SYNTAX & SEMANTICS @ STANFORD
The Linguistics Department offers a spectrum of courses in syntax and semantics, ranging from introductory courses to advanced seminars on cutting-edge research.
The primary focus of our syntax curriculum is the development of scalable, constraint-based lexicalist theories that are formally sound, empirically-motivated and which can be embedded in more general models of language processing and use. Our new Syntax Laboratory course sequence is pioneering new foundation for linguistic theory in terms of diverse, convergent experimental methodologies.
Our semantics curriculum covers the areas traditionally described as lexical semantics, formal semantics and pragmatics. There is a marked focus on language use and on broadening the scope of semantic inquiry.
The department offers introductory courses in various syntactic theories, in lexical semantics, and in formal semantics and pragmatics, at both the graduate and undergraduate level. Additionally there are several graduate seminars each year dedicated to exploring particular topics of theoretical and empirical importance. Topics of recent and upcoming seminars include (2009-2010 courses in bold):
- Ellipsis (Sag)
- Lexical and Constructional Pragmatics (Potts)
- Natural Language Understanding (Jurafsky/MacCartney)
- The Lexical Semantics of Nouns (Levin)
- Binding (Sauerland)
- Categories and Category Change (Zwicky)
- Choosing a Variant (Zwicky)
- Construction-Based Grammar (Sag)
- Control (Bresnan)
- Formal Pragmatics (Sauerland)
- Indefinites (Brasoveanu)
- Language and Space (Fong)
- Lexical Categories (Levin)
- Space and Motion in Language (E. Clark)
- Morphosyntax: A Cabinet of Curiosities (Zwicky)
- Quantification (Peters)
- Semantics of Questions and Commands (Peters)
- Semantic Prominence and Argument Realization (Levin)
- Situation Semantics (Peters)
- Structure of Russian (Pereltsvaig)
- Tense and Aspect (Fong)
- The Architecture of Grammar (Wasow)
- The Phonology of Syntax (Zwicky)
- Unaccusativity (Levin)
- Wh-Movement (Sag)
- Word Order (Pereltsvaig, Sag)
A full listing of linguistics courses can be found here.