Great subject for people who love word-puzzles!

I quite enjoyed this subject, but only thanks to Henry. Getting answers to questions from the lecturer was beyond difficult, so if you didn't understand something, you were way better off talking to your tutor than asking in the lecture. The assignments were relatively difficult, but they were interesting because you got to apply the skills rather than just rote-answering questions. However, in saying that, the exam was very difficult - much harder than the practice exam and the assignments. If you don't have any background in linguistics, I wouldn't recommend taking this as a breadth because it requires a lot of work for the tutorial activities and then for the assignments. It's definitely more about applying concepts to abstract problems though, which can be rewarding when you figure it out, but if you don't like problem solving, then you won't enjoy this.

I would only do this subject if ling is your major, DO NOT do as a breadth. The assignments in this subject are SO HARD. I am a ling major and didnt enjoy at all, its basically just problem solving other languages and working out their grammar. If you dont care about doing really hard and FULL ON subjects then do it, but if you arent prepared to work really hard then id definitely stay away. The tutorials are helpful and the lectures arent too bad and are well structured, but the assignments make you go beyond what you have done in class and the exam is tough. If you like abstract problem solving then you might like this subject, but overall its just a lottttt of work. Tip: only place i learnt things was PASS. force yourself to go to them, they're so helpful.

Everyone says this subject is hard which it is but all the same, upon completion, I felt like I really knew the subject matter. I found it really interesting and I'm sure you will too if you like linguistics. Good assignments, hard but interesting. Peter is an EXCELLENT tutor and lecturer!! PS. The PASS sessions are also great if you get the chance to take them. Didn't touch the textbook tho.

The practical skills and knowledge learnt from Syntax make it an enjoyable course. The assignments and exam are focussed on problem solving type tasks. As mentioned below, the best way to prepare for this is by understanding the tutorial questions, assignment solutions, and the worked problems in the lecture notes. While tutorial solutions were discussed in the tutes, it felt as if the 1-hour tute was largely an opportunity to complete the exercises. So if you had come prepared, 45 minutes of the tute was essentially useless. This was my major gripe with the subject. If the tutorials were more engaging and allowed students to reason their arguments, students would be more equipped for the final exam.

In my opinion, this subject would have been way better if there had been a different lecturer. Nevertheless, 4/5 for the tutorials run by John, decent assignments, and the very manageable final exam. There are also weekly PASS sessions, which I did not attend, but I'm sure they were a useful supplement to those lectures.. The textbook isn't really necessary – just read through the lecture notes, actually DO the tutorial exercises, and make sure you understand the solutions provided. Also take Grammar of English (with Peter!!) beforehand if you can. Even though there isn't an extreme overlap between the courses, the sort of skills you pick up in GoE will be applicable to Syntax's tute exercises and assignments.

Peter was great! I felt very supportive throughout the semester!

Brett is not a good lecturer. This subject may have been interesting had it been easier to follow with a lecturer whose voice didn't seem already asleep. Content is odd and seemingly arbitrary (as you learn and use different/opposing methodologies). But hey, if you find this linguistic stuff truly fascinating, give it a crack. I found i had to listen to lectures twice to even understand the later week's content. And textbooks are not completely helpful as assessments use a mish mash of forms used in various textbooks, so there isn't even a steady source of reference, just the lecture slides. A confusing subject. Ridiculously easy 1st assessment, with a giant leap in difficulty for the second assessment and the exam, honestly the last few weeks of content came out of nowhere from my perspective. Good luck fam

Good lord, Peter. What a ridiculous exam. The subject was interesting, tutes were good, assignments were marked fairly, and the weirdly lopsided/scaled exam mark saved it, but holy fuck. That exam was absolutely 100% too long and against the philosophy of the subject. Scraped my 81 in a subject which I applied myself to fully, with an H2B on the exam SCALED UP from what should literally have been unable to be more than 55.