General provisions

The course is offered as an optional module in Linguistics C, and may also be taken independently.

Entry requirements

Functional Grammar I, 7.5 credits, or 60 credits in a language subject

Learning outcomes

The course aims to provide advanced knowledge in the domain of grammar.

In order to earn the grade Pass, on completion of the course students should be able to:

- reflect critically on functional linguistics as a theoretical model and contrast it with formal theoretical models;

- give an account of the differences between simple sentence constructions and complex sentence constructions, and describe the functional and formal relations between the simple clauses that make up complex sentence constructions;

- describe the syntactic and semantic properties of complex sentence constructions such as relative clauses, complement clauses and clause chaining;

- give an account of the fundamental features of voice phenomena: semantic constructions (reflexive and medium) and pragmatic constructions (passive and anti-passive) and their cross-linguistic syntactic properties;

- give an account of syntactic strategies to realise discourse functions such as contrastive focus and topic; and

- apply this theoretical knowledge in the analysis of given linguistic materials.

Content

Description of linguistic phenomena at sentence level, such as nominalisation, complement clause, relative clause, adverbial clause, clause chain, coordination/subordination. In the description of these syntactic constructions, consideration is also given to their semantic and pragmatic properties.

Instruction

The instruction consists of lectures, exercises and assessment. The students' own learning activities are crucial for their work during the course.

Assessment

The course has two assessment components:

1. an essay of about 5-10 pages;

2. an oral presentation.

Regulations for the essay and the presentation are provided at the beginning of the course. The essay is submitted at the end of the course. The exact date for submission is announced by the teacher at the beginning of the course.

If there are special reasons for doing so, an examiner may decide to make an exception from the method of assessment indicated and allow a student to be assessed by another method. Special circumstances can include notification of special educational support from the University's disability coordinator.

Transitional provisions

This course replaces the earlier course Syntax (5LN241) and cannot be included in a degree in combination with this.