Whamit!

The Weekly Newsletter of MIT Linguistics

LingLunch 11/20 - Loes Koring

Speaker: Loes Koring (MIT/Utrecht)
Title: A visual signature of computation
Date/Time: Thursday, November 20, 12:30-1:45pm
Location: 32-D461

In this talk, I will present a new method to track argument reactivation during processing of intransitive verbs. In particular, I will show how the Visual World Paradigm can be used to obtain a precise record of (re)activation of the verb’s argument throughout the entire sentence. Using this method, we will see that the argument of unaccusative vs. unergative verbs is reactivated at a different point in time depending on their syntactic position. The timing difference is independent of the thematic role of the argument, as we will conclude from the behavior of theme unergative verbs.