KOL/JMORF: Morpho-Syntax

Instructor: Francis Bond, 2025 2020, 2017, ...

This course covers fundamental concepts in morpho-syntactic analysis such as part of speech types, constituent structure, the syntax-semantics interface, and phenomena such as complementation, raising, control, passive and long-distance dependencies. We will emphasize formally precise encoding of linguistic analyses. Through the course, we will progressively build up a consistent grammar for a fragment of English. Problem sets will introduce data and phenomena from other languages. We will start and finish by comparing various approaches to the study of syntax.

This course used to be called Theories of Grammar when I taught it at NTU.

If you enjoyed this, then you may also enjoy Grammar Engineering.

Wed 16:45–18:15; Room 2.39 tř. Svobody 26, 779 00 Olomouc

Course Outline

Lecture	Date	Topics	Readings	Problems
1	Sep 24	Introduction to Morpho-Syntax	SWB: Ch 1, 2	1
2	Oct 01	Feature Structures	SWB: Ch 3	1, 3
3	Oct 08	Complex Feature Structures	SWB: Ch 4 Introduction to Overleaf and LaTex HPSG and LaTeX (to get you started)	1, 5, 6
4	02 Sep	Semantics & How the Grammar Works	SWB: Ch 5, 6.1, 6.2 (6.3 only if you feel like it)	5: 1; 6: 1, 3, 4, 5
5	Oct 15	Binding	SWB: Ch 7	6.3, 6.4, 7.1, 7.2
6	Oct 22	The Structure of the Lexicon: (Types; Rules)	SWB: Ch 8	1, 2, 6 (mid-term)
		Reading Week
7	Nov 05	Realistic Grammar	SWB: Ch 9	1
8	Nov 12	Dummies and Idioms (Passives)	SWB: Ch 11 (Ch 10)	1, 3, 4
9	Nov 19	Raising and Control	SWB: Ch 12	1, 2, 4, 6
10	Nov 26	Long Distance Dependencies	SWB: Ch 14	1, 2, 3 (final)
11	Dec 03 14:30-16:30	To be decided	Guest Lecture
12	Dec 10	Sign-based Construction Grammar; Group Presentations	SWB: Ch 16 Introduction to SBCG Ivan A. Sag (2011) Ling 7800-065)
	Jan 15	Research Paper Hard copy due by 17:00 (online)

Textbooks, References and Links

• Sag, Wasow and Bender 2003 Syntactic Theory: A Formal Introduction 2nd ed. CSLI (required) ebook

• Andrew Carnie 2006. Syntax: A Generative Introduction 2nd ed. Blackwell
• Hans C. Boas and Ivan A. Sag (eds) 2012. Sign-Based Construction Grammar CSLI Publications.
  Chapter 1: Introducing Sign-Based Construction Grammar (Sag, Boas and Kay)
  Chapter 3: An Informal Synopsis (Sag)
• Borsley, Robert D. 1999. Syntactic Theory: A Unified Approach. Hodder Arnold.
• Bresnan, Joan. 2001. Lexical Functional Syntax. Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell.
• Chomsky, Noam. 1965. Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
• Chomsky, Noam. 1981. Lectures on government and binding/the Pisa lectures. 7th Edn. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
• Croft, William. 2001. Radical construction grammar: syntactic theory in typological perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Foley, William A. and Robert D. Van Valin Jr. 1984. Functional syntax and universal grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Li, Charles N. (ed.) 1976. Subject and topic. New York: Academic Press.
• Pollard, Carl and Ivan Sag 1994 Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. CSLI Publications
• Bybee, Joan. 2010. Language, usage and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Van Valin, Robert D. 1993. Advances in role and reference grammar. New York and Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• Van Valin, Robert D. And Randy J. LaPolla. 1997. Syntax: structure, meaning and function. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• HPSG page at Ohio State
• DELPH-IN (DEep Linguistic Processing with HPSG INiative)
• HPSG Bibliography

Learning Outcome

By the end of this course students will be able to:

• Recognize certain classes of syntactic phenomena
• Build analyses of those phenomena in a precise framework
• Apply the process of building a formalized analysis to test linguistic hypotheses
• Use LaTeX to format linguistic papers

Course Assessment components

• Mid-term paper (take home: testing critical concepts) 20%
• End-term paper (take home: testing critical concepts) 20%
• In-class presentation of a theoretical model 20%
• Research Paper 40%

Meta Resources

• How to avoid plagiarism Proper citation is important: failure to cite is plagiarism — fail subject (this includes LLMs)
• Pomona Linguistics Quick Reference Guide for LaTeX
• Intro to LaTeX for Linguists by Emily A. Gasser
• If you want to make it even more beautiful, as I am sure you do, take a look at my (Computational) Linguistic Style Guidelines: a guide for the flummoxed.

---

Acknowledgements

Course materials are heavily inspired by Ling 566 Introduction to Syntax for Computational Linguistics at the University of Washington. Thanks to Emily Bender for letting us use them.

ChatGPT model GPT-5, OpenAI, 2025, was used to find up-to-date citations on morphology and check formatting of bibliographic references.

---

These course materials are available on github and archived with Zenodo (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17147961).