ABSTRACT
Th e title of this chapter is deliberately rather ambiguous. I am hopeful that by this point, you will be able to construct a basic syntactic description of a language, either a language that you speak well yourself, or one for which you can fi nd a native speaker consultant. Section 9.1 outlines the kinds of questions that you will need to investigate. Section 9.2 provides a short case study of Welsh, illustrating how these questions could be answered. Th ese sectio ns, then, refer to asking questions about syntax in the most literal way. However, I also hope that the discussion in the previous chapters has ignited some curiosity about the human language faculty more generally. In Section 9.3, I briefl y outline some issues and questions surrounding our syntactic abilities that are currently widely debated within linguistics. Section 9.4 looks at possible further directions to pursue in your study of syntax.
