After this course, you will:
• be familiar with basic syntactic terminology;
• have a good understanding of the major English word classes and their most important characteristics, i.e. can distinguish word classes on the basis of their morphological and syntactic properties;
• have a good understanding of the distinct grammatical functions that play a role in English syntax;
• understand the difference between lexical and functional categories and their role in the grammar;
• know how words are combined into phrases;
• know the difference between simple sentences and complex sentences;
• be able to distinguish between finite and non-finite clauses;
• be familiar with the concept of tree-diagramming according to the X' convention;
• be able to analyze a number of basic phrase and sentence types by applying the X' convention;
• understand what a syntactic theory is;
• understand what the difference is between conceptual and empirical evidence;
• be able to pinpoint the cause of ungrammaticality, both observationally and theoretically.
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The course is a first acquaintance with the linguistic description of the English language. The emphasis is on the way in which English phrases and sentences are constructed. You will learn the basic syntactic terminology and will learn how to apply this to the analysis of basic sentence structures, in which the emphasis is on syntactic argumentation. At the same time, you will become acquainted with syntax as a science, see what questions linguists are interested in and why, and you will learn how the study of syntactic properties of English leads to a specific theory of English syntax.
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