Formal Foundations of Linguistic Theory

• To introduce students to the basic mathematical concepts which are routinely used in formal linguistics;
• To introduce students to the formal tools used within the various disciplines in linguistics.

Not required. This course is related to other courses in the programme curriculum.

The purpose of this course is to present the basic mathematical concepts which are routinely used in formal linguistics. These are formal tools used within subareas of linguistics including syntax, semantics, phonology, pragmatics and also experimental linguistics.

The students will master the basic mathematical concepts which are necessary for any study of formal linguistics.
In this course, students will get the basic knowledge of the following topics:
• Set theory
• Recursion
• Gödel's incompleteness theorem
• Church-Turing's thesis
• Propositional logic
• Predicat logic
• Formal theory of language (including the Chomskian hierarchy)
• Probability theory

• Partee, Barbara H., Alice ter Meulen and Robert E. Wall. 1993. Mathematical methods in Linguistics (corrected first edition). Dordrecht: Kluwer.
• Handouts from lectures

Homeworks and a final exam or a termpaper

STEPANOV, Arthur, STATEVA, Penka. When QR disobeys superiority. Linguist. inq., 2009, vol. 40, no. 1, str. 176-185.
STEPANOV, Arthur, TSAI, Wei-Tien Dylan. Cartography and licensing of wh-adjuncts : a cross-linguistic perspective. Nat. lang. linguist. theory, avg. 2008, vol. 26, no. 3, str. 589-638.
STEPANOV, Arthur. The end of CED? : minimalism and extraction domains. Syntax (Oxford), apr. 2007, vol. 10, no. 1, str. 80-126.
STEPANOV, Arthur. Morphological case and the inverse case filter. Linguist. Ber., 2007, hft. 211, str. 255-276.
STEPANOV, Arthur. On the absence of long-distance A-movement in Russian. J. Slav. linguist., 2007, vol. 15, no. 1, str. 81-108.
STEPANOV, Arthur. Single cycle languages : implications for cyclicity, recursion and acquisition. Linguistic variation yearbook, 2006, vol. 6, str. 25-71.
SAUERLAND, Uli, STATEVA, Penka. Two types of vagueness. V: ÉGRÉ, Paul (ur.), KLINEDINST, Nathan (ur.). Vagueness and language use, (Palgrave studies in pragmatics, language and cognition). Hampshire; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, str. 121-145.
STEPANOV, Arthur, STATEVA, Penka. When QR disobeys superiority. Linguist. inq., 2009, vol. 40, no. 1, str. 176-185.
STEPANOV, Arthur, STATEVA, Penka. Successive cyclicity as residual wh-scope marking. Lingua. [Print ed.], dec. 2006, vol. 116, no. 12, str. 2107-2153.
STATEVA, Penka. On the status of parasitic gaps in Bulgarian. J. Slav. linguist., 2005, vol. 13, no. 1, str. 137-155.
STATEVA, Penka. Possessive clitics and the structure of nominal expressions. Lingua. [Print ed.], 2002, vol. 112, no. 8, str. 647-690.