LING 120B
Syntax I
Description: Lecture, four hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Enforced requisite: course 20. Course 120A is not requisite to 120B. Descriptive analysis of morphological and syntactic structures in natural languages; emphasis on insight into nature of such structures rather than linguistics formalization. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
4 of 4
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2017 - This was an awesome class. If you like puzzles, then syntax is definitely the field for you. I'm selling the book for this class, "Syntax: A Generative Introduction, Third Edition" for $15, so send an email to: ************* if you would like to buy it. Workload: -Weekly Quizzes. You have 2 minutes to answer one question. The questions are usually taken directly from lecture. Your lowest score is dropped.It says on the syllabus that they're 15% of your grade, but I only took 4 out of the 8 and still got an A in the class. -Weekly Homeworks. Drawing syntax trees and answering general syntax questions. The book explains the topics really well, and the prof. posts his notes from lecture on CCLE, so the answers could be deduced from there + the book. He also tolerates lateness n these, with 10% off for the first day it's late, 20% off on the second day, and so on. -Weekly readings. They're not mandatory, but the book is super easy to understand and sometimes does a better job of explaining things than Prof. Tellings does, so I highly recommend those. Exams: -You get to bring a full sized sheet of paper, front and back, with as many notes as you can fit on it. -If you do the homeworks well, and take time on your study sheet, the exams should be a piece of cake. Go to lecture and copy down the trees that Prof. Tellings draws on the board, and you can put those on your sheet for reference on the test. It's super helpful. Participation: -Attending discussion or lecture isn't mandatory, but the lectures definitely help with the quizzes, and my TA would pass out these handouts at discussion that basically summarized everything we had learned for the week clearly and concisely. They were super helpful.
Spring 2017 - This was an awesome class. If you like puzzles, then syntax is definitely the field for you. I'm selling the book for this class, "Syntax: A Generative Introduction, Third Edition" for $15, so send an email to: ************* if you would like to buy it. Workload: -Weekly Quizzes. You have 2 minutes to answer one question. The questions are usually taken directly from lecture. Your lowest score is dropped.It says on the syllabus that they're 15% of your grade, but I only took 4 out of the 8 and still got an A in the class. -Weekly Homeworks. Drawing syntax trees and answering general syntax questions. The book explains the topics really well, and the prof. posts his notes from lecture on CCLE, so the answers could be deduced from there + the book. He also tolerates lateness n these, with 10% off for the first day it's late, 20% off on the second day, and so on. -Weekly readings. They're not mandatory, but the book is super easy to understand and sometimes does a better job of explaining things than Prof. Tellings does, so I highly recommend those. Exams: -You get to bring a full sized sheet of paper, front and back, with as many notes as you can fit on it. -If you do the homeworks well, and take time on your study sheet, the exams should be a piece of cake. Go to lecture and copy down the trees that Prof. Tellings draws on the board, and you can put those on your sheet for reference on the test. It's super helpful. Participation: -Attending discussion or lecture isn't mandatory, but the lectures definitely help with the quizzes, and my TA would pass out these handouts at discussion that basically summarized everything we had learned for the week clearly and concisely. They were super helpful.
Most Helpful Review
I took Walkow for Linguistics 20 (which is the intro class for Ling majors) and hated him with every fiber of my being--as a teacher. The homework was insanely difficult, there was no extra material outside of lectures to aid understanding, and the structure of the class was fast-paced. In hindsight, the class was designed to weed people out of a small, competitive major, a fault which didn't lie with Walkow himself. Still, I hated that class even though I knew I loved and enjoyed learning about linguistics. This quarter, I'm taking Linguistics 120B (Syntax I) with Walkow, and my entire opinion of him and his class has changed. He was fair in Ling20, but he is clearly a syntactician with a passion for language and, as a result, is considerably more open a lenient with the class and his assignments. Certainly, the assignments are still rather difficult, but if you read the chapters for the week BEFORE the lectures and you do the problem sets in the chapters' ends (the workbook was immensely helpful here too!) you can stay on top of the course content with little trouble. I've realized over the course of this quarter that Martin Walkow doesn't want you to memorize notational conventions and PSRs to apply them to Language, but to actually tease out the peculiarities and flaws in the theory describing how Language works. In short, he is teaching you how to think like a linguist through the material, instead of simply teaching you formulaic theories to apply to data via rote memorization. Walkow's class is hard, there's no denying that (and many people think Syntax is boring), but he is fair with grades--including admitting his own mistakes in writing or grading the hw/exams--and is absolutely willing to help you fill in things you don't understand, provided you have done your best to do so on your own. If you want to learn about syntax and linguistics, and how to process data like a linguist, take your classes with him and Joe Buffington (the coolest and most helpful TA ever, who comes with the Walkow-class package). I thought for sure I'd hate this class and his teaching given the hell we all went through in Ling20, but he's a great guy, a good teacher overall, and a brilliant syntactician. I'd recommend him to anyone truly interested in learning linguistics---but he's definitely not for the faint of heart (and/or those who seek to "skate" through classes).
I took Walkow for Linguistics 20 (which is the intro class for Ling majors) and hated him with every fiber of my being--as a teacher. The homework was insanely difficult, there was no extra material outside of lectures to aid understanding, and the structure of the class was fast-paced. In hindsight, the class was designed to weed people out of a small, competitive major, a fault which didn't lie with Walkow himself. Still, I hated that class even though I knew I loved and enjoyed learning about linguistics. This quarter, I'm taking Linguistics 120B (Syntax I) with Walkow, and my entire opinion of him and his class has changed. He was fair in Ling20, but he is clearly a syntactician with a passion for language and, as a result, is considerably more open a lenient with the class and his assignments. Certainly, the assignments are still rather difficult, but if you read the chapters for the week BEFORE the lectures and you do the problem sets in the chapters' ends (the workbook was immensely helpful here too!) you can stay on top of the course content with little trouble. I've realized over the course of this quarter that Martin Walkow doesn't want you to memorize notational conventions and PSRs to apply them to Language, but to actually tease out the peculiarities and flaws in the theory describing how Language works. In short, he is teaching you how to think like a linguist through the material, instead of simply teaching you formulaic theories to apply to data via rote memorization. Walkow's class is hard, there's no denying that (and many people think Syntax is boring), but he is fair with grades--including admitting his own mistakes in writing or grading the hw/exams--and is absolutely willing to help you fill in things you don't understand, provided you have done your best to do so on your own. If you want to learn about syntax and linguistics, and how to process data like a linguist, take your classes with him and Joe Buffington (the coolest and most helpful TA ever, who comes with the Walkow-class package). I thought for sure I'd hate this class and his teaching given the hell we all went through in Ling20, but he's a great guy, a good teacher overall, and a brilliant syntactician. I'd recommend him to anyone truly interested in learning linguistics---but he's definitely not for the faint of heart (and/or those who seek to "skate" through classes).
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