Speaker: Takashi Morita (MIT) Title: Bayesian Learning of Lexical Classes in Japanese Date: Monday, October 26th Time: 5-6:30 Place: 32D-831
Archive for October, 2015
Syntax Square 10/27 - No meeting this week
There will be no Syntax Square meeting this week.
There will be no Syntax Square meeting this week.
Fieldwork Support Group 10/28
Last year we had the first two meetings of the “fieldwork lab” — an informal cross-departmental support group for students at Harvard and MIT who are doing independent fieldwork or are interested in getting (re)started. We are hoping to revive the group and restart our meetings.
To recap from our past meetings, it seems to us that there’s not much dialogue between the different students who do fieldwork, nor is there much information on the logistical/practical aspects of fieldwork (like funding, equipment, travel, etc.). We think it would be good to have something ongoing, self-sustainable, and student-organized beyond the field methods courses that are offered at either department.
We’re having our first meeting to brainstorm ideas on what this group can do to be maximally useful to everyone involved - so, our first meeting will be:
When: Wednesday October 28th, 5:30-7pm (there will be food!)
Where: MIT, 32-D831
If you can’t attend but would like to be a part of this, or you have any questions, please email Michelle Yuan or TC and we’ll include you on our future communications.
Last year we had the first two meetings of the “fieldwork lab” — an informal cross-departmental support group for students at Harvard and MIT who are doing independent fieldwork or are interested in getting (re)started. We are hoping to revive the group and restart our meetings.
To recap from our past meetings, it seems to us that there’s not much dialogue between the different students who do fieldwork, nor is there much information on the logistical/practical aspects of fieldwork (like funding, equipment, travel, etc.). We think it would be good to have something ongoing, self-sustainable, and student-organized beyond the field methods courses that are offered at either department.
We’re having our first meeting to brainstorm ideas on what this group can do to be maximally useful to everyone involved - so, our first meeting will be:
When: Wednesday October 28th, 5:30-7pm (there will be food!)
Where: MIT, 32-D831
If you can’t attend but would like to be a part of this, or you have any questions, please email Michelle Yuan or TC and we’ll include you on our future communications.
Ling Lunch 10/29 - Adam Szczegielniak
Speaker: Adam Szczegielniak (Rutgers University)
Title: Phase by Phase Givenness: The case of P-omission and Island alleviation in multiple remnant sluicing
Time: Thurs 10/29, 12:30-1:45
Place: 32-D461
Abtract.
Speaker: Adam Szczegielniak (Rutgers University) Title: Phase by Phase Givenness: The case of P-omission and Island alleviation in multiple remnant sluicing Time: Thurs 10/29, 12:30-1:45 Place: 32-D461
Abtract.
LFRG 10/30 - Isa Kerem Bayirli
Who: Isa Kerem Bayirli (MIT)
When: Friday, October 30, 2-3:30pm
Where: 32-D461
Title: On the absence of free choice-type inferences in some Turkish constructions
I will talk about the absence of free choice-type inferences in the context of several expressions in Turkish. The complex disjunction `ya…ya…’ and complex conjunction `hem…hem…’ do not give rise to free choice-type effects (i.e. strenghtening to wide scope conjunction) in contexts in which their simple versions do. To capture these observations, we will need to revise the conditions on the distribution of the exh operator and on the proper use of these two constructions.
Who: Isa Kerem Bayirli (MIT) When: Friday, October 30, 2-3:30pm Where: 32-D461 Title: On the absence of free choice-type inferences in some Turkish constructions
I will talk about the absence of free choice-type inferences in the context of several expressions in Turkish. The complex disjunction `ya…ya…’ and complex conjunction `hem…hem…’ do not give rise to free choice-type effects (i.e. strenghtening to wide scope conjunction) in contexts in which their simple versions do. To capture these observations, we will need to revise the conditions on the distribution of the exh operator and on the proper use of these two constructions.
Zukoff at the UCLA Indo-European Conference
Fourth-year student Sam Zukoff gave a talk last weekend at the UCLA Indo-European conference WeCIEC 2015, entitled “Repetition Avoidance and the Exceptional Reduplication Patterns of Indo-European”. You can read the handout here.
Fourth-year student Sam Zukoff gave a talk last weekend at the UCLA Indo-European conference WeCIEC 2015, entitled “Repetition Avoidance and the Exceptional Reduplication Patterns of Indo-European”. You can read the handout here.
Juliet Stanton in Natural Language & Linguistic Theory
Congratulations to 4th-year student Juliet Stanton, whose paper “Predicting distributional restrictions on prenasalised stops” has just been published in Natural Language & Linguistic Theory!
Previous studies on prenasalized stops (NCs) focus mainly on issues of derivation and classification, but little is known about their distributional properties. The current study fills this gap. I present results of a survey documenting positional restrictions on NCs, and show that there are predictable and systematic constraints on their distribution. The major finding is that NCs are optimally licensed in contexts where they are perceptually distinct from plain oral and nasal stops. I provide an analysis referencing auditory factors, and show that a perceptual account explains all attested patterns.
“Spectrogram-prenasalized-consonant”. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikipedia.
Congratulations to 4th-year student Juliet Stanton, whose paper “Predicting distributional restrictions on prenasalised stops” has just been published in Natural Language & Linguistic Theory!
Previous studies on prenasalized stops (NCs) focus mainly on issues of derivation and classification, but little is known about their distributional properties. The current study fills this gap. I present results of a survey documenting positional restrictions on NCs, and show that there are predictable and systematic constraints on their distribution. The major finding is that NCs are optimally licensed in contexts where they are perceptually distinct from plain oral and nasal stops. I provide an analysis referencing auditory factors, and show that a perceptual account explains all attested patterns.
“Spectrogram-prenasalized-consonant”. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikipedia.
“Why only us?” - New Berwick & Chomsky book to appear
Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky co-wrote a book about language evolution to appear in January, 2016 from MIT Press. Here is an overview of the questions covered by the book (from the MIT Press website):
We are born crying, but those cries signal the first stirring of language. Within a year or so, infants master the sound system of their language; a few years after that, they are engaging in conversations. This remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire any human language—“the language faculty”—raises important biological questions about language, including how it has evolved. This book by two distinguished scholars—a computer scientist and a linguist—addresses the enduring question of the evolution of language.
Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky explain that until recently the evolutionary question could not be properly posed, because we did not have a clear idea of how to define “language” and therefore what it was that had evolved. But since the Minimalist Program, developed by Chomsky and others, we know the key ingredients of language and can put together an account of the evolution of human language and what distinguishes us from all other animals.
Berwick and Chomsky discuss the biolinguistic perspective on language, which views language as a particular object of the biological world; the computational efficiency of language as a system of thought and understanding; the tension between Darwin’s idea of gradual change and our contemporary understanding about evolutionary change and language; and evidence from nonhuman animals, in particular vocal learning in songbirds.
Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky co-wrote a book about language evolution to appear in January, 2016 from MIT Press. Here is an overview of the questions covered by the book (from the MIT Press website):
We are born crying, but those cries signal the first stirring of language. Within a year or so, infants master the sound system of their language; a few years after that, they are engaging in conversations. This remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire any human language—“the language faculty”—raises important biological questions about language, including how it has evolved. This book by two distinguished scholars—a computer scientist and a linguist—addresses the enduring question of the evolution of language.
Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky explain that until recently the evolutionary question could not be properly posed, because we did not have a clear idea of how to define “language” and therefore what it was that had evolved. But since the Minimalist Program, developed by Chomsky and others, we know the key ingredients of language and can put together an account of the evolution of human language and what distinguishes us from all other animals.
Berwick and Chomsky discuss the biolinguistic perspective on language, which views language as a particular object of the biological world; the computational efficiency of language as a system of thought and understanding; the tension between Darwin’s idea of gradual change and our contemporary understanding about evolutionary change and language; and evidence from nonhuman animals, in particular vocal learning in songbirds.
Syntax Square 10/20 - Isa Kerem Bayirli
Speaker: Isa Kerem Bayirli (MIT)
Title: On the concord phenomenon
Time: Tuesday 10/20, 10-11am
Place: 32-D461
I will talk about the morphosyntactic features (gender, number and case) that enter into
concord in natural languages. I first attempt to establish the following generalization:
Concord Hierarchy
For some language L Let a1…an be features (canonically) hosted by functional heads in the extended projection of the noun such that aj+1 c-commands aj, then
If aj+1 enters into concord with the adjectives in L
then aj enters into concord with the adjectives in L
This generalization is derived from an extension of the FA Rule (first version) developed in Pesetsky (2013). It turns out that, when combined with some, hopefully plausible, assumptions, this system makes two more predictions: concord-suspension complementarity and idiosyncratic gender generalization. I provide some data indicating that the observations are in line with these predictions.
Speaker: Isa Kerem Bayirli (MIT) Title: On the concord phenomenon Time: Tuesday 10/20, 10-11am Place: 32-D461
I will talk about the morphosyntactic features (gender, number and case) that enter into concord in natural languages. I first attempt to establish the following generalization:
Concord HierarchyFor some language L Let a1…an be features (canonically) hosted by functional heads in the extended projection of the noun such that aj+1 c-commands aj, then
If aj+1 enters into concord with the adjectives in L then aj enters into concord with the adjectives in L
This generalization is derived from an extension of the FA Rule (first version) developed in Pesetsky (2013). It turns out that, when combined with some, hopefully plausible, assumptions, this system makes two more predictions: concord-suspension complementarity and idiosyncratic gender generalization. I provide some data indicating that the observations are in line with these predictions.
ESSL/Language Acquisition Lab 9/21: Michael Clauss
Speaker: Michael Clauss (UMass)
Title: Classifying Adjectives without Semantic Information (joint work with Jeremy Hartman)
Time: 5-6:30pm
Place: 32D-461
The problem of children’s acquisition of “Tough” constructions in English has a long history. It has often been found that children commonly interpret the subjects of “Tough” sentences as the subjects of the embedded clauses rather than the objects, analogous to Control adjectives like “eager”. Numerous studies have shown this phenomenon (Chomsky 1969, Solan 1978, Anderson 2005). Recent work by Becker (2014) suggests that children are better than previously claimed, and can use semantic cues (namely subject animacy) to give the correct parse to sentences of this form, based on novel word learning experiments.
- The teacher is ADJ to draw → The teacher1 is ADJ [PRO1 to draw]
- The apple is ADJ to draw → The apple1 is ADJ [PROar b to draw (e)1]
The present work seeks to expand the picture developed by this recent work by examining what syntactic cues children (and adults) may use to parse potentially ambiguous strings with novel adjectives, particularly in environments with as little semantic content as possible. To answer this, we start with the observation that Tough and Control adjectives appear in a different range of syntactic frames. Thus, a novel adjective may be ambiguous between Tough and Control interpretations in some syntactic frames, but unambiguously Tough or Control if it is heard in others.
a John is daxy to see (ambiguous)
b It’s daxy to see John (tough only)
c John is daxy to see Bill (Control only)
d John is daxy to look at (tough only)
In our experiment, participants were taught a novel adjective in one of the frames in (a-d), and then tested by being asked questions about a series of pictures using the ambiguous frame (which one is daxy to [verb]). We found that children, aged 4-6, consistently skew toward Control readings no matter which frame was used in training. For adults, however, we found that training condition had a strong effect on performance on the test; adults were at chance responding when trained on the ambiguous condition a, but tended to give the expected answers on the other conditions. The different performance of children and adults adds support to the notion that, for children, semantic information is crucial to choose between the two adjective types, while for adults syntax does most of the work.
However, we also find that the Tough construction is still difficult to learn from syntax for adults: adults are less likely to give target responses in the conditions which should train for Tough syntax than for the condition that trains for Control. We also argue that this shows that there is some general bias towards Control-type interpretations for both children and adults which interacts with cues that signify Tough constructions. We discuss further paths to piecing together all the cues which might signify that a word is of either of these types.
Speaker: Michael Clauss (UMass) Title: Classifying Adjectives without Semantic Information (joint work with Jeremy Hartman) Time: 5-6:30pm Place: 32D-461
The problem of children’s acquisition of “Tough” constructions in English has a long history. It has often been found that children commonly interpret the subjects of “Tough” sentences as the subjects of the embedded clauses rather than the objects, analogous to Control adjectives like “eager”. Numerous studies have shown this phenomenon (Chomsky 1969, Solan 1978, Anderson 2005). Recent work by Becker (2014) suggests that children are better than previously claimed, and can use semantic cues (namely subject animacy) to give the correct parse to sentences of this form, based on novel word learning experiments.
- The teacher is ADJ to draw → The teacher1 is ADJ [PRO1 to draw]
- The apple is ADJ to draw → The apple1 is ADJ [PROar b to draw (e)1]
The present work seeks to expand the picture developed by this recent work by examining what syntactic cues children (and adults) may use to parse potentially ambiguous strings with novel adjectives, particularly in environments with as little semantic content as possible. To answer this, we start with the observation that Tough and Control adjectives appear in a different range of syntactic frames. Thus, a novel adjective may be ambiguous between Tough and Control interpretations in some syntactic frames, but unambiguously Tough or Control if it is heard in others.
a John is daxy to see (ambiguous) b It’s daxy to see John (tough only) c John is daxy to see Bill (Control only) d John is daxy to look at (tough only)
In our experiment, participants were taught a novel adjective in one of the frames in (a-d), and then tested by being asked questions about a series of pictures using the ambiguous frame (which one is daxy to [verb]). We found that children, aged 4-6, consistently skew toward Control readings no matter which frame was used in training. For adults, however, we found that training condition had a strong effect on performance on the test; adults were at chance responding when trained on the ambiguous condition a, but tended to give the expected answers on the other conditions. The different performance of children and adults adds support to the notion that, for children, semantic information is crucial to choose between the two adjective types, while for adults syntax does most of the work.
However, we also find that the Tough construction is still difficult to learn from syntax for adults: adults are less likely to give target responses in the conditions which should train for Tough syntax than for the condition that trains for Control. We also argue that this shows that there is some general bias towards Control-type interpretations for both children and adults which interacts with cues that signify Tough constructions. We discuss further paths to piecing together all the cues which might signify that a word is of either of these types.
Ling Lunch 10/22 - Kenyon Branan
Speaker: Kenyon Branan (MIT)
Title: Licensing with Case: Evidence from Kikuyu
Time: Thurs 10/22, 12:30-1:45
Place: 32-D461
In Kikuyu, structurally low, post-verbal nominal arguments are subject to a curious restriction: adjacency between the noun head and the verbal complex must not be interrupted by any element. However, this restriction holds only when the relevant nominal is the only argument in the post-verbal domain—-when there are two or more nominals in the post-verbal domain, none are subject to this restriction. In this talk, I argue that this can be explained straightforwardly in a configurational Case system, where Case may be assigned between two sufficiently local DPs. I also discuss the implications of this for two recent approaches to Case and Licensing: Levin (2015) and Baker (2015). These data constitute a strong argument against one of the core arguments in Levin (2015); namely, that Case, regardless of how it is assigned, does not have a licensing function.
Speaker: Kenyon Branan (MIT) Title: Licensing with Case: Evidence from Kikuyu Time: Thurs 10/22, 12:30-1:45 Place: 32-D461
In Kikuyu, structurally low, post-verbal nominal arguments are subject to a curious restriction: adjacency between the noun head and the verbal complex must not be interrupted by any element. However, this restriction holds only when the relevant nominal is the only argument in the post-verbal domain—-when there are two or more nominals in the post-verbal domain, none are subject to this restriction. In this talk, I argue that this can be explained straightforwardly in a configurational Case system, where Case may be assigned between two sufficiently local DPs. I also discuss the implications of this for two recent approaches to Case and Licensing: Levin (2015) and Baker (2015). These data constitute a strong argument against one of the core arguments in Levin (2015); namely, that Case, regardless of how it is assigned, does not have a licensing function.
LFRG 10/23 - Matt Mandelkern
Who: Matt Mandelkern (MIT)
When: Friday, October 23, 2-3:30pm
Where: 32-D461
Title: A Note on the Architecture of Semantic Presupposition
The Proviso Problem is the problem of accounting for the discrepancy between the predictions of nearly every major theory of semantic presupposition about what is semantically presupposed by conditionals, disjunctions, and conjunctions, versus observations about what speakers of certain sentences are felt to be presupposing. I argue that the Proviso Problem is a more serious problem than has been recognized in much of the current literature. After briefly describing the problem and a set of standard responses to the problem, I give a number of examples which, I argue, the standard responses are unable to account for. I argue that not only are the details of those responses inadequate, but so is the more general theoretical architecture that they instantiate. I conclude by briefly exploring alternate approaches to presupposition that avoid this problem.
Who: Matt Mandelkern (MIT) When: Friday, October 23, 2-3:30pm Where: 32-D461 Title: A Note on the Architecture of Semantic Presupposition
The Proviso Problem is the problem of accounting for the discrepancy between the predictions of nearly every major theory of semantic presupposition about what is semantically presupposed by conditionals, disjunctions, and conjunctions, versus observations about what speakers of certain sentences are felt to be presupposing. I argue that the Proviso Problem is a more serious problem than has been recognized in much of the current literature. After briefly describing the problem and a set of standard responses to the problem, I give a number of examples which, I argue, the standard responses are unable to account for. I argue that not only are the details of those responses inadequate, but so is the more general theoretical architecture that they instantiate. I conclude by briefly exploring alternate approaches to presupposition that avoid this problem.
Thursday Talk 10/22 - Philippe Schlenker
Speaker: Philippe Schlenker (Institut Jean-Nicod, CNRS; New York University)
Title: Formal Monkey Linguistics
When and where: 5-630 PM Thursday, 32D-461
Abstract: Monkey_Linguistics-MIT-15.10.17
Speaker: Philippe Schlenker (Institut Jean-Nicod, CNRS; New York University) Title: Formal Monkey Linguistics When and where: 5-630 PM Thursday, 32D-461 Abstract: Monkey_Linguistics-MIT-15.10.17
Colloquium 10/23 - Philippe Schlenker
Speaker: Philippe Schlenker (Institut Jean-Nicod, CNRS; New York University)
Title: Visible Meaning: Signs vs. Gestures
Date: Friday, October 23rd
Time: 3:30-5:00 PM
Place: 32-141
Semantic studies of sign language have led to two general claims. First, in some cases sign languages make visible some crucial aspects of the Logical Form of sentences, ones that are only inferred indirectly in spoken language. For instance, sign language ‘loci’ are positions in signing space that can arguably realize logical variables or ‘indices’, but the latter are covert in spoken language. Second, along one dimension sign languages are strictly more expressive than spoken languages because iconic phenomena can be found at their logical core. This applies to loci themselves, which may simultaneously function as logical variables and as simplified pictures of what they denote. As a result, the semantic system of spoken languages can in some respects be seen as a ‘degenerate’ version of the richer semantics found in sign languages. Two conclusions could be drawn from this observation. One is that the full extent of Universal Semantics can only be studied in sign languages. An alternative possibility is that spoken languages have comparable expressive mechanisms, but only when co-speech gestures are taken into account (Goldin-Meadow and Brentari 2015). In order to address this debate, one must compare a semantics with iconicity for sign language to a semantics with co-speech gestures for spoken language. We will sketch such a comparison, focusing on the assertive vs. non-assertive status of iconic/gestural enrichments in each modality.
Speaker: Philippe Schlenker (Institut Jean-Nicod, CNRS; New York University) Title: Visible Meaning: Signs vs. Gestures Date: Friday, October 23rd Time: 3:30-5:00 PM Place: 32-141
Semantic studies of sign language have led to two general claims. First, in some cases sign languages make visible some crucial aspects of the Logical Form of sentences, ones that are only inferred indirectly in spoken language. For instance, sign language ‘loci’ are positions in signing space that can arguably realize logical variables or ‘indices’, but the latter are covert in spoken language. Second, along one dimension sign languages are strictly more expressive than spoken languages because iconic phenomena can be found at their logical core. This applies to loci themselves, which may simultaneously function as logical variables and as simplified pictures of what they denote. As a result, the semantic system of spoken languages can in some respects be seen as a ‘degenerate’ version of the richer semantics found in sign languages. Two conclusions could be drawn from this observation. One is that the full extent of Universal Semantics can only be studied in sign languages. An alternative possibility is that spoken languages have comparable expressive mechanisms, but only when co-speech gestures are taken into account (Goldin-Meadow and Brentari 2015). In order to address this debate, one must compare a semantics with iconicity for sign language to a semantics with co-speech gestures for spoken language. We will sketch such a comparison, focusing on the assertive vs. non-assertive status of iconic/gestural enrichments in each modality.
Phonology Circle 10/19 - Discussion of Tessier & Jesney (2014)
Erin Olson will be leading a discussion of the following paper:
Tessier, Anne-Michelle & Karen Jesney (2014). Learning in Harmonic Serialism and the necessity of a richer base. Phonology 31.1, 155-178.
Erin Olson will be leading a discussion of the following paper: Tessier, Anne-Michelle & Karen Jesney (2014). Learning in Harmonic Serialism and the necessity of a richer base. Phonology 31.1, 155-178.
MIT @ NELS
The 46th annual meeting of the North East Linguistics Society was held at Concordia University (Montréal, Québec) on October 16-18, 2015. The following MIT students gave talks or poster presentations:
- Athulya Aravind: Minimality and WH licensing in Malayalam
- Kenyon Branan: Case sensitive A-bar movement
- Aron Hirsch: “DP conjunction” as vP conjunction: a case for conjunction reduction
- Nicholas Longenbaugh: The Two predicates Tough
- Ezer Rasin: Phonological architecture and blocking in nonderived environments
- Juliet Stanton: Effects of Allophonic Vowel Nasalization on NC Clusters
- Michelle Yuan: Case and morphosyntactic anti-identity in Yimas
Two of our most distinguished alums gave invited talks …
- Valentine Hacquard (PhD 2006; UMD): Theme and variations in the expression of modality (joint work with Ailis Cournan)
- Omer Preminger (PhD 2011; UMD): Head movement, phrasal movement, and clitic doubling: towards a principled typology
…and the following alumni (also distinguished!) gave presentations:
- Sam Alxatib (PhD 2014; CUNY): Actuality Entailments in Palestinian Arabic
- Seth Cable (PhD 2007; UMass): The Special Implicatures of Optional Past Tense: The Tlingit Decessive and ‘Discontinuous Past’
- Isaac Gould (PhD 2015; UKansas): Modeling Verb Placement Errors in Child Swiss German: The role of ambiguous evidence
- Hadas Kotek (PhD 2014; McGill), Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine (PhD 2014; U. Singapore): Unifying Definite and indefinite free relatives: Evidence from Mayan
- Idan Landau (PhD 1999; Ben Gurion): Hybrid Nouns and Agreement Zones within DP
- Theodore Levin (PhD 2015; UMD): Unmarked case is unvalued Case: Default Voice in Formosan restructuring
- Yasutada Sudo (PhD 2012; UCL): List Readings of Conjoined Singular Which-Phrases (joint work with Andreea Nicolae (ZAS) and Patrick Elliott (UCL))
- Susi Wurmbrand (PhD 1998; UConn): Crossing clauses covertly — difficult but not impossible
The 46th annual meeting of the North East Linguistics Society was held at Concordia University (Montréal, Québec) on October 16-18, 2015. The following MIT students gave talks or poster presentations:
- Athulya Aravind: Minimality and WH licensing in Malayalam
- Kenyon Branan: Case sensitive A-bar movement
- Aron Hirsch: “DP conjunction” as vP conjunction: a case for conjunction reduction
- Nicholas Longenbaugh: The Two predicates Tough
- Ezer Rasin: Phonological architecture and blocking in nonderived environments
- Juliet Stanton: Effects of Allophonic Vowel Nasalization on NC Clusters
- Michelle Yuan: Case and morphosyntactic anti-identity in Yimas
Two of our most distinguished alums gave invited talks …
- Valentine Hacquard (PhD 2006; UMD): Theme and variations in the expression of modality (joint work with Ailis Cournan)
- Omer Preminger (PhD 2011; UMD): Head movement, phrasal movement, and clitic doubling: towards a principled typology
…and the following alumni (also distinguished!) gave presentations:
- Sam Alxatib (PhD 2014; CUNY): Actuality Entailments in Palestinian Arabic
- Seth Cable (PhD 2007; UMass): The Special Implicatures of Optional Past Tense: The Tlingit Decessive and ‘Discontinuous Past’
- Isaac Gould (PhD 2015; UKansas): Modeling Verb Placement Errors in Child Swiss German: The role of ambiguous evidence
- Hadas Kotek (PhD 2014; McGill), Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine (PhD 2014; U. Singapore): Unifying Definite and indefinite free relatives: Evidence from Mayan
- Idan Landau (PhD 1999; Ben Gurion): Hybrid Nouns and Agreement Zones within DP
- Theodore Levin (PhD 2015; UMD): Unmarked case is unvalued Case: Default Voice in Formosan restructuring
- Yasutada Sudo (PhD 2012; UCL): List Readings of Conjoined Singular Which-Phrases (joint work with Andreea Nicolae (ZAS) and Patrick Elliott (UCL))
- Susi Wurmbrand (PhD 1998; UConn): Crossing clauses covertly — difficult but not impossible
Phonology Circle 10/13 - Edward Flemming
Speaker: Edward Flemming (MIT)
Title: Deriving Implicational Universals in Optimality Theory
Date: Tuesday, October 13rd
Time: 5-6:30
Place: 32-D461
Many phonological universals are implicational in form, e.g. ‘If a language allows obstruents to be syllabified as the nucleus of a syllable then that language also allows sonorant consonants to be syllabified as the nucleus of a syllable.’ In Optimality Theory, implicational universals are often supposed to follow from the existence of hierarchies of constraints with universal rankings (or from stringency hierarchies). Implicational universals do follow from the possible rankings of a constraint hierarchy and a single conflicting constraint, but the more common situation of interaction between two conflicting constraint hierarchies is more complex because the constraints in two hierarchies can be interleaved in many ways. We will see that there are cases where positing a constraint hierarchy is not sufficient to derive an implicational universal because the structure of the conflicting hierarchy undermines the expected implication. I will propose a revision of standard OT, Ranked Violations OT, in which it is possible to constrain the interactions between constraint hierarchies, allowing for the correct derivation of implicational universals in these cases.
Speaker: Edward Flemming (MIT) Title: Deriving Implicational Universals in Optimality Theory Date: Tuesday, October 13rd Time: 5-6:30 Place: 32-D461
Many phonological universals are implicational in form, e.g. ‘If a language allows obstruents to be syllabified as the nucleus of a syllable then that language also allows sonorant consonants to be syllabified as the nucleus of a syllable.’ In Optimality Theory, implicational universals are often supposed to follow from the existence of hierarchies of constraints with universal rankings (or from stringency hierarchies). Implicational universals do follow from the possible rankings of a constraint hierarchy and a single conflicting constraint, but the more common situation of interaction between two conflicting constraint hierarchies is more complex because the constraints in two hierarchies can be interleaved in many ways. We will see that there are cases where positing a constraint hierarchy is not sufficient to derive an implicational universal because the structure of the conflicting hierarchy undermines the expected implication. I will propose a revision of standard OT, Ranked Violations OT, in which it is possible to constrain the interactions between constraint hierarchies, allowing for the correct derivation of implicational universals in these cases.
ESSL/Language Acquisition Lab 10/14 - William Snyder
Speaker: William Snyder (UConn)
Title: Relativized Minimality in Children’s Passives
When: October 14, 2015, 5pm - 6:30pm
Where: 32-D461
The acquisition literature on English passives is strikingly inconsistent. Many studies have found that children under age four have considerable difficulty with unequivocally verbal passives, and that children as old as six are still struggling with passives of non-actional verbs. Yet, a small number of studies (e.g. Pinker, Lebeaux & Frost 1987) find adult-like performance on both the comprehension and the production of passives, including the passives of both actional and non-actional verbs, in children as young as three. In this talk I will present a proposal from Snyder & Hyams (2015) that aims to make sense of these inconsistencies. A key observation is that the studies finding early success are precisely the ones that motivate a discourse-related feature such as [+Topic] or [+Focus] on the derived subject. The Snyder-Hyams account combines Rizzi’s (2004) version of Relativized Minimality with proposals from Collins (2005) and Grillo (2007); and leads to a number of novel predictions, as I would like to discuss.
Speaker: William Snyder (UConn) Title: Relativized Minimality in Children’s Passives When: October 14, 2015, 5pm - 6:30pm Where: 32-D461
The acquisition literature on English passives is strikingly inconsistent. Many studies have found that children under age four have considerable difficulty with unequivocally verbal passives, and that children as old as six are still struggling with passives of non-actional verbs. Yet, a small number of studies (e.g. Pinker, Lebeaux & Frost 1987) find adult-like performance on both the comprehension and the production of passives, including the passives of both actional and non-actional verbs, in children as young as three. In this talk I will present a proposal from Snyder & Hyams (2015) that aims to make sense of these inconsistencies. A key observation is that the studies finding early success are precisely the ones that motivate a discourse-related feature such as [+Topic] or [+Focus] on the derived subject. The Snyder-Hyams account combines Rizzi’s (2004) version of Relativized Minimality with proposals from Collins (2005) and Grillo (2007); and leads to a number of novel predictions, as I would like to discuss.
Ling Lunch 10/15 - Bruna Karla Pereira & Eloisa Pilati
Note: There will be two shorter talks this week.
Time: Thursday, October 15, 12:30-1:45pm
Place: 32-D461
Speaker: Bruna Karla Pereira (UFVJM; CAPES Foundation - Ministry of Education of Brazil)
Title: Speech Act Phrase in Brazilian Portuguese: possessive agreement with the addressee
This talk presents an initial hypothesis to analyze agreement in dialectal Brazilian Portuguese (BP) data, such as (1) and (2). In (1), while noun and number receive a plural morpheme, the possessive does not. In contrast, in (2), while noun and determiner do not receive a plural morpheme, the possessive does.
(1) Amanhã ele verá dois serviços seu (Belo Horizonte, September 10th 2015)
Tomorrow he see-FUT two-PL task-PL your-SG
Tomorrow he is coming to see your two works.
(2) Para eu avaliar o pedido seus, vou precisar de mais dados (Belo Horizonte, June 15th 2015)
To I evaluate the-SG request-SG your-PL, go-FUT need of more data
In order to evaluate your request, I will need some more data.
In standard BP, possessive ‘seu(s)’ agrees in number with the noun and may refer to either 2nd person plural or 2nd person singular, as it is shown in (3) and (4), resulting in ambiguity. This is not the case in European Portuguese (EP) where, on the one hand, ‘vosso(s)’ is for 2nd person plural and, on the other hand, ‘teu(s)’ is for 2nd person singular.
(3) Preciso de seus favores (‘seus’ = ‘de você’ or ‘de vocês’)
Need-I of your-PL favor-PL (your = ‘of you-SG’ or ‘of you-PL’)
I need your favors (favors from you or from you guys)
(4) Preciso de seu favor (‘seu’ = ‘de você’ or ‘de vocês’)
Need-I of your-SG favor-SG (your = ‘of you-SG’ or ‘of you-PL’)
I need your favor (a favor from you or from you guys)
Therefore, looking at the data in (1) and (2), we observe that ‘-s’ is added to the possessive pronoun when thespeaker addresses to a plural ‘you’, and no ‘-s’ is added when the speaker addresses a singular ‘you’, which clearly seems to be an instance of agreement with the addressee.
Several works have shown not only how syntax codifies discourse participants but also how syntactic operations may be displayed in their scope. Firstly, according to Tsoulas and Kural (1999), indexical pronouns ‘I’ and ‘you’ arevariables bound by operators, respectively, SPEAKER and ADDRESSEE, that are situated above C in the syntactic structure. Secondly, Speas and Tenny (2003) suggest that speaker and hearer are functional projections inside SAP, proposal that is further developed by Haegeman and Hill (2011) with West Flemish data. Thirdly, Miyagawa (2012) showsthat verbal politeness marker ‘-mas-’, used to formally address the hearer in Japanese, “is in fact an implementation of second person agreement”. In this case, the probe moves from C to SAP for checking phi-features.
Having said that, I will investigate (1) and (2) as an instance of agreement between possessive and hearer, being the latter (c)overtly realized as vocative in SAP. As a consequence, vocative number phi-feature, in the speech act domain, is probably what triggers possessive number agreement inside the DP, in the sentential domain.
Speaker: Eloisa Pilati (University of Brasilia)
Title: Locative pronouns as subjects in Brazilian Portuguese
The goal of this presentation is to account for the licensing of locative DPs and deictic adverbs in subject position in Brazilian Portuguese (henceforth, BP), taking into consideration specifically the status of third person null subjects/ inflection in this language. Following Pilati & Naves 2011, 2013 and Pilati, Naves & Salles 2015, I will show a unified analysis for the phenomena, which concern the current discussion on Brazilian Portuguese (BP) as a partial null subject language (cf. Holmberg 2010). The proposal is that third person inflection on the verb, unlike first and second person inflection, is unable to license referential definite null subjects, although it is able to license a (null) locative adverb/ pronoun in preverbal position. The emergence of the constructions with locatives in subject position is due to the possibility of filling the subject position with a locative pronoun/adverb or a locative DP, on the assumption that third person inflection in BP is no longer referential (cf. Rabelo 2010).
Note: There will be two shorter talks this week.
Time: Thursday, October 15, 12:30-1:45pm Place: 32-D461
Speaker: Bruna Karla Pereira (UFVJM; CAPES Foundation - Ministry of Education of Brazil) Title: Speech Act Phrase in Brazilian Portuguese: possessive agreement with the addressee
This talk presents an initial hypothesis to analyze agreement in dialectal Brazilian Portuguese (BP) data, such as (1) and (2). In (1), while noun and number receive a plural morpheme, the possessive does not. In contrast, in (2), while noun and determiner do not receive a plural morpheme, the possessive does.
(1) Amanhã ele verá dois serviços seu (Belo Horizonte, September 10th 2015)
Tomorrow he see-FUT two-PL task-PL your-SG
Tomorrow he is coming to see your two works.(2) Para eu avaliar o pedido seus, vou precisar de mais dados (Belo Horizonte, June 15th 2015)
To I evaluate the-SG request-SG your-PL, go-FUT need of more data
In order to evaluate your request, I will need some more data.In standard BP, possessive ‘seu(s)’ agrees in number with the noun and may refer to either 2nd person plural or 2nd person singular, as it is shown in (3) and (4), resulting in ambiguity. This is not the case in European Portuguese (EP) where, on the one hand, ‘vosso(s)’ is for 2nd person plural and, on the other hand, ‘teu(s)’ is for 2nd person singular.
(3) Preciso de seus favores (‘seus’ = ‘de você’ or ‘de vocês’)
Need-I of your-PL favor-PL (your = ‘of you-SG’ or ‘of you-PL’)
I need your favors (favors from you or from you guys)
(4) Preciso de seu favor (‘seu’ = ‘de você’ or ‘de vocês’)
Need-I of your-SG favor-SG (your = ‘of you-SG’ or ‘of you-PL’)
I need your favor (a favor from you or from you guys)Therefore, looking at the data in (1) and (2), we observe that ‘-s’ is added to the possessive pronoun when thespeaker addresses to a plural ‘you’, and no ‘-s’ is added when the speaker addresses a singular ‘you’, which clearly seems to be an instance of agreement with the addressee.
Several works have shown not only how syntax codifies discourse participants but also how syntactic operations may be displayed in their scope. Firstly, according to Tsoulas and Kural (1999), indexical pronouns ‘I’ and ‘you’ arevariables bound by operators, respectively, SPEAKER and ADDRESSEE, that are situated above C in the syntactic structure. Secondly, Speas and Tenny (2003) suggest that speaker and hearer are functional projections inside SAP, proposal that is further developed by Haegeman and Hill (2011) with West Flemish data. Thirdly, Miyagawa (2012) showsthat verbal politeness marker ‘-mas-’, used to formally address the hearer in Japanese, “is in fact an implementation of second person agreement”. In this case, the probe moves from C to SAP for checking phi-features.
Having said that, I will investigate (1) and (2) as an instance of agreement between possessive and hearer, being the latter (c)overtly realized as vocative in SAP. As a consequence, vocative number phi-feature, in the speech act domain, is probably what triggers possessive number agreement inside the DP, in the sentential domain.
Speaker: Eloisa Pilati (University of Brasilia) Title: Locative pronouns as subjects in Brazilian Portuguese
The goal of this presentation is to account for the licensing of locative DPs and deictic adverbs in subject position in Brazilian Portuguese (henceforth, BP), taking into consideration specifically the status of third person null subjects/ inflection in this language. Following Pilati & Naves 2011, 2013 and Pilati, Naves & Salles 2015, I will show a unified analysis for the phenomena, which concern the current discussion on Brazilian Portuguese (BP) as a partial null subject language (cf. Holmberg 2010). The proposal is that third person inflection on the verb, unlike first and second person inflection, is unable to license referential definite null subjects, although it is able to license a (null) locative adverb/ pronoun in preverbal position. The emergence of the constructions with locatives in subject position is due to the possibility of filling the subject position with a locative pronoun/adverb or a locative DP, on the assumption that third person inflection in BP is no longer referential (cf. Rabelo 2010).
List of alumni updated
The department website has been updated with links to the many alums of the graduate program in Linguistics — plus download links to their dissertations and theses. Please let us know of any errors (or, if you are an alum yourself, changes requested).
The department website has been updated with links to the many alums of the graduate program in Linguistics — plus download links to their dissertations and theses. Please let us know of any errors (or, if you are an alum yourself, changes requested).
MIT @ AMP
Several students, faculty and alumni presented talks and posters at the 2015 Annual Meeting on Phonology in Vancouver this weekend:
Adam Albright & Youngah Do: Paradigm uniformity in the lab: prior bias, learned preference, or L1 transfer?
Juliet Stanton: Environmental shielding is contrast preservation
Gillian Gallagher: Vowel height and dorsals: allophonic differences cue contrasts
Ezer Rasin: Constraints on URs and blocking in nonderived environments
Several students, faculty and alumni presented talks and posters at the 2015 Annual Meeting on Phonology in Vancouver this weekend:
Adam Albright & Youngah Do: Paradigm uniformity in the lab: prior bias, learned preference, or L1 transfer?
Juliet Stanton: Environmental shielding is contrast preservation
Gillian Gallagher: Vowel height and dorsals: allophonic differences cue contrasts
Ezer Rasin: Constraints on URs and blocking in nonderived environments
Logical Form Reading Group 10/16 - Milena Sisovics
Speaker: Milena Sisovics (MIT)
Time: Friday, October 16, 2-3:30
Place: 32-D831
Title: The ironic use of dürfen: an analysis in terms of ordering source adjustment
Speaker: Milena Sisovics (MIT) Time: Friday, October 16, 2-3:30 Place: 32-D831 Title: The ironic use of dürfen: an analysis in terms of ordering source adjustment
Reading list
Four of this summer’s dissertations are now available to read!
- Isaac Gould, “Syntactic Learning from Ambiguous Evidence: Errors and End States”
- Theodore Levin, “Licensing without Case”
- Wataru Uegaki, “Interpreting Questions under Attitudes”
- Coppe van Urk, “A Uniform Syntax for Phrasal Movement: a Dinka Bor Case Study”
Renewed congratulations to all!! And here they are (again).
Four of this summer’s dissertations are now available to read!
- Isaac Gould, “Syntactic Learning from Ambiguous Evidence: Errors and End States”
- Theodore Levin, “Licensing without Case”
- Wataru Uegaki, “Interpreting Questions under Attitudes”
- Coppe van Urk, “A Uniform Syntax for Phrasal Movement: a Dinka Bor Case Study”
Renewed congratulations to all!! And here they are (again).
Haitian educators and MIT faculty develop Kreyòl-based teaching tools
“Six veteran educators from Haiti — two biologists, two physicists, and two mathematicians — were on campus recently to work closely with MIT faculty to develop and hone Kreyòl-based, technology-enhanced pedagogical tools for STEM education. This interdisciplinary and intercultural exchange was the most recent effort of the MIT-Haiti initiative, founded in 2010 by MIT professor of linguistics Michel DeGraff.”
Read more here.
“Six veteran educators from Haiti — two biologists, two physicists, and two mathematicians — were on campus recently to work closely with MIT faculty to develop and hone Kreyòl-based, technology-enhanced pedagogical tools for STEM education. This interdisciplinary and intercultural exchange was the most recent effort of the MIT-Haiti initiative, founded in 2010 by MIT professor of linguistics Michel DeGraff.”
Read more here.
Phonology Circle 10/5 - Juliet Stanton
Speaker: Juliet Stanton (MIT)
Title: Environmental shielding is contrast preservation
Date: Monday, October 5th
Time: 5-6:30
Place: 32D-831
The term “environmental shielding” refers to a class of processes where the phonetic realization of a nasal depends on its vocalic context. In Kaiwá (Tupí, Bridgeman 1961), for example, nasals are prenasalized before oral (/ma/ > [mba]) but not nasal (/mã/ > [mã]) vowels. Herbert (1986:199) claims that shielding occurs to protect a contrast in vocalic nasality: if Kaiwá /ma/ were realized as [ma], the [a] would likely carry some degree of nasal coarticulation, and be less distinct from nasal /ã/ as a result. This paper provides new arguments for Herbert’s position. I show that a contrast-based analysis of shielding correctly predicts a number of typological generalizations, and argue that any successful analysis of shielding must make reference to contrast.
Speaker: Juliet Stanton (MIT) Title: Environmental shielding is contrast preservation Date: Monday, October 5th Time: 5-6:30 Place: 32D-831
The term “environmental shielding” refers to a class of processes where the phonetic realization of a nasal depends on its vocalic context. In Kaiwá (Tupí, Bridgeman 1961), for example, nasals are prenasalized before oral (/ma/ > [mba]) but not nasal (/mã/ > [mã]) vowels. Herbert (1986:199) claims that shielding occurs to protect a contrast in vocalic nasality: if Kaiwá /ma/ were realized as [ma], the [a] would likely carry some degree of nasal coarticulation, and be less distinct from nasal /ã/ as a result. This paper provides new arguments for Herbert’s position. I show that a contrast-based analysis of shielding correctly predicts a number of typological generalizations, and argue that any successful analysis of shielding must make reference to contrast.
Special LFRG 10/6 - Patrick Grosz
Speaker: Patrick Grosz (Tuebingen)
Time: Tuesday, Oct. 6, 1-2:30pm
Location: 32-D831
Title: On the syntax and semantics of God knows what – a scalar epistemic indefinite
This talk investigates phrases such as ‘weiß Gott w-’ (‘God knows wh-‘) in German, in (1). Similar constructions are attested in a wide range of European languages (Haspelmath 1997:131).
(1) Der muss gedacht haben, wir seien weiß Gott wer. [DeReKo corpus, U03/AUG.02157]
intended: ‘He must have thought that we are someone important.’
literal: ‘He must have thought that we are God knows who.’
While ‘weiß Gott w-’ phrases originate as separate clauses (CPs) that are parenthetically inserted into a host clause (so-called “Andrews amalgams”, Lakoff 1974), I argue that ‘weiß Gott’ (‘God knows’) in Present Day German (PDG) has fully grammaticalized into an indefinite particle (like German ‘irgend’ [‘any, some’]); it combines with a wh-element to form a complex word of category D (an indefinite determiner/pronoun). I argue that ‘weiß Gott w-’ indefinites are scalar in that they [i.] existentially quantify over a subset X of the alternatives that the wh-element introduces, [ii.] and the alternatives in this subset X are high on a salient scale. This scalar effect is illustrated in (1), where ‘weiß Gott wer’ (‘God knows who’) is understood to mean ‘someone important’ (i.e. someone who is high on a scale of importance). I argue that the scalarity of ‘weiß Gott w-’ is part of the truth-functional at-issue content of a sentence (cf. Potts 2015), due to semantic reanalysis of what used to be a conversational implicature (cf. Eckardt 2006).
Speaker: Patrick Grosz (Tuebingen) Time: Tuesday, Oct. 6, 1-2:30pm Location: 32-D831 Title: On the syntax and semantics of God knows what – a scalar epistemic indefinite
This talk investigates phrases such as ‘weiß Gott w-’ (‘God knows wh-‘) in German, in (1). Similar constructions are attested in a wide range of European languages (Haspelmath 1997:131).
(1) Der muss gedacht haben, wir seien weiß Gott wer. [DeReKo corpus, U03/AUG.02157] intended: ‘He must have thought that we are someone important.’ literal: ‘He must have thought that we are God knows who.’
While ‘weiß Gott w-’ phrases originate as separate clauses (CPs) that are parenthetically inserted into a host clause (so-called “Andrews amalgams”, Lakoff 1974), I argue that ‘weiß Gott’ (‘God knows’) in Present Day German (PDG) has fully grammaticalized into an indefinite particle (like German ‘irgend’ [‘any, some’]); it combines with a wh-element to form a complex word of category D (an indefinite determiner/pronoun). I argue that ‘weiß Gott w-’ indefinites are scalar in that they [i.] existentially quantify over a subset X of the alternatives that the wh-element introduces, [ii.] and the alternatives in this subset X are high on a salient scale. This scalar effect is illustrated in (1), where ‘weiß Gott wer’ (‘God knows who’) is understood to mean ‘someone important’ (i.e. someone who is high on a scale of importance). I argue that the scalarity of ‘weiß Gott w-’ is part of the truth-functional at-issue content of a sentence (cf. Potts 2015), due to semantic reanalysis of what used to be a conversational implicature (cf. Eckardt 2006).
Syntax Square 10/6 - Nick Longenbaugh
Speaker: Nick Longenbaugh (MIT)
Title: The processing of long-distance dependencies in Niuean (joint work with Masha Polinsky)
Time: Tuesday 10/6, 10-11am
Place: 32-D461
It is well documented that nominative-acccusative alignment coincides with a strong subject-preference in long-distance dependency formation, both in terms of processing (in particular, subject gaps in relative clauses are processed more easily than other types of gaps) and accesibility for extraction (there appears to be an implicational universal that the availability of relativization with a gap entails the availability of subject relativization with a gap Keenan & Comrie 1977). This subject preference does not, however, carry over uniformly to languages with ergative-absolutive alignment; in some morphologically ergative languages, the ergative subject cannot extract with a gap at the extraction site, a phenomenon termed `syntactic ergativity’. In this talk, I explore the viability of a processing-based explanation of syntactic ergativity. Much as has been proposed for various island phenomena (Kluender 1998, 2004), the extraction of ergative arguments may simply be more taxing on the parser than corresponding absolutive extraction. If this is true, following Hawkins (2004, 2014), syntactically ergative languages could then be taken to differ from their morphologically ergative counterparts in their tolerance for difficult structure, eliminating the less efficient, more difficult ergative extraction. To test this account, I explore the processing of relative clauses in Niuean, a morphologically, but not syntactically, ergative language. Niuean is an ideal test case, given that it is closely related to the syntactically ergative Tongan, and thus might be expected to show an obvious bias against ergative extraction (a bias that Tongan turns into a categorical restriction). I present novel experimental data showing that ergative subject gaps in Niuean RCs do not impose any additional processing difficulty as compared to the processing of absolutive object gaps, thus calling into question the viability of the processing account in this domain.
Speaker: Nick Longenbaugh (MIT) Title: The processing of long-distance dependencies in Niuean (joint work with Masha Polinsky) Time: Tuesday 10/6, 10-11am Place: 32-D461
It is well documented that nominative-acccusative alignment coincides with a strong subject-preference in long-distance dependency formation, both in terms of processing (in particular, subject gaps in relative clauses are processed more easily than other types of gaps) and accesibility for extraction (there appears to be an implicational universal that the availability of relativization with a gap entails the availability of subject relativization with a gap Keenan & Comrie 1977). This subject preference does not, however, carry over uniformly to languages with ergative-absolutive alignment; in some morphologically ergative languages, the ergative subject cannot extract with a gap at the extraction site, a phenomenon termed `syntactic ergativity’. In this talk, I explore the viability of a processing-based explanation of syntactic ergativity. Much as has been proposed for various island phenomena (Kluender 1998, 2004), the extraction of ergative arguments may simply be more taxing on the parser than corresponding absolutive extraction. If this is true, following Hawkins (2004, 2014), syntactically ergative languages could then be taken to differ from their morphologically ergative counterparts in their tolerance for difficult structure, eliminating the less efficient, more difficult ergative extraction. To test this account, I explore the processing of relative clauses in Niuean, a morphologically, but not syntactically, ergative language. Niuean is an ideal test case, given that it is closely related to the syntactically ergative Tongan, and thus might be expected to show an obvious bias against ergative extraction (a bias that Tongan turns into a categorical restriction). I present novel experimental data showing that ergative subject gaps in Niuean RCs do not impose any additional processing difficulty as compared to the processing of absolutive object gaps, thus calling into question the viability of the processing account in this domain.
Ling Lunch 10/8 - Athulya Aravind & Nick Longenbaugh
Note: Because these are practice talks for NELS, there will be two shorter talks this week.
Time: Thursday, October 8, 12:30-1:45pm
Place: 32-D461
Speaker: Athulya Aravind (MIT)
Title: Minimality and wh-licensing in Malayalam
Malayalam (Dravidian) is characterized as a wh-in-situ language, but wh-phrases in embedded clauses cannot take matrix scope (Madhavan 1987). This restriction is surprising in light of two facts (i) the wh-in-situ strategy is not clause-bounded in other wh-in-situ langages like Japanese and Korean, and (ii) Malayalam finite embedded clauses are otherwise transparent to syntactic and semantic operations. Similar restrictions in languages like Hindi, Bangla and Iraqi Arabic have led some researchers to conclude that wh-in-situ languages may vary parametrically in locality of wh-agreement (Ouhalla 1996, Simpson 2000). I will argue instead that the wh-in-situ strategy is uniformly non-clause-bounded. Failure to licensewh-phrases across a clause boundary can be shown to result from the interaction of wh-agreement and independent operations affecting embedded clauses. In Malayalam, wh-licensing is disrupted by A-bar movement of finite CPs, which creates a minimality violation. The features on the head of the embedded clause triggering clausal movement in the first place are sufficiently similar to wh-features that they block Agree between a higher C and an embedded wh-phrase. I show that in configurations in which such intervention is circumvented, e.g. in cleft questions, finite embedded clauses do not appear to be wh-scope islands.
Speaker: Nick Longenbaugh (MIT)
Title: Difficult movement
Note: Because these are practice talks for NELS, there will be two shorter talks this week.
Time: Thursday, October 8, 12:30-1:45pm Place: 32-D461
Speaker: Athulya Aravind (MIT) Title: Minimality and wh-licensing in Malayalam
Malayalam (Dravidian) is characterized as a wh-in-situ language, but wh-phrases in embedded clauses cannot take matrix scope (Madhavan 1987). This restriction is surprising in light of two facts (i) the wh-in-situ strategy is not clause-bounded in other wh-in-situ langages like Japanese and Korean, and (ii) Malayalam finite embedded clauses are otherwise transparent to syntactic and semantic operations. Similar restrictions in languages like Hindi, Bangla and Iraqi Arabic have led some researchers to conclude that wh-in-situ languages may vary parametrically in locality of wh-agreement (Ouhalla 1996, Simpson 2000). I will argue instead that the wh-in-situ strategy is uniformly non-clause-bounded. Failure to licensewh-phrases across a clause boundary can be shown to result from the interaction of wh-agreement and independent operations affecting embedded clauses. In Malayalam, wh-licensing is disrupted by A-bar movement of finite CPs, which creates a minimality violation. The features on the head of the embedded clause triggering clausal movement in the first place are sufficiently similar to wh-features that they block Agree between a higher C and an embedded wh-phrase. I show that in configurations in which such intervention is circumvented, e.g. in cleft questions, finite embedded clauses do not appear to be wh-scope islands.
Speaker: Nick Longenbaugh (MIT) Title: Difficult movement
LFRG 10/9 - Paul Marty
Speaker: Paul Marty (MIT)
Time: Friday, October 9, 2-3:30
Place: 32-D831
Title: Economize Binding Theory
In the stream of generative linguistics, it has been proposed that derivations and interface representations are subject to global economy principles. In this talk, I investigate the predictions made by such proposals regarding the licensing of the bound-variable construal of pronouns in natural languages. Capitalizing on Ruys (1994), I propose that the so-called Crossover effects, i.e. cases in which the bound-variable interpretation of a pronouns is unavailable (e.g., *He_i likes every student_i, *His_i mother likes every student_i), reduce to violations of the following two economy principles:
(1) Interface Economy:
Be as economical as possible in deriving an LF output representation.
(2) Interface Transparency:
Favor transparent reflections of LF properties in PF precedence relationships.
I will begin by setting out the basic proposal behind Interface Economy and show that it provides a principled account for the distribution of the Strong Crossover (SCO) effects. I will argue, however, that the Weak Crossover (WCO) effects might be better captured by Interface Transparency, (2). It will be shown that the perspective advocated here sheds a new light on the cross-linguistic variations in WCO effects and offers a better grasp on the most recalcitrant counterexamples to previous WCO generalizations. If time permits, I will discuss how these facts support a model of grammar in which the rules assigning appropriate interpretations to anaphoric elements do not form a specific module but rather follow from more general principles that govern the whole computational system.
Speaker: Paul Marty (MIT) Time: Friday, October 9, 2-3:30 Place: 32-D831 Title: Economize Binding Theory
In the stream of generative linguistics, it has been proposed that derivations and interface representations are subject to global economy principles. In this talk, I investigate the predictions made by such proposals regarding the licensing of the bound-variable construal of pronouns in natural languages. Capitalizing on Ruys (1994), I propose that the so-called Crossover effects, i.e. cases in which the bound-variable interpretation of a pronouns is unavailable (e.g., *He_i likes every student_i, *His_i mother likes every student_i), reduce to violations of the following two economy principles:
(1) Interface Economy: Be as economical as possible in deriving an LF output representation.
(2) Interface Transparency: Favor transparent reflections of LF properties in PF precedence relationships.
I will begin by setting out the basic proposal behind Interface Economy and show that it provides a principled account for the distribution of the Strong Crossover (SCO) effects. I will argue, however, that the Weak Crossover (WCO) effects might be better captured by Interface Transparency, (2). It will be shown that the perspective advocated here sheds a new light on the cross-linguistic variations in WCO effects and offers a better grasp on the most recalcitrant counterexamples to previous WCO generalizations. If time permits, I will discuss how these facts support a model of grammar in which the rules assigning appropriate interpretations to anaphoric elements do not form a specific module but rather follow from more general principles that govern the whole computational system.
Chomsky relic
Punchcard from a 1978 National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship that allowed Noam Chomsky to refine and expand his theories of universal grammar. That was the year he spent at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, which led to his 1981 book “Lectures on Government & Binding”.
Punchcard from a 1978 National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship that allowed Noam Chomsky to refine and expand his theories of universal grammar. That was the year he spent at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, which led to his 1981 book “Lectures on Government & Binding”.
Ken Hale papers
A new addition to our departmental website collects a number of papers, both published and unpublished, as well as previously unavailable teaching materials by our legendary colleague and dear friend, the late Ken Hale (1934-2001). To quote from the introduction to the page (and please note our interest in adding more materials):
This page collects many of Ken Hale’s papers as well as some of his unpublished teaching materials that were preserved by his students. The collection includes some papers that are well-known but not very accessible, as well as others that will be new to most readers — along with hectographed handouts from the 1970s and marvels of early word processing that should bring a smile of reminiscence to students and colleagues who were lucky enough to attend Ken’s classes or public lectures.
“We are making these materials available so that the work that went into these papers and handouts will not be lost to the communities of linguists and speakers that Ken’s work so enriched. These papers do not merely document a wonderful man, a great career and a stunningly productive era in the history of linguistics. They also contain ideas, discoveries and puzzles that Ken himself did not develop further that still have the power to excite — to advance the study of human language and languages, and the intellectual wealth that they embody for their speakers.
“We are grateful to Ken’s children Ezra and Caleb for their permission to organize this site, as well as to Ken’s co-authors represented here. We are eager to add to this collection. If you have additional materials to contribute, please contact <see site for email address>.
A new addition to our departmental website collects a number of papers, both published and unpublished, as well as previously unavailable teaching materials by our legendary colleague and dear friend, the late Ken Hale (1934-2001). To quote from the introduction to the page (and please note our interest in adding more materials):
This page collects many of Ken Hale’s papers as well as some of his unpublished teaching materials that were preserved by his students. The collection includes some papers that are well-known but not very accessible, as well as others that will be new to most readers — along with hectographed handouts from the 1970s and marvels of early word processing that should bring a smile of reminiscence to students and colleagues who were lucky enough to attend Ken’s classes or public lectures. “We are making these materials available so that the work that went into these papers and handouts will not be lost to the communities of linguists and speakers that Ken’s work so enriched. These papers do not merely document a wonderful man, a great career and a stunningly productive era in the history of linguistics. They also contain ideas, discoveries and puzzles that Ken himself did not develop further that still have the power to excite — to advance the study of human language and languages, and the intellectual wealth that they embody for their speakers. “We are grateful to Ken’s children Ezra and Caleb for their permission to organize this site, as well as to Ken’s co-authors represented here. We are eager to add to this collection. If you have additional materials to contribute, please contact <see site for email address>.
10/6 - Getting From Here to There: Prof. Shigeru Miyagawa
Tuesday, October 06, 2015
Speaker: Shigeru Miyagawa, MIT Professor of Linguistics and Professor of Japanese Language and Culture
Time: 5:15p–6:15p
Location: 3-133
Getting From Here to There: A Series of Faculty Talks for Students
MIT students may find it hard to imagine their accomplished professors as uncertain twenty-somethings, making choices about grad school, first jobs and career paths. This series is designed to give students new insights into the many twisting and unexpected paths one can take toward a successful career.
On Tuesday, October 6th at 5:15pm in 3-133, Professor Shigeru Miyagawa will share his journey from growing up as a Japanese-American in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to becoming an MIT faculty member with a career bridging Japan and America, linguistics and culture, education and technology.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Chancellor’s Office, Professor Lorna Gibson
Tuesday, October 06, 2015 Speaker: Shigeru Miyagawa, MIT Professor of Linguistics and Professor of Japanese Language and Culture Time: 5:15p–6:15p Location: 3-133
Getting From Here to There: A Series of Faculty Talks for Students
MIT students may find it hard to imagine their accomplished professors as uncertain twenty-somethings, making choices about grad school, first jobs and career paths. This series is designed to give students new insights into the many twisting and unexpected paths one can take toward a successful career.
On Tuesday, October 6th at 5:15pm in 3-133, Professor Shigeru Miyagawa will share his journey from growing up as a Japanese-American in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to becoming an MIT faculty member with a career bridging Japan and America, linguistics and culture, education and technology.
Open to: the general public Sponsor(s): Chancellor’s Office, Professor Lorna Gibson