description & set texts
The course offers an introduction to two current theories in theoretical syntax, Chomsky's Mininmalist Programme and Optimality Theory. These theories are compared and contrasted with respect to their approach to phrase structure and movement phenomena. Newson, Mark 2000 'lecture notes' on
http://ludens.elte.hu/~newson; Webelhuth, Gert (ed.) 1995
Government and Binding Theory and the Minimalist Programme, Blackwell, Oxford; Archangeli, Diana and D. Terence Langendoen (eds.) 1997
Optimality Theory: an overview, Blackwell, Oxford; Barbosa, Pilar, Danny Fox, Paul Hagstrom, Martha Jo McGinnis and David Pesetsky (eds.) 1998
Is the Best Good Enough?, MIT Working Papers in Linguistics and MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.