Abstraction plays a central role in syntactic analysis, as in other areas of linguistics.
An example of this is the widely accepted assumption that sentences involve underlying levels of structure distinct from the observable structure and linked to this by 'transformational' processes. Another is the idea that structural positions within sentences may be filled by 'null' elements which have no phonetic form. This course introduces the basic concepts, principles and techniques of current syntactic theory and analysis. As well as familiarising students with the central areas of syntactic thought, the course offers practice in using analytic techniques and concepts on data from a range of languages. In this paper one syntactic theory, the 'Principles and Parameters' model, which is by far the most highly developed and most widely adopted, is studied to a relatively advanced level.