FLM0522 - Tópicos de Gramática do Inglês (2019)

Essay Titles

The following essay titles are suggested for this part of the Topics in Grammar course. In the essay, you are expected to show that you have engaged with and understood some of the recommended reading for the course, and additional credit will be given if you have sought out and incorporated some recent research relevant to the topic (e.g. in journals or newly-published books). You should look at two or three different sources at least for any essay chosen; some questions require more independent work than others – credit will be given for more ambitious essays. 

Your essay should directly address the topic given, and make reference where appropriate to the background reading (using proper citations and references). Credit will be given if you (a) adapt the examples from your background reading to show that you have understood the theoretical principles being discussed; and (b) engage in a critical discussion of the background reading, rather than simply reproducing the ideas of others. 

1. Explain the roles of the three ‘metafunctions’ in functional grammar. Discuss, too, the advantages and disadvantages of devising ‘semantic’ definitions of grammatical constituents. 

2. Discuss the acquisition of grammar EITHER by children OR second language learners from EITHER the perspective of Universal Grammar OR systemic-functional grammar. 

3. How are the constituents of Immediate Constituent Analysis identified and defined? In your answer, illustrate by using ICA to give sample analyses of phrases and sentences. 

4. Take two or three sentences of different types and write phrase structure (PS) rules for them. What do PS rules attempt to do that, say, the tree diagrams of the structuralist grammarians do not do? 

5. Why is it that derivational trees as devised by transformational grammarians are sometimes inconsistent? Take one or two sentences and discuss the problems of devising a derivational tree for it/them. Clearly show the different options and why they are possible. 

6. What grammatical problems does the notion of the X-Bar attempt to solve? Furthermore, what advantages in terms of power and economy does the concept of the X-Bar have for Transformational-Generative grammar? 

7. Illustrate different kinds of movement (or ‘transformation’). What are the advantages for a grammatical theory of having a set of movement rules? 

8. From your own reading into the subject, give an explanation of the key principles underlying the Minimalist Program in recent Chomskyan linguistics. 

9. Discuss the acquisition of grammar EITHER by children OR second language learners from EITHER the perspective of Universal Grammar OR systemic-functional grammar. 

10. Are corpus-based grammars really driven by data? Illustrate the kind of insights that a grammar based on a computer corpus can give us, and discuss the roles of theory and evidence in delivering these insights. 

11. Using examples of your own, illustrate how the concepts of construal, perspective, foregrounding, metaphor and frame are used in a cognitive approach to grammar. You might look at one of the following topics in your discussion: prepositions & adverbs, phrasal verbs, verbal aspect, mass & count nouns.