Course title:
Mental grammar
Course code: PSL234
Course status: Elective
Course leader: Anita Peti-Stantić
Course instructor:
Language of instruction: English
Total hours: 8S
Form of instruction: Seminar
ECTS credits: 4
Course content by topics:
- The concept of mental grammar and its psycholinguistic reality; 2. Consideration of the principles of combinatory possibilities and determination of the rules of grammaticality, a distinction between the rules of grammar and semantic verification by native speakers; 3. Introduction to various theoretical approaches to the analysis of the information structure of a sentence; 4. Elements of the information structure of a sentence; 5. Introduction to contemporary experimental approaches to linguistic data; 6. Application of the methods used to establish elements of the information structure of a sentence (on the examples from the Croatian language); 7. Establishment of the interface of phonological, morphosyntactic and semantic elements in the formation of the information structure of a sentence in Croatian (on the basis of experimental examples)
Learning outcomes at course level:
- To explain and critically evaluate various approaches to mental grammar and the information structure of a sentence; 2. To apply contemporary experimental psycholinguistic methods to a research problem related to the information structure of a sentence; 3. To evaluate the degree of grammaticality of sentence structures; 4. To integrate the knowledge acquired in the semantics and morphosyntax courses in order to be able to provide a comprehensive description of the sentence structure; 5. To participate in the discussions on contemporary psycholinguistic approaches to language relying on informed insights and well-grounded arguments.
Learning outcomes at programme level:
| IU1 | IU2 | IU3 | IU4 | IU5 | IU6 | IU7 | IU8 |
| x | X | x | x |
Reading list:
- Féry, Caroline i Ishihara Shinichiro (ed.) (2016) The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure. Oxford University Press. (selected chapters); 2. Jackendoff, Ray (2002, 2009) Foundations of Language: Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution. Oxford University Press. (selected chapters); 3. Lambrecht, Knud (1994) Information Structure and Sentence form. Topic, focus, and the mental representations of discourse referents. Cambridge University Press.; 4.
Selkirk, Elisabeth (2001) “The syntax-phonology interface.” International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, eds. N.J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes, 15407-15412. Oxford: Pergamon.; 5. Wedgwood, Daniel (2005) Shifting the Focus: From static structures to the dynamics of interpretation. Elsevier.; Additional: 1. Arnold, Jennifer E. “Marking salience: The similarity of topic and focus” (unpublished article); 2. Butler, Christopher S. (2005) “Focusing on focus: A comparison of Functional Grammar, Role and Reference Grammar and Systemic Functional Grammar.” Language Sciences 27 (2005) 585-618.; 3. Pereltsvaig, Asya (2004) “Topic and Focus as Linear Notions: Evidence from Italian and Russian.” Lingua 114 (2004). 324-344.
Assessment of student achievement: Course attendance. A psycholinguistics research and a paper on the basis of the conducted research (minimal length:16 pages).
Quality assurance mechanism: student survey
Peti-Stantić is a full professor of South Slavic languages and comparative linguistics at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb.
She spent time at the Center for Cognitive Research at Tufts University in the United States of America on two occasions, first as a Fulbright Scholar (The Relationship Between Scrambling and the Position of the Clitic Cluster in Slavic Languages) and later as a research associate, when she participated in a project on the hierarchy of grammatical structures with prof. Ray Jackendoff.