Advanced Issues in Cognitive Science and Linguistics

Goals

The goal of this course is to provide a deeper understanding of the concept of root in linguistic theory. The notion of root is typically understood to refer to the part of meaning that it is not syntactically relevant. Broadly speaking, roots can be identified with the conceptual or descriptive meaning contained in a word. However, this notion is controversial in several respects. First, some scholars argue that roots contain some grammatical information, while others claim that roots are not primitives of the linguistic model. A more radical perspective holds that roots are entirely absent from the syntactic module, and are relevant only at the interfaces with the phonological and the semantic component.

 

This course will examine the different theoretical perspectives on roots, discussing both empirical and theoretical arguments for and against each view.

 

Students will become familiar with the main theoretical approaches to roots in contemporary linguistic theory, while also developing skills in linguistic analysis, scientific reasoning in linguistics, and advanced knowledge on syntax, semantics and morphology.

 

 

Course plan

1. Background sessions by professor Cristina Real-Puigdollers (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

In this part of the course (six classes), we will provide a brief overview of syntax, semantics, morphology and phonology to prepare students for the second part of the course. Additionally, we will discuss a series of readings that will serve as the foundation for the next part.

 

2. Course by invited professor Víctor Acedo-Matellán (University of Oxford):

1. Introduction. Brief historical overview on the concept of roots.

2. The phonology-morphology of roots

3. The syntax of roots

4. The semantics of roots

5. Towards an integrated theory of roots.

 

Part 1 of the course will take the form of six weekly sessions during mid January-February. Part 2 takes the form of an intensive course imparted on 16–20 March 2026.

Assessment

The final grade will be calculated as follows.

- Class participation and assignments (for part 1) (10%)

- Converting one of the items assigned for reading into an abstract (20%)

- Class presentation of an article or chapter assigned for reading (20%)

- A short essay (a snippet) (50%): a brief self-contained note of maximum 800 words (3 pages, double-spacing, 12pt) (with an additional half page allowed for diagrams/trees, tables, and references) that

- points out an empirical phenomenon that challenges accepted generalizations or influential theoretical proposals;

- points out unnoticed minimal pairs that fall outside the scope of any existing theory;

- points out an empirical phenomenon that confirms the predictions of a theory in an area where the theory has not been tested;

- explicitly describes technical inconsistencies in a theory or in a set of frequently adopted assumptions;

- explicitly describes unnoticed assumptions that underlie a theory or assumptions that a theory needs to be supplemented with in order to make desired predictions;

- calls attention to little-known or forgotten literature in which issues of immediate relevance are discussed.

(extracted and adapted from the submission guide of the Snippets journal, https://www.ledonline.it/snippets/)

 

 

Candidates for re-evaluation must have a minimum of 3 (range 3 - 4.9) and the final grade after re-evaluation can only be 5. Re-evaluation will consist of a take-home exam.

 

Bibliography

 

Acedo-Matellán, Víctor. 2016. The Morphosyntax of Transitions: A Case Study in Latin and Other Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Acedo-Matellán, Víctor. 2018. Exoskeletal Versus Endoskeletal Approaches in Morphology. Oxford Research. Encyclopedia of Linguistics.

https://oxfordre.com/linguistics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.001.0001/acrefore9780199384655-e-585.

Acedo-Matellán, Víctor & Jaume Mateu. 2014. From syntax to roots: A syntactic approach to root interpretation. In The Syntax of Roots and the Roots of Syntax, ed. Artemis Alexiadou, Hagit Borer & Florian Schäfer, 14–32. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Acedo-Matellán, Víctor & Cristina Real-Puigdollers. 2019. Roots into Functional Nodes: Exploring Locality and Semi-Lexicality. The Linguistic Review 36(3). 411–43

Acquaviva, Paolo. 2009. Roots and lexicality in Distributed Morphology. York Papers in Linguistics 2(10). 1–21.

Arad, Maya. 2005. Roots and Patterns: Hebrew Morpho-Syntax. Dordrecht: Springer.

Ausensi, Josep. 2024. The division of labor between grammar and the lexicon. An exploration of the syntax and semantics of verbal roots. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

Beavers, John, & Koontz-Garboden, Andrew. 2020. The Roots of Verbal Meaning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Borer, Hagit. 2005. Structuring Sense: Volume I: In Name Only. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Borer, Hagit. 2013. Structuring Sense: Volume III: Taking Form. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

De Belder, Marijke, & van Craenenbroeck, Jeroen. 2015. How to Merge a Root. Linguistic Inquiry 46(4), 625– 655.

Embick, David. 2010. Localism versus Globalism in Morphology and Phonology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 20

Embick, David & Morris Halle. 2005. On the Status of Stems in Morphological Theory. In Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2003: Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’ 2003, Nijmegen, 20–22 November, ed. Twan Geerts, Ivo van Ginneken & Haike Jacobs, 37–62. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Harley, Heidi. 2005. How Do Verbs Get Their Names? Denominal Verbs, Manner Incorporation, and the Ontology of Verb Roots in English. In The Syntax of Aspect, ed. Nomi Erteschik-Shir & Tova Rapoport, 42–64. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Harley, Heidi. 2014. On the Identity of Roots. Theoretical Linguistics 40(3–4). 225–276

Mateu, Jaume. 2002. Argument structure: relational construal at the syntax-semantics interface. PhD thesis. Bellaterra: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

Mateu, Jaume & Laia Amadas. 2001. Syntactic tools for syntactic construal. Talk. 1st Conference on Tools in Linguistic Theory (TiLT). Utrecht Institute of Linguistics (OTS), Utrecht, 6–8 July. https://clt.uab.cat/publicacions_clt/reports/pdf/GGT-01-12.pdf

Levinson, Lisa. 2007. The Roots of Verbs. Ph.D. thesis, NYU, New York.Levinson, Lisa. 2007. The Roots of Verbs. Ph.D. thesis, NYU, New York.

Pylkkänen, Liina. 2008. Introducing Arguments. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Ramchand, Gillian C. 2008. Verb meaning and the lexicon: A first phase syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ramchand, Gillian C. 2018. Situations and syntactic structures: Rethinking auxiliaries and order in English. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Ramchand, Gillian C. 2019. Verbal symbols and demonstrations across modalities. Open Linguistics 5(1). 94– 108.

Wood, Jim & Alec Marantz. 2017. The interpretation of external arguments. In The Verbal Domain, ed. Roberta D’Alessandro, Irene Franco & Ángel J. Gallego, 255–278. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Yu, Jianrong, Josep Ausensi & Ryan Walter Smith. 2013. States and changes-of-state in the semantics of result roots. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 41. 1589–1628.