The first review session was held on Thursday 11th May.
There will be a second review session on Monday 15th May at 11am, in B9 .
These sessions are not lectures, but a chance for you to go over again anything that you are not quite clear on or want some practice with. It'll be much more useful to you if you have thought in advance about what you need to work on. A good way to do this would be to attempt (or at the very least look through) some of the questions from past papers that are given below (or that you have found yourselves). Another is to look over the assignments that you did during the term.
The timetable below lists in a rough way the topics that we covered in class. Questions on the exam may be about any of these topics. As you know, you only have to answer 2 questions, and there will be a minimum of 6 questions on the exam (some with choices). However, it is not guaranteed that there will be a question on every topic that we have covered, so you are strongly advised not to restrict your revision too narrowly.
Questions may bridge the topics as set out below (the divisions are necessarily fairly arbitrary). Note in particular that "NP-Movement/Raising", "Control", and Case are related topics, and have in the past been asked about together; similarly the different types of movement (NP-Movement/Raising, Wh-Movement, Verb-Movement) are clearly related, and have also been asked about together in the past.
In order to help with your revision, I've added to the timetable some
questions from past papers that relate to that topic. Each Year(Question)
is a link to the relevant place in one of the three past papers. You can
get back to the page you are at now by using the "Back" command
in your browser or following the Exam Guide
link that appears at the top and bottom of each of the papers.
(The text for the questions here comes from my notes, not from the official
exam papers; that is why there may be slight discrepancies if you compare
the versions here with the final versions)
A good way to prepare for the review sessions would be to attempt some of the questions from past papers. I am willing to look through answers that you write up and discuss them with you. As always, the best way to contact me is typically by e-mail.
Very Important Caveat: this course changes from year to year, so the questions from past papers may not match exactly what we covered. If you have any query about whether a question from a past paper is relevant to what we covered this year, please contact me. Also note that there has been a tendency to move from general essay-type questions toward questions that ask you to apply what you know to specific data.
Week |
Topic |
Reading*/Problem |
Past exam questions |
1 |
Foundational Issues | Chs. 1 & 2 | 1996 (1), 1996(2), 1997(1), 1998(7) |
| Asst. 1: Evidence. | |||
2 |
Toward a theory of phrase structure | Ch. 4: 133 - 148 | 1996(3), 1996(4), 1997(2), 1998(1) |
| Asst. 2 | |||
3 |
From the lexicon to the syntax | Ch. 5: 159 - 180 | 1995(1), 1996(4), 1997(3), 1997(5B), 1998(3) |
| Asst. 3 | |||
4 |
More structure: functional projections | Ch. 4: 148 - 152 | 1999(1) |
| Asst. 4 | |||
5 |
Movement to subject position & Case | Ch. 6: 222 - 233 | 1995(3), 1995(6a,b), 1996(6), 1997(5A), 1997(5B), Extra qu. on passive with sample answer, 1998(4) |
| Asst. 5, Asst. 6 | |||
6 |
Wh-Movement | Ch. 6 | 1995(2), 1995(3), 1996(5) (sample answer), 1997(4), 1998(2), 1999(4) |
| Asst. 7 | |||
7 |
More "missing" subjects | Ch. 7: 234 - 250 | 1995(6b), 1995(6c), 1996(6), 1997(5A), 1999(6) |
| Asst. 8 | |||
8 |
Parameterising movement; verb movement | Review Ch. 6: 206 - 222 | 1995(5a,b), 1995(3), 1996(7), 1997(6), 1999(3), 1999(5) |
| Asst. 9 | |||
9 |
Binding Theory | Ch. 7: 250 - 256 | 1995(4), 1996(8), 1997(7), 1998(5), 1999(7) |
| Asst. 10 | |||
10 |
Overview, Review and Preview | ||
*Unless otherwise specified, readings are from V.J. Cook and Mark Newson: Chomsky's Universal Grammar: An Introduction. Second Edition. This book is available from Thin's, and copies are also available for short-term loan in the Reading Room of the Main Library. Be sure that you are looking for/at the Second Edition.