Whamit!

Speaker: Shigeru Miyagawa (MIT), Despina Oikonomou (University of Crete), Onur Özsoy (University of Cologne), Caroline Heycock (University of Edinburgh), Giorgios Vardakis (University of Padova), Rumeysa Bektaş (Tokat University)
Title: Condition C amelioration effects in wh-movement: An interaction between pronominal type and d-linking
Time: Tuesday, February 10th, 1pm - 2pm
Location: 32-D461

Abstract: While wh-movement has been argued to involve obligatory reconstruction, leading to a Condition C effect (Chomsky 1981; Barss 1986; Lebeaux 1988; Heycock 1995; Fox 1999), experimental studies in English and German have shown that, in wh-NP-movement, the Condition C effect is not robust (Adger et al. 2017; Bruening & Al-Khalaf 2019; Stockwell et al. 2021; Salzmann et al. 2023). Stockwell et al. 2021 and Salzmann et al. 2023 suggest that the (strong/weak/null) type of pronominals may be relevant. Along these lines, we investigate anaphora resolution under wh-reconstruction in Italian and Greek, languages which, unlike English, bear both null and overt person pronouns. We present data which reveal a robust correlation of pronouns and Condition C effects: null pronouns resist coreference consistently whereas overt pronouns allow it. Conceiving this contrast is crucial for determining how restrictive the nature of the Condition C as a grammatical phenomenon is. See https://tinyurl.com/4eha8dws for a longer, NELS 56 abstract.

Speaker: Amir Anvari (MIT)
Title: How to be ignorant
Time: Wednesday, February 11th, 1pm - 2pm
Location: 32-D461

Abstract: I discuss two observations that are puzzling for a rather plausible, pragmatic conception of the etiology of ignorance inferences. The first is that certain sentences do not trigger certain ignorance inferences even in highly favorable contexts (Feinmann 2023). The second is that uninformative sentences cannot be used as acceptable vehicles to convey ignorance. I will argue that the latter observation provides a strong motivation for the claim that relevance is closed under speakers’ beliefs (Fox 2016). This claim, in turn, requires adopting Meyer’s (2013) grammatical theory of ignorance computation. I will then show that the two puzzling observations can be addressed using two independently motivated assumptions about exhaustion.

Speaker: Si Berrebi (MIT)
Title: Category mergers are irrecoverable even with robust distributional evidence
Time: Monday, February 9th, 5pm - 6:30pm
Location: 32-D831

Abstract: Can a covert phonological category be learned based on the distribution, without phonetic evidence? Although this idea was debated extensively, it has yet to be tested whether individual speakers have successfully acquired covert categories. I examine a case from Modern Hebrew in which [ħ] and [χ] have undergone a merger in the majority dialect, yet historical alternations triggered by the pharyngeal are preserved in hundreds of words. Speakers of a minority dialect still produce [ħ] and [χ] as distinct, thus allowing for a direct comparison between the status of /ħ/ among speakers who have phonetic evidence for the distinction, and those who received only phonological evidence. Using a new linguistic game paradigm, validated by a small study of non-merged dialect speakers, I show that merged Hebrew speakers generally cannot represent /ħ/ as distinct from [χ] based on its distribution. I’ll discuss tentative conclusions and future directions for this project.