This course on “Essentials of Generative Grammar” is directly relevant to the needs of junior linguists and other scholars in India with a keen interest in the human language faculty. A general acquaintance with the basic principles of generative grammar can be achieved by studying textbooks; but immersion in the general philosophy and development of the field combined with in-depth familiarity with the essentials of the framework can only result from in-person instruction in the classroom and dialogue between instructors and participants. This course aims to provide an intellectual and academic platform to the participants who are fascinated about linguistics, especially with a strong emphasis on theoretical syntax. The interdisciplinary nature of this course allows for strong connections with Cognitive Science and the fundamentals of Natural Language Processing (NLP) which will be of benefit to students, research scholars, post-doc fellows, industry professionals, and experienced researchers who are interested to explore syntax from a core theoretical perspective. This kind of an intensive program not only facilitates networking opportunities to the participants but also will simultaneously enrich participants' theoretical insights into the discipline. This also promises to enhance scientific temperament of Indian linguists and encourage the participants to research on linguistic diversity in India. Against the main theme of the course, such as understanding the principles and parameters framework of Generative Grammar, the course has several sub-themes. First, the course brings the foundation to Generative Grammar, i.e., how Generative Grammar emerged as the critique of behaviorism and empirical descriptive structuralism. Second, it aims to analyze the sentence constructions in natural language advocating a common theory underlying structure and language acquisition. The third theme provides principles and parameters approach to explain variations in the world’s languages. Finally, providing an interdisciplinary perspective from the cognitive and biological basis for language theory, the course encourages the participants to indulge more in language-related issues in India, which is linguistically diverse.
The specific goals of the course include:
i. Bringing a cognitive and biological basis to language knowledge
ii. Understanding the key aspects of Generative Grammar, its theory, nature and empirical insights
iii. Analyzing the sentence structures using the Generative Grammar approach
iv. Offering foundational understanding of principles and parameters, language acquisition, and language faculty
v. Enhancing the research techniques, tools and methods in conducting linguistic research