ELANG 325: The Grammar of English
Prerequisite: ELang 223
Fall 2012. Sections 001, 002
MWF 8:00-8:50, 11:00-11:50
/ Mark Davies


Phone: 422-9168
JFSB 4071
Office hours: MWF 9:00-9:50

LEARNING OUTCOMES

1. Students will be able to analyze and describe grammatical structure at the phrasal, clause and sentence level

2. Students will be able to identify and label parts of speech in English

3. Students will be able to apply the knowledge from #1-2 to authentic texts

COURSE DESCRIPTION
Study of English grammar in various applications

In this particular section of ELang 325, we will focus on data-oriented and functionally-motivated descriptions of English grammar.

"Data-oriented" means that our discussions will be based on data from actual corpora (collections of texts and conversations) from English, as exemplified in the course textbook.In particular, we will focus on data from the 425million word Corpus of American English ( and you will write a short (3-4 page) paper based on the corpus data for a particular grammatical phenomenon.

We won't be overly-concerned with prescriptive grammar ("what should be": who/whom, can/may, etc), except occasionally as a point of departure. Following the focus of the course textbook, we will also focus on differences between spoken and written English, and even registers (styles of speech) within each of these two major groupings.

"Functionally-motivated" means that -- whenever possible -- we will look for functional explanations for grammatical phenomena. The purpose of language is to communicate information effectively, and grammatical phenomena often respond to that need. We will use more formal accounts (e.g. simple versions of generative grammar) only very occasionally, and only as a starting point for more functionally-oriented discussions.

TEXTBOOK

Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English (Biber et al, 2002) and the accompanying workbook.

GRADING

The components of the final grade are the following:

50% Midterms #1-3 / 20% Class project (corpus based)
20% Final exam / 10% Daily quizzes

The scale for the final grade is as follows:

A:93-100
A-:90-92 / B+:87-89
B:83-86
B-:80-82 / C+:77-79
C:73-76
C-:70-72 / D+:67-69
D:63-66
D-:60-62 / F:<60

Syllabus (tentative). Please check the class website for current information

DATE / READING / EXERCISES / TOPIC
SEP / W / 4 / 1.1-1.6 / Introduction,fuzzy grammar
F / 6 / 2.1-2.3 / 1, 2, 3 / Words and word classes
M / 9 / 2.4-2.6 / 2, 4, 6
W / 11 / 3.1-3.3 / 1, 2b / Introduction to phrases and clauses
F / 13 / 3.4-3.5 / 3, 4
M / 16 / 4.1-4.4 / 1, 2 / Nouns, pronouns, and the simple noun phrase
W / 18 / 4.5-4.10 / 3:1, 4:1-2, 7
F / 20 / 4.11-4.16 / 6, 8, 11
M / 23 / 5.1-5.4 / 1, 3, 4 / Verbs
W / 25 / 5.5-5.8 / 6, 7
F / 27 / 5.9-5.15 / 8, 9
(M) / 30 / MIDTERM 1
(W) / 2 / (No class)
(F) / 4 / (No class)
OCT / M / 7 / 5.16-5.17 / 10, 11
W / 9 / 6.1-6.2 / 1, 2
F / 11 / 6.3-6.5 / 4, 5 / Variation in the verb phrase: tense, aspect, voice, modals
M / 14 / 6.6-6.8 / 7, 8,*
W / 16 / 6.9-6.13 / 11
F / 18 / 7.1-7.5 / 1, 2, 3, 4
M / 21 / 7.6-7.9 / 5, 6 / Adjectives and adverbs
W / 23 / 7.10-7.14 / 7, 8
F / 25 / MIDTERM 2
M / 28 / 8.1-8.5 / 1, 2, 3 / Exploring the grammar of the clause
W / 30 / 8.6-8.8 / 5, 6
NOV / F / 1 / 8.9-8.18 / 7, (9, 10) (table)
M / 4 / 9.1-9.3 / 1
W / 6 / 9.4-9.6 / 2,* / Complex noun phrases
F / 8 / 9.7-9.8 / 5, 6, 7
M / 11 / 9.9-9.14 / 8, 10, (13)
W / 13 / 10.1-10.7 / 1, 2
F / 15 / 10.8-10.11 / 3, 4, 5 / Verbsand adjective complement clauses
M / 18 / Discussprojects(in class)
W / 20 / 10.12-10.17 / 6, 8,*
F / 22 / 10.18-10.23 / 9, 10
M / 25 / TEST 3
(Tu) / 26
DEC / M / 2 / 11.1-11.8; 11.9-11.19 / 1, (3, 4), 5, 6 / Adverbials
W / 4 / 12.1-12.4, 12.11-12.12 / 1, 2, 7,* / Word order choices
F / 6 / 13.1-13.5 / 2, 3 / The grammar of conversation
M / 9 / Presentations 1
W / 11 / Presentations 2
M / 18 / FINAL EXAM:7 AM-10 PM (8 AM class)
W / 19 / FINAL EXAM: 11 AM - 2 PM (11 AM class)