24.956  Topics in Syntax

This course consists of weekly seminars exposing students to a range of different approaches to ergativity, as well as to a large diversity of languages that exhibit ergative patterning in their grammar. The first class will consist of an introductory, yet thorough overview of ergativity. It will outline the structure of the course which focuses on issues such as typological correlations, connections between (ergative) case and agreement, and links between tense/aspect/mood and ergativity. In this course, we will review current approaches within generative linguistics and attempt at understanding the syntactic and semantic properties of ergativity. No prior knowledge of ergativity is required for attending this course.

We are pleased to announce that as a part of this course, the following speakers will be presenting their current research on ergativity:

Rajesh Bhatt
Jonathan Bobaljik
Alana Johns
Julie Legate
Masha Polinsky
Milan Rezac