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.

An earlier version of this course (with no morphology) was 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 (due)
1	Sep 24	Introduction to Morpho-Syntax	SWB: Ch 1	Set 1 (next Monday)
2	Oct 01	Some Simple Theories of Grammar and Morphology	SWB: Ch 2	2.1
3	Oct 08	Feature Structures	SWB: Ch 3 Introduction to Overleaf and LaTex HPSG and LaTeX (to get you started)	1, 3
4	Oct 15	Complex Feature Structures	SWB: Ch 4	1, 5, 6
5	Oct 22	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
6	Oct 29	Binding	SWB: Ch 7	6.3, 6.4, 7.1, 7.2
	Nov 05	Reading Week
7	Nov 12	The Structure of the Lexicon: (Types; Rules)	SWB: Ch 8	1, 2, 6 (mid-term)
8	Nov 19	Realistic Grammar	SWB: Ch 9	1
9	Nov 26	Dummies and Idioms (Passives)	SWB: Ch 11 (Ch 10)	1, 3, 4
10	Dec 03	Raising and Control	SWB: Ch 12	1, 2, 4, 6
11	Dec 10	Long Distance Dependencies	SWB: Ch 14	1, 2, 3 (final)
12	Dec 17	Sign-based Construction Grammar	SWB: Ch 16 Introduction to SBCG Ivan A. Sag (2011) Ling 7800-065

Textbooks, References and Links

• Sag, Wasow and Bender (2003) Syntactic Theory: A Formal Introduction 2nd ed. CSLI (required) ebook
• Panocová, Renáta (2021) Basic Concepts of Morphology I Univerzita Pavla Jozefa Šafárika

• 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

• Weekly problem sets: 50%
  Students are encouraged to work on the problem sets in small groups, but answers should be written up individually
  Problems are due at 11:59 the following Monday evening
• Mid-term paper (testing critical concepts) 20%
• End-term paper (testing critical concepts) 30%

• All homework and exams should be turned online via Moodle as pdf files (only). Absolutely no .doc, .docx, .txt etc.
  • You are encouraged to use LaTeX, but don't have to
  • Make sure your name is clearly shown (not just in the file name)
• Late homework will not be marked unless you have contacted me at least one day before the deadline
  If there is a genuine emergency then you will get the average of your other homework, otherwise you get zero
• You should not use generative AI to answer your homework or do your exams. You only learn the material by doing the problems.

Meta Resources

• How to avoid plagiarism Proper citation is important: failure to cite (including LLMs) 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.

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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.

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