PROBLEM PAPER GUIDELINES

• Paper Guidelines:
• Need specific question about specific grammatical construction—read to get question!
• Question that you don’t know the answer to but would like to know
• Question that will lend itself to a solution (or partial solution) based on the holdings of our library (no time for interlibrary loans)
• Thoroughness is the key to a good answer
• Balance between your research findings and your own analysis, evaluation, and use of the findings is the key to developing a thesis for your paper

Some representative topics that could lead to good papers:

• Why do some modals (which ones) combine to form double modals while other do not?
• What are the syntactic restrictions that apply to a specific kind (you choose) of adverbial construction.  There are many good topics related to adverbial positioning.
• Can all adjectives be classified as either stative or dynamic?
• Why has a specific preposition (such as of) increased in grammatical usage?
• Why did we begin making questions (and negative statements) with forms of the dummy verb do?
• When and why did the there transformation come into English grammar?
• Why do we have so many negative prefixes in English?
• What kinds of constructions will not allow a transitive verb to undergo the passive transformation?
• Which prepositions are most likely to make phrasal verbs and why?
• What is the origin of the objective genitive in our grammar?
• How should a grammatical difference that is due to dialect be handled in the composition class?  Choose a specific grammatical difference.
• How did a specific grammatical construction (such as a NP functioning as a direct object) come into our grammar system?

Some tools to keep in mind:

• On-line catalog system—DOC  (need a book or part of a book if possible)
• Specialized bibliographies.  Find ASAP
• Search Engines on the Internet (Evaluate individual sites carefully.  Remember; my dog could get a paper published on the internet if she could type).
• LLBA—check year by year (this is slow, but it works back to 1968)
• Use Oxford English Dictionary(OED) for any word-specific research problems
• Use Visser (An Historical Syntax of the English Language) for any problems dealing with specific grammatical constructions (use bib.)
• Use A Comprehensive Grammar of English for virtually any topic (good starting place and good bibliography)