The first part of this course aims at introducing students to the syntactic description of English as well as syntactic theory. Based on data from English and other languages, students are urged to identify syntactic rules and generalizations and to apply knowledge of these rules to the description of particular sentences. A number of theoretical questions are raised and various tools of syntactic analysis are introduced. At the end of the course, students are expected to be in a position to evaluate sentences as to their well-formedness, to justify their analyses and to relate data to theory in a principled manner. Syntax is presented both as one part of linguistic competence and as one level of linguistic analysis. In the same manner, semantics pertains to various issues in the description of English as well as to any theoretical approach to language. Thus the second part of the course addresses a number of issues relating to the study of meaning in language (at the level of the word and the sentence). Specific reference is made to basic notions and distinctions, such as sense and reference, literal and non-literal meaning, sense relations, participant roles, elements of logic. The overall aim is to provide an overview of the way linguistic analysis can approach the relationship between form and function in language in a principled manner.
