. 104-115
Payne, Complex Phrases and Complex Sentences, in Shopen (ed.)
Andrews, pp. 115-117.

Noonan, Complementation, in Shopen (ed.)
Radford, pp. 287-332
Andrews, pp. 113-115
Mon., Oct. 1

Control of understood subjects


 

Kroeger, pp. 103-132
Van Valin, pp. 49-56
Davies and Dubinsky, pp. 3-16
Andrews, pp. 112-113
Wed., Oct. 3

Adjunct Clauses

Non-finite clauses and control

Serial Verbs

Andrews, pp. 108-112
Thompson and Longacre, Adverbial Clauses, in Shopen (ed.)

Kroeger, pp. 222-254
Mon., Oct. 8 Causatives
Causative slides
 Kroeger, pp. 192-219
Comrie, pp 165-184
Wed., Oct. 10 Wh-questions, Relative clauses, clefts
Long Distance Dependencies (filler-gap) and Relative Clauses

Kroeger, pp. 165-189
Van Valin, pp. 43-49
Keenan, Relative Clauses, in Shopen (ed.)
Comrie, pp. 138-163
Mon., Oct. 15 Control: continued
Part 4: Intro to Lexical Functional Grammar (Lori Levin)
Wed., Oct. 17 Overview of Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG)
Control in Malagasy
Lexical Functional Grammar and Linguistic Theory

Kroeger, pp. 6-21
Bresnan, Lexical Functional Syntax, pp. 1-25
Bresnan, pp. 44-64
Kaplan, The Formal Architecture of Lexical Functional Grammar
Mon., Oct. 22 Review for midterm exam
 
Wed., Oct. 24  
Some basic English constructions in LFG

Bresnan, pp. 64-86
Kaplan and Zaenen, Long Distance Dependencies, Constituent Structure, and Functional Uncertainty, in Dalrymple, et al.
Mon., Oct. 29 Some basic English constructions in LFG
 Kaplan and Maxwell, Constituent Coordination in Lexical Functional Grammar in Dalrymple et al.
Wed., Oct. 31 TBA  
Part 5: Grammar Writing (Teruko Mitamura)
Mon., Nov. 5 Grammar Writing - Introduction
Introduction
Wed., Nov. 7 Grammar Writing
lecture 2
grammar guide handout
Mon., Nov. 12 Grammar Writing
lecture 3
Wed., Nov. 14 Grammar Writing
lecture 4
Mon., Nov. 19 Grammar Writing
lecture 5
Wed. Nov. 21 NO CLASS (Thanksgiving Break)
Mon., Nov. 26 Grammar Writing
lecture 6
Wed., Nov. 28 Grammar Writing
lecture 7
Mon., Dec. 3 Grammar Writing
Wed., Dec. 5 Grammar Writing


Recitation Schedule

Date Time Topic Room
Thursday, Oct 25th 
Friday, Oct 26th 		5-6 pm
3-4 pm 		Linux / Emacs Tutorial
Handouts: Getting Started; Emacs Commands;
Useful Emacs and Lisp Tips		 Cyert PC lab 

Grammar Writing Assignment

Due Date Topic Handouts
Wednesday, 14 November Steps 1 and 2: Planning and Design, Test Suite for one type of sentence (see project handout)
Friday, 7 December (3 pm) (hand in at to Cari's mailbox)
Full Grammar Writing Assignment Project handout
[pdf]


Assignments

Due Date Topic
Wednesday, September 19 Homework 1: Predeterminers, Determiners, and Adjectives, etc.
[PDF]
part I solutions [PDF]
part II solutions [PDF]
Wednesday, September 26 Homework 2: Tests for consituency
[PDF]
sample solutions [PDF]
*note that the key part of the explanation in 7 is gapping
Monday, October 8 Homework 3: Grammatical relations, passives, semantic roles.
[PDF]
selected solutions [pdf]
Wednesday, October 17 Homework 4: Grammatical Relations, Control
[txt]
solutions [pdf]
Wednesday, October 24th Homework 5: Finite embedded clauses and relative clauses in English
[txt]
sample solutions [pdf]


Extra Credit

Topic / Due Date
See homework assignments


Resources

Emacs Manual
Language Log (May at times contain mature/offensive language or content.)
Linguist List
Linguist List discussion
Linguist's Search Engine (Log in as guest with password guest.)
REAP Syntactic Search page by Michael Heilman
TGREP2 Documentation
UCLA Phonetics
Ethnologue
World Atlas - Available here: \afs\cs.cmu.edu\academic\class\11721-f05\WALSwin
To access the World Atlas (windows only), map a network drive to the afs directory above.  Select WALS.exe to run the interactive program.  The directory also contains a manual for the program.  If you need help mapping a drive in windows, send mail to Tina.

Language Technologies Institute        School of Computer Science        Carnegie Mellon University

Last Updated 11/18/2006