Very good news, not about linguistics but about life, from our colleague Jay.
Archive for February, 2016
MIT papers headed for GLOW
The GLOW Program is out for this year’s meeting in Göttingen, and several of our students will be presenting their discoveries there! “GLOW” stands for “Generative Linguistics in the Old World” and is the premiere international conference for generative linguistics in Europe (and, some might argue, internationally).
- Ömer Demirok, “A Compositional Semantics for Turkish Correlatives”
- Naomi Francis, “Scope in negative inversion constructions: Evidence from positive polarity item modals”
- Nicholas Longenbaugh, “Rethinking the A/A’-distinction: evidence from English Tough Movement” and “Subject/object symmetry: A spurious effect” (with Masha Polinsky, UMD)
- Despina Oikonomou , “Interpretation Domains in the Verbal Spine: Synthetic vs. Analytic morphology” (with Artemis Alexiadou, Berlin)
- Michelle Yuan, “Clitic dissimilation and dependent case”
- In addition, our colleague Shigeru Miyagawa is an invited speaker, and will be presenting his paper “The Syntax of Participants” co-authored with Liliane Haegeman, at a session devoted to “Phonological and Syntactic Representation of Speech Acts”.Recent alums also presenting include Guillaume Thomas (‘12, Toronto), Yasutada Sudo (‘12, University College London) and Bronwyn Bjorkman (‘11, Queen’s) — and many other alums, former visitors and old friends will be there too.
The GLOW Program is out for this year’s meeting in Göttingen, and several of our students will be presenting their discoveries there! “GLOW” stands for “Generative Linguistics in the Old World” and is the premiere international conference for generative linguistics in Europe (and, some might argue, internationally).
- Ömer Demirok, “A Compositional Semantics for Turkish Correlatives”
- Naomi Francis, “Scope in negative inversion constructions: Evidence from positive polarity item modals”
- Nicholas Longenbaugh, “Rethinking the A/A’-distinction: evidence from English Tough Movement” and “Subject/object symmetry: A spurious effect” (with Masha Polinsky, UMD)
- Despina Oikonomou , “Interpretation Domains in the Verbal Spine: Synthetic vs. Analytic morphology” (with Artemis Alexiadou, Berlin)
- Michelle Yuan, “Clitic dissimilation and dependent case”
- In addition, our colleague Shigeru Miyagawa is an invited speaker, and will be presenting his paper “The Syntax of Participants” co-authored with Liliane Haegeman, at a session devoted to “Phonological and Syntactic Representation of Speech Acts”.Recent alums also presenting include Guillaume Thomas (‘12, Toronto), Yasutada Sudo (‘12, University College London) and Bronwyn Bjorkman (‘11, Queen’s) — and many other alums, former visitors and old friends will be there too.
ESSL/LacqLab 2/29 - Zuzanna Fuchs
Speaker: Zuzanna Fuchs (Harvard)
Joint work with Gregory Scontras (Stanford) and Maria Polinsky (UMaryland)
Date and time: Monday, February 29, from 1:00 to 2:00 PM
Place: 32-D831
At some point in their childhood, heritage speakers shift from their first acquired language to their second language — the language of their community — that becomes their new dominant language. For heritage speaker, language comprehension and production in the non-dominant L1 is therefore difficult and costly, and thus the grammar of this L1 may be somewhat different than the baseline native grammar, shaped by principles of economy that make comprehension and production tasks easier. In this talk, we consider number and gender agreement in Heritage Spanish, in order to determine whether difficulties with agreement morphology observed in heritage speakers (Benmamoun et al. 2013, and references therein) reflect any underlying differences in how number and gender are represented in the grammar of Heritage Spanish. We put number and gender features into conflict with each other through agreement attraction, and observe how errors in agreement are perceived in a language comprehension task, replicating the methodology from Fuchs et al. (2015). The results indicate that number and gender in Heritage Spanish are bundled, unlike in the native grammar in which they are split. Thus, we identify an instance of divergence in grammar, which provides evidence that not all surface differences between native and heritage grammars can be ascribed to principles of economy of processing — representational economy also plays a role in shaping heritage grammars.
Speaker: Zuzanna Fuchs (Harvard) Joint work with Gregory Scontras (Stanford) and Maria Polinsky (UMaryland) Date and time: Monday, February 29, from 1:00 to 2:00 PM Place: 32-D831
At some point in their childhood, heritage speakers shift from their first acquired language to their second language — the language of their community — that becomes their new dominant language. For heritage speaker, language comprehension and production in the non-dominant L1 is therefore difficult and costly, and thus the grammar of this L1 may be somewhat different than the baseline native grammar, shaped by principles of economy that make comprehension and production tasks easier. In this talk, we consider number and gender agreement in Heritage Spanish, in order to determine whether difficulties with agreement morphology observed in heritage speakers (Benmamoun et al. 2013, and references therein) reflect any underlying differences in how number and gender are represented in the grammar of Heritage Spanish. We put number and gender features into conflict with each other through agreement attraction, and observe how errors in agreement are perceived in a language comprehension task, replicating the methodology from Fuchs et al. (2015). The results indicate that number and gender in Heritage Spanish are bundled, unlike in the native grammar in which they are split. Thus, we identify an instance of divergence in grammar, which provides evidence that not all surface differences between native and heritage grammars can be ascribed to principles of economy of processing — representational economy also plays a role in shaping heritage grammars.
Phonology Circle 2/29 - Sam Zukoff
Speaker: Sam Zukoff (MIT)
Title: The Mirror Alignment Principle: Morpheme Ordering at the Morphosyntax-Phonology Interface (Part II: Arabic)
Date: Monday, February 29th
Time: 5-6:30
Place: 32D-831
The topic of Semitic nonconcatenative morphology is a vexed question in linguistic theory. Unlike most other languages, morphological derivation of complex forms in Semitic does not straightforwardly consist of sequential affixation to a fixed base of derivation. Individual morphemes can be segmented and identified with varying degrees of clarity and ease, but they are often interspersed within other morphemes, and their addition often significantly alters the segmental order and/or larger prosodic organization relative to the corresponding less derived morphological form. In this talk, I argue that the Mirror Alignment Principle approach to morpheme ordering (introduced last week at Ling Lunch; Zukoff 2016) provides the tools for deciphering this system, both from the phonological perspective and the morphosyntactic perspective.
The Mirror Alignment Principle (MAP) is an algorithm which maps c-command relations in the hierarchical morphosyntactic structure into ranking relations among Alignment constraints (McCarthy & Prince 1993) in the phonological component. By implement morpheme ordering in the phonological component using gradient, violable Alignment constraints, ordering preferences can interact with phonological constraints. The interaction between Alignment constraints, syllable well-formedness constraints, and a few morpheme-specific phonotactic constraints, will allow an analysis of the phonological aspects of the nonconcatenative system without any appeal to prosodic templates (McCarthy 1979, 1981).
Since the MAP directly relates the ranking of Alignment constraints to hierarchical morphosyntactic structure, the rankings determined through this phonological analysis inform morphosyntactic structure; the Map thus allows syntactic structure to be reverse engineered from the phonology. In considering the syntax deduced by this reasoning, we will observe larger regularities within the system. Based on these generalizations, I will suggest that certain apparent surface distinctions can be collapsed, such that the overall morphosyntactic verbal system looks generally unremarkable from a typological perspective. In fact, upon careful inspection, it even illustrates Mirror Principle effects (Baker 1985), such as mirror-image ordering that correlates with reversal in semantic interpretation. This approach thus shows that nonconcatenative morphological processes are fully compatible with the Mirror Principle, a result which Baker’s (1985) original proposal was unable to achieve.
Speaker: Sam Zukoff (MIT) Title: The Mirror Alignment Principle: Morpheme Ordering at the Morphosyntax-Phonology Interface (Part II: Arabic) Date: Monday, February 29th Time: 5-6:30 Place: 32D-831
The topic of Semitic nonconcatenative morphology is a vexed question in linguistic theory. Unlike most other languages, morphological derivation of complex forms in Semitic does not straightforwardly consist of sequential affixation to a fixed base of derivation. Individual morphemes can be segmented and identified with varying degrees of clarity and ease, but they are often interspersed within other morphemes, and their addition often significantly alters the segmental order and/or larger prosodic organization relative to the corresponding less derived morphological form. In this talk, I argue that the Mirror Alignment Principle approach to morpheme ordering (introduced last week at Ling Lunch; Zukoff 2016) provides the tools for deciphering this system, both from the phonological perspective and the morphosyntactic perspective.
The Mirror Alignment Principle (MAP) is an algorithm which maps c-command relations in the hierarchical morphosyntactic structure into ranking relations among Alignment constraints (McCarthy & Prince 1993) in the phonological component. By implement morpheme ordering in the phonological component using gradient, violable Alignment constraints, ordering preferences can interact with phonological constraints. The interaction between Alignment constraints, syllable well-formedness constraints, and a few morpheme-specific phonotactic constraints, will allow an analysis of the phonological aspects of the nonconcatenative system without any appeal to prosodic templates (McCarthy 1979, 1981).
Since the MAP directly relates the ranking of Alignment constraints to hierarchical morphosyntactic structure, the rankings determined through this phonological analysis inform morphosyntactic structure; the Map thus allows syntactic structure to be reverse engineered from the phonology. In considering the syntax deduced by this reasoning, we will observe larger regularities within the system. Based on these generalizations, I will suggest that certain apparent surface distinctions can be collapsed, such that the overall morphosyntactic verbal system looks generally unremarkable from a typological perspective. In fact, upon careful inspection, it even illustrates Mirror Principle effects (Baker 1985), such as mirror-image ordering that correlates with reversal in semantic interpretation. This approach thus shows that nonconcatenative morphological processes are fully compatible with the Mirror Principle, a result which Baker’s (1985) original proposal was unable to achieve.
LFRG 3/2 - Aurore Gonzalez & Sophie Moracchini
Speaker: Aurore Gonzalez (Harvard) & Sophie Moracchini (MIT)
Time: Wednesday, March 2, 1-2pm
Place: 32-D831
Title: Discussion of Guerzoni (2003)’s dissertation: Even across languages and the scope theory.
There’s been a slight change of plans for LFRG tomorrow. Sophie and Aurore will be presenting a chapter of Elena Guerzoni’s (2003) dissertation.
Speaker: Aurore Gonzalez (Harvard) & Sophie Moracchini (MIT) Time: Wednesday, March 2, 1-2pm Place: 32-D831 Title: Discussion of Guerzoni (2003)’s dissertation: Even across languages and the scope theory.
There’s been a slight change of plans for LFRG tomorrow. Sophie and Aurore will be presenting a chapter of Elena Guerzoni’s (2003) dissertation.
Ling Lunch 3/3 - Ray Jackendoff and Jenny Audring
Speaker(s): Ray Jackendoff (Tufts University) and Jenny Audring (Leiden University)
Title: Morphology in the Mental Lexicon
Date/Time: Thursday, March 3, 12:30pm-1:50pm
Location: 32-D461
We explore a theory of morphology grounded in the outlook of the Parallel Architecture (PA, Jackendoff 2002), drawing in large part on Construction Morphology (Booij 2010). The fundamental goal is to describe what a speaker stores and in what form, and to describe how this knowledge is put to use in constructing novel utterances. A basic tenet of PA is that linguistic structure is built out of independent phonological, syntactic, and semantic/conceptual structures, plus explicit interfaces that relate the three structures, often in many-to-many fashion.
Within this outlook, morphology emerges as the grammar of word-sized pieces of structure and their constituents, comprising morphosyntax and its interfaces to word phonology, lexical semantics, and phrasal syntax. Canonical morphology features a straightforward mapping among these components; irregular morphology is predominantly a matter of noncanonical mapping between constituents of morphosyntax and phonology.
As in Construction Grammar, PA encodes rules of grammar as schemas: pieces of linguistic structure that contain variables, but which are otherwise in the same format as words – in other words, the grammar is part of the lexicon. Novel utterances are constructed by instantiating variables in schemas through Unification. A compatible morphological theory must likewise state morphological patterns in terms of declarative schemas rather than procedural or realizational rules.
Non-productive morphological patterns can be described in terms of schemas that are formally parallel to those for productive patterns. They do not encode affordances for building new structures online; rather, they motivate relations among items stored in the lexicon. Productive schemas too can be used in this way, in addition to their standard use in building novel structures; hence they can be thought of as schemas that have “gone viral.” We conclude that morphological theory should be concerned with relations among lexical items, from productive to marginal, at least as much as on the online construction of novel forms.
This raises the question of how lexical relations are to be expressed. Beginning with the well-known mechanism of inheritance, we show that inheritance should be cashed out, not in terms of minimizing the number of symbols in the lexicon, but in terms of increased redundancy (or lower entropy). We propose a generalization of inheritance to include lexical relations that are nondirectional and symmetrical, and we develop a notation that pinpoints the regions of commonality between pairs of words, between words and schemas, and between pairs of schemas.
The upshot is a richly textured lexicon, one that invites comparison with other domains of human knowledge.
Speaker(s): Ray Jackendoff (Tufts University) and Jenny Audring (Leiden University) Title: Morphology in the Mental Lexicon Date/Time: Thursday, March 3, 12:30pm-1:50pm Location: 32-D461
We explore a theory of morphology grounded in the outlook of the Parallel Architecture (PA, Jackendoff 2002), drawing in large part on Construction Morphology (Booij 2010). The fundamental goal is to describe what a speaker stores and in what form, and to describe how this knowledge is put to use in constructing novel utterances. A basic tenet of PA is that linguistic structure is built out of independent phonological, syntactic, and semantic/conceptual structures, plus explicit interfaces that relate the three structures, often in many-to-many fashion.
Within this outlook, morphology emerges as the grammar of word-sized pieces of structure and their constituents, comprising morphosyntax and its interfaces to word phonology, lexical semantics, and phrasal syntax. Canonical morphology features a straightforward mapping among these components; irregular morphology is predominantly a matter of noncanonical mapping between constituents of morphosyntax and phonology.
As in Construction Grammar, PA encodes rules of grammar as schemas: pieces of linguistic structure that contain variables, but which are otherwise in the same format as words – in other words, the grammar is part of the lexicon. Novel utterances are constructed by instantiating variables in schemas through Unification. A compatible morphological theory must likewise state morphological patterns in terms of declarative schemas rather than procedural or realizational rules.
Non-productive morphological patterns can be described in terms of schemas that are formally parallel to those for productive patterns. They do not encode affordances for building new structures online; rather, they motivate relations among items stored in the lexicon. Productive schemas too can be used in this way, in addition to their standard use in building novel structures; hence they can be thought of as schemas that have “gone viral.” We conclude that morphological theory should be concerned with relations among lexical items, from productive to marginal, at least as much as on the online construction of novel forms.
This raises the question of how lexical relations are to be expressed. Beginning with the well-known mechanism of inheritance, we show that inheritance should be cashed out, not in terms of minimizing the number of symbols in the lexicon, but in terms of increased redundancy (or lower entropy). We propose a generalization of inheritance to include lexical relations that are nondirectional and symmetrical, and we develop a notation that pinpoints the regions of commonality between pairs of words, between words and schemas, and between pairs of schemas.
The upshot is a richly textured lexicon, one that invites comparison with other domains of human knowledge.
Colloquium 3/4 - Veneeta Dayal
Speaker: Veneeta Dayal (Rutgers)
Title: List Answers through Higher Order Questions
Date: Friday, March 4th
Time: 3:30-5:00 PM
Place: 32-141
Higher order questions have been invoked in the context of local as well as long-distance list answers. List answers to multiple wh questions and questions with quantifiers display functionality: domain cover and one-one/many-one pairings. One proposal for capturing this functionality involves iterating the question forming operation by projecting a double C structure. This results in a family of questions. Distributing an answerhood operator over the members of this set and intersecting the result yields the right type of list (Hagstrom 1998, Fox 2012). This talk explores the possibility of extending the proposal to scope marking constructions. Two problems are noted, one having to do with the absence of the truth requirement in these constructions, the other with restrictions on the type of predicate that can participate in scope marking. Higher order questions have also been used to explain list answers across wh islands (Dayal 1996). An embedded multiple wh question, interpreted as a family of questions, enters into a functional dependency with a wh expression in the matrix clause, resulting in a long-distance pair-list answer. This account is challenged by the phenomenon of trapped pair-lists (Ratiu 2005 and Cheng and Demirdache 2010), which seems to disallow a matrix wh from pairing up with one embedded wh to the exclusion of its clause-mate wh. Looking at this range of facts suggests that higher order questions do play a role in list answers, but not for all list answers.
Speaker: Veneeta Dayal (Rutgers) Title: List Answers through Higher Order Questions Date: Friday, March 4th Time: 3:30-5:00 PM Place: 32-141
Higher order questions have been invoked in the context of local as well as long-distance list answers. List answers to multiple wh questions and questions with quantifiers display functionality: domain cover and one-one/many-one pairings. One proposal for capturing this functionality involves iterating the question forming operation by projecting a double C structure. This results in a family of questions. Distributing an answerhood operator over the members of this set and intersecting the result yields the right type of list (Hagstrom 1998, Fox 2012). This talk explores the possibility of extending the proposal to scope marking constructions. Two problems are noted, one having to do with the absence of the truth requirement in these constructions, the other with restrictions on the type of predicate that can participate in scope marking. Higher order questions have also been used to explain list answers across wh islands (Dayal 1996). An embedded multiple wh question, interpreted as a family of questions, enters into a functional dependency with a wh expression in the matrix clause, resulting in a long-distance pair-list answer. This account is challenged by the phenomenon of trapped pair-lists (Ratiu 2005 and Cheng and Demirdache 2010), which seems to disallow a matrix wh from pairing up with one embedded wh to the exclusion of its clause-mate wh. Looking at this range of facts suggests that higher order questions do play a role in list answers, but not for all list answers.
Michel DeGraff’s letter to the New Yorker
Is Haitian a “French patois”?
Read Michel DeGraff’s answer to the New Yorker (Haitian version, original full-length version in English).
Is Haitian a “French patois”?
Read Michel DeGraff’s answer to the New Yorker (Haitian version, original full-length version in English).
Phonology Circle 2/22 - Kenyon Branan
Speaker: Kenyon Branan (MIT)
Title: A purely prosodic approach to intervention
Date: Monday, February 22nd
Time: 5-6:30
Place: 32-D831
The simple intervention effect can be charactarized as a ban on wh-words appearing to the right of words bearing focus. I will argue that simple intervention effects arise as the result of conflicting prosodic requirements, and that the most well attested repair, leftward scrambling of the wh-element, results in a better-formed prosodic structure. I will show that the simple intervention effect is a particular instance of a more general phenomenon, looking primarily at Japanese and Korean. I will also show that this approach predicts that languages with different prosodic requirements on focus-bearing items should not have intervention effects. I look at Egyptian Arabic, which has all of the syntactic ingredients necessary to produce the intervention effect, but nonetheless does not. I show that the prosody of focus in Egyptian Arabic leads us to expect this
Speaker: Kenyon Branan (MIT) Title: A purely prosodic approach to intervention Date: Monday, February 22nd Time: 5-6:30 Place: 32-D831
The simple intervention effect can be charactarized as a ban on wh-words appearing to the right of words bearing focus. I will argue that simple intervention effects arise as the result of conflicting prosodic requirements, and that the most well attested repair, leftward scrambling of the wh-element, results in a better-formed prosodic structure. I will show that the simple intervention effect is a particular instance of a more general phenomenon, looking primarily at Japanese and Korean. I will also show that this approach predicts that languages with different prosodic requirements on focus-bearing items should not have intervention effects. I look at Egyptian Arabic, which has all of the syntactic ingredients necessary to produce the intervention effect, but nonetheless does not. I show that the prosody of focus in Egyptian Arabic leads us to expect this
Syntax Square 2/23 - Bruna Karla Pereira
Speaker: Bruna Karla Pereira (UFVJM; CAPES Foundation- Ministry of Education of Brazil)
Title: The plural morpheme in BP nominal concord
This talk is focused on number nominal concord in non-standard Brazilian Portuguese (BP). I will start by analyzing structures with the wh-determiner ‘ques’ (1) and end by examining the pattern of nominal concord in other structures too.
(1) Ques coisa interessante! (Nunes, 2007, p. 13)
What-PL thing interesting
‘How interesting those things are!’
Concerning the syntactic derivation of (1), ‘ques’ is a head that checks φ-features in D, while the DP to which it belongs moves, from the predicate position of a Small Clause, to check illocutionary force in the Spec,CP (Pereira, 2014). Concerning the system of concord, non-standard BP marks, with the plural morpheme, either only D or D plus its most adjacent element, leaving the other elements unmarked. This fact has two consequences: as a D, ‘ques’ licenses φ-features, as opposed to previous predictions (Vidor; Menuzzi, 2004); as a morpheme that may appear more than once in the DP (Castro; Pratas, 2006, p. 18), ‘-s’ cannot be “singleton”, as opposed to current assumptions (Costa; Figueiredo Silva, 2006). In addition, besides structures with ‘ques’, data from dialectal BP show that other wh-words may be inflected (2); so does the indefinite article, followed by the numeral ‘meio(a)’ and a singular NP (3).
(2) Quantos que custa isso?
How-much-PL that cost it
‘How much does it cost?’
(3) Nossa reunião pode ser daqui a umas meia hora?
Our meeting may be from-here to some-PL half hour-SG
‘Could we have a meeting within half an hour?’
Therefore, apparent φ-feature “mismatches” will be addressed in order to investigate the system of nominal concord (Baker, 2008; Norris, 2014; Höhn, 2015) in BP.
Speaker: Bruna Karla Pereira (UFVJM; CAPES Foundation- Ministry of Education of Brazil) Title: The plural morpheme in BP nominal concord
This talk is focused on number nominal concord in non-standard Brazilian Portuguese (BP). I will start by analyzing structures with the wh-determiner ‘ques’ (1) and end by examining the pattern of nominal concord in other structures too.
(1) Ques coisa interessante! (Nunes, 2007, p. 13) What-PL thing interesting ‘How interesting those things are!’
Concerning the syntactic derivation of (1), ‘ques’ is a head that checks φ-features in D, while the DP to which it belongs moves, from the predicate position of a Small Clause, to check illocutionary force in the Spec,CP (Pereira, 2014). Concerning the system of concord, non-standard BP marks, with the plural morpheme, either only D or D plus its most adjacent element, leaving the other elements unmarked. This fact has two consequences: as a D, ‘ques’ licenses φ-features, as opposed to previous predictions (Vidor; Menuzzi, 2004); as a morpheme that may appear more than once in the DP (Castro; Pratas, 2006, p. 18), ‘-s’ cannot be “singleton”, as opposed to current assumptions (Costa; Figueiredo Silva, 2006). In addition, besides structures with ‘ques’, data from dialectal BP show that other wh-words may be inflected (2); so does the indefinite article, followed by the numeral ‘meio(a)’ and a singular NP (3).
(2) Quantos que custa isso? How-much-PL that cost it ‘How much does it cost?’
(3) Nossa reunião pode ser daqui a umas meia hora? Our meeting may be from-here to some-PL half hour-SG ‘Could we have a meeting within half an hour?’
Therefore, apparent φ-feature “mismatches” will be addressed in order to investigate the system of nominal concord (Baker, 2008; Norris, 2014; Höhn, 2015) in BP.
LFRG 2/24 - Mora Maldonado
Speaker: Mora Maldonado (ENS-MIT)
Time: Wednesday, February 24, 1-2pm
Place: 32-D831
Title: Understanding plural ambiguities. An experimental perspective.
(Joint work with Emmanuel Chemla and Benjamin Spector)
Sentences that involve plural expressions, such as numerical expressions, give rise to systematic ambiguities. For example, the sentence Two boys have three balloons can either mean that there are two boys who, between them, have three balloons (cumulative reading) or that there are two boys who each have three balloons (distributive reading).
In this set of studies, we explore the online comprehension of plural ambiguous sentences using both a mouse-tracking and a priming paradigm. While priming effects help us detecting the representations involved in the derivation of different readings, mouse-paths inform us not only about the preference of particular interpretations, but also about whether the derivation of one reading is a necessary step for the derivation of the other.
Overall, our findings suggest that (i) abstract semantic representations corresponding to different readings of plurals can give rise to priming effects; and (ii) primitive readings of plural ambiguous sentences are processed automatically, even when alternative representations are later selected.
Speaker: Mora Maldonado (ENS-MIT) Time: Wednesday, February 24, 1-2pm Place: 32-D831 Title: Understanding plural ambiguities. An experimental perspective. (Joint work with Emmanuel Chemla and Benjamin Spector)
Sentences that involve plural expressions, such as numerical expressions, give rise to systematic ambiguities. For example, the sentence Two boys have three balloons can either mean that there are two boys who, between them, have three balloons (cumulative reading) or that there are two boys who each have three balloons (distributive reading).
In this set of studies, we explore the online comprehension of plural ambiguous sentences using both a mouse-tracking and a priming paradigm. While priming effects help us detecting the representations involved in the derivation of different readings, mouse-paths inform us not only about the preference of particular interpretations, but also about whether the derivation of one reading is a necessary step for the derivation of the other.
Overall, our findings suggest that (i) abstract semantic representations corresponding to different readings of plurals can give rise to priming effects; and (ii) primitive readings of plural ambiguous sentences are processed automatically, even when alternative representations are later selected.
LingLunch 2/25 - Paul Crowley
Speaker: Paul Andrew Crowley (MIT)
Title:Imparallel VP ellipsis
Date/Time:Thursday February 25/12:30pm-1:50pm
Location: 32-D461
This talk will be concerned with a class of VP ellipsis expressions illustrated by the sentence in (1) where VP ellipsis is licensed despite an imparallelism between the antecedent VP and the interpretation the ellipsis site. CAPS indicates obligatory contrastive accenting.
(1) JOHN is expecting NOT to pass the exam but MARY IS .
The imparallelism is attributed to the presence of the negation within the matrix VP in the first conjunct, which is acting as the antecedent to an elided VP that does not contain that negation. Under no formulations of the identity conditions on ellipsis—whether syntactic or semantic—is the ellipsis in (1) expected.
The proposed analysis of the effect, which will be referred to as Imparallel VP Ellipsis (IVPE), will not treat it as a case of non-identity tolerance but rather as an illusion of non-identity created by an LF opacity effect. It will be proposed that the problematic negation in the first conjunct is situated outside of the antecedent VP at LF, where the identity conditions on ellipsis are taken to apply. It will be shown that this assumption is necessary in order to resolve an additional problem of imparallelism that arises where IVPE appears in ACD environments in which VP ellipsis and an NPI are both licensed despite having prima facie conflicting scope requirements.
Assuming that the negation is really situated high at LF, the task of deriving IVPE expressions will then be split into two pieces. The first is to explain why the negation is pronounced low when it is high at LF. The second is to explain why is the negation interpreted with narrow scope when it is high at LF. An account of the first question will be shown to come from the assumption that there is a syntactic Neg-raising operation active in a single-output grammar that creates Neg copy chains, which are interpreted separately by each interface component. An answer to the second question will come from a generalization that will be observed for the IVPE phenomenon where the effect is only felicitous if the verb heading the antecedent and elided VPs is a Neg Raising verb. By treating the Neg Raising phenomenon as the result of a pragmatic strengthening effect which gives the negation narrow scope in the truth conditions post-derivationally, we can account for the disconnect between the LF and output truth conditions in IVPE expressions. Independent evidence will be provided for this approach to Neg Raising, which involves cases of VPE similar to (1) but lacking the problematic imparallelism.
Finally, two points of overgeneration will be shown to come from the assumptions used here in light of the Neg Raising generalization on IVPE and a means of overcoming them will be proposed by way of pragmatic principles.
Speaker: Paul Andrew Crowley (MIT) Title:Imparallel VP ellipsis Date/Time:Thursday February 25/12:30pm-1:50pm Location: 32-D461
This talk will be concerned with a class of VP ellipsis expressions illustrated by the sentence in (1) where VP ellipsis is licensed despite an imparallelism between the antecedent VP and the interpretation the ellipsis site. CAPS indicates obligatory contrastive accenting.
(1) JOHN is expecting NOT to pass the exam but MARY IS
. The imparallelism is attributed to the presence of the negation within the matrix VP in the first conjunct, which is acting as the antecedent to an elided VP that does not contain that negation. Under no formulations of the identity conditions on ellipsis—whether syntactic or semantic—is the ellipsis in (1) expected.
The proposed analysis of the effect, which will be referred to as Imparallel VP Ellipsis (IVPE), will not treat it as a case of non-identity tolerance but rather as an illusion of non-identity created by an LF opacity effect. It will be proposed that the problematic negation in the first conjunct is situated outside of the antecedent VP at LF, where the identity conditions on ellipsis are taken to apply. It will be shown that this assumption is necessary in order to resolve an additional problem of imparallelism that arises where IVPE appears in ACD environments in which VP ellipsis and an NPI are both licensed despite having prima facie conflicting scope requirements.
Assuming that the negation is really situated high at LF, the task of deriving IVPE expressions will then be split into two pieces. The first is to explain why the negation is pronounced low when it is high at LF. The second is to explain why is the negation interpreted with narrow scope when it is high at LF. An account of the first question will be shown to come from the assumption that there is a syntactic Neg-raising operation active in a single-output grammar that creates Neg copy chains, which are interpreted separately by each interface component. An answer to the second question will come from a generalization that will be observed for the IVPE phenomenon where the effect is only felicitous if the verb heading the antecedent and elided VPs is a Neg Raising verb. By treating the Neg Raising phenomenon as the result of a pragmatic strengthening effect which gives the negation narrow scope in the truth conditions post-derivationally, we can account for the disconnect between the LF and output truth conditions in IVPE expressions. Independent evidence will be provided for this approach to Neg Raising, which involves cases of VPE similar to (1) but lacking the problematic imparallelism.
Finally, two points of overgeneration will be shown to come from the assumptions used here in light of the Neg Raising generalization on IVPE and a means of overcoming them will be proposed by way of pragmatic principles.
2nd Annual Linguistics-Philosophy Joint Colloquium 2/26 - Zoltán Gendler Szabó
Speaker: Zoltán Gendler Szabó (Yale)
Time: Talk: 3:30-4:30; Q&A: 4:30-5:30
Place: 32-141
Title: Semantic Categories
A good deal of contemporary semantics for natural language is based on a simple type-theory inspired by Frege’s ideas. This type-theory categorizes all linguist expressions on the basis of the kind of semantic value they have: it tells us that the semantic value of proper name is an object, the semantic value of a declarative sentence is a truth-value, the semantic value of a common noun is a function from objects to truth-values, and so on. Doing semantics this way has two main drawbacks: it commits us to a semantic categorization that seems gerrymandered both from the point of view of syntax and the point of view of ontology, and it imposes severe expressive limitations on the languages we can interpret. The drawbacks are the result of two fundamental assumptions: that every linguistic expression has exactly one semantic value and that there is exactly one semantic relation linking linguistic expressions and semantic values. I will argue that abandoning these assumptions is a good idea.
Speaker: Zoltán Gendler Szabó (Yale) Time: Talk: 3:30-4:30; Q&A: 4:30-5:30 Place: 32-141 Title: Semantic Categories
A good deal of contemporary semantics for natural language is based on a simple type-theory inspired by Frege’s ideas. This type-theory categorizes all linguist expressions on the basis of the kind of semantic value they have: it tells us that the semantic value of proper name is an object, the semantic value of a declarative sentence is a truth-value, the semantic value of a common noun is a function from objects to truth-values, and so on. Doing semantics this way has two main drawbacks: it commits us to a semantic categorization that seems gerrymandered both from the point of view of syntax and the point of view of ontology, and it imposes severe expressive limitations on the languages we can interpret. The drawbacks are the result of two fundamental assumptions: that every linguistic expression has exactly one semantic value and that there is exactly one semantic relation linking linguistic expressions and semantic values. I will argue that abandoning these assumptions is a good idea.
Canada Research Chair for Jessica Coon
Great news — Jessica Coon (PhD 2010), Associate Professor of Linguistics at McGill, has been awarded a Canada Research Chair! Canada Research Chairs were created “to attract and retain some of the world’s most accomplished and promising minds. Chairholders aim to achieve research excellence in engineering and the natural sciences, health sciences, humanities, and social sciences.” Congratulations Jessica!!
P.S. In receiving this honor, Jessica joins another of our PhD alums at McGill, Michael Wagner (PhD 2005), another Canada Research Chair holder of whom we are proud.
Great news — Jessica Coon (PhD 2010), Associate Professor of Linguistics at McGill, has been awarded a Canada Research Chair! Canada Research Chairs were created “to attract and retain some of the world’s most accomplished and promising minds. Chairholders aim to achieve research excellence in engineering and the natural sciences, health sciences, humanities, and social sciences.” Congratulations Jessica!!
P.S. In receiving this honor, Jessica joins another of our PhD alums at McGill, Michael Wagner (PhD 2005), another Canada Research Chair holder of whom we are proud.
Glossa
Below is a statement from the MIT Linguistics Faculty on open access and the new journal Glossa. We’re following our colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Similar statements are being considered on other campuses. For background, you can consult this post at Language Log and a statement from Glossa’s editor-in-chief Johan Rooryck. [Update: See now also a similar statement from linguists across the University of California system.]
MIT Linguistics Faculty Statement of Support for Glossa
We, the undersigned linguistics faculty of MIT, state our strong support for the principle of open access to scholarly communication, as affirmed in the Open Access Policy of the MIT Faculty. In the context of this commitment, we also state our strong support for the editorial team that recently left the journal Lingua and started the fair open access journal Glossa. We firmly expect that Glossa will inherit and exceed the quality and reputation of the earlier journal. We applaud MIT’s support for the Open Library of Humanities, the organization that, together with the LingOA initiative, is underwriting Glossa. We pledge to further the aims of open access in our actions as editors, reviewers, and authors.
Adam Albright
Sylvain Bromberger
Noam Chomsky
Michel DeGraff
Kai von Fintel
Edward Flemming
Suzanne Flynn
Danny Fox
Martin Hackl
James Harris
Irene Heim
Sabine Iatridou
Michael Kenstowicz
Samuel Jay Keyser
Shigeru Miyagawa
Wayne O’Neil
David Pesetsky
Norvin Richards
Roger Schwarzschild
Donca Steriade
Kenneth Wexler
Below is a statement from the MIT Linguistics Faculty on open access and the new journal Glossa. We’re following our colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Similar statements are being considered on other campuses. For background, you can consult this post at Language Log and a statement from Glossa’s editor-in-chief Johan Rooryck. [Update: See now also a similar statement from linguists across the University of California system.]
MIT Linguistics Faculty Statement of Support for Glossa
We, the undersigned linguistics faculty of MIT, state our strong support for the principle of open access to scholarly communication, as affirmed in the Open Access Policy of the MIT Faculty. In the context of this commitment, we also state our strong support for the editorial team that recently left the journal Lingua and started the fair open access journal Glossa. We firmly expect that Glossa will inherit and exceed the quality and reputation of the earlier journal. We applaud MIT’s support for the Open Library of Humanities, the organization that, together with the LingOA initiative, is underwriting Glossa. We pledge to further the aims of open access in our actions as editors, reviewers, and authors.
Adam Albright
Sylvain Bromberger
Noam Chomsky
Michel DeGraff
Kai von Fintel
Edward Flemming
Suzanne Flynn
Danny Fox
Martin Hackl
James Harris
Irene Heim
Sabine Iatridou
Michael Kenstowicz
Samuel Jay Keyser
Shigeru Miyagawa
Wayne O’Neil
David Pesetsky
Norvin Richards
Roger Schwarzschild
Donca Steriade
Kenneth Wexler
LFRG 2/17 - Yimei Xiang
Speaker: Yimei Xiang
Time: Wednesday, February 17, 1-2pm
Place: 32-D831
Title: Short answers, mention-some, and uniqueness: A hybrid approach for questions
This talk will discuss three issues related to the semantics of questions, including (i) the derivation of short answers, (ii) the variations of exhaustivity in diamond-questions like (1), and (iii) the dilemma between uniqueness (Dayal 1996) and mention-some (Fox 2013).
(1) Who can chair the committee?
First, to derive short answers grammatically, I propose a hybrid approach to compose the semantics of questions. Under this approach, the root denotation of a question is a topical property (a la categorial approaches), while then exercising an answerhood-operator returns a set of good propositional answers (like Hamblin-Karttunen semantics) or a set of good short answers. Second, to predict mention-some grammatically, I adopt Fox’s (2013) view that completeness amounts to maximal informativity instead of strongestness. I argue that the mention-some/mention-all ambiguity in a diamond-question comes from the absence/presence of a covert DOU-operator (viz., the covert counterpart of Mandarin dou) (compare Fox 2013). Third, to solve the dilemma between uniqueness and mention-some, I propose that the strongestness of a true short answer can be evaluated under any property that yields the same world partition (Groenendijk & Stokhof 1984) as the actual topical property.
Speaker: Yimei Xiang Time: Wednesday, February 17, 1-2pm Place: 32-D831 Title: Short answers, mention-some, and uniqueness: A hybrid approach for questions
This talk will discuss three issues related to the semantics of questions, including (i) the derivation of short answers, (ii) the variations of exhaustivity in diamond-questions like (1), and (iii) the dilemma between uniqueness (Dayal 1996) and mention-some (Fox 2013).
(1) Who can chair the committee?
First, to derive short answers grammatically, I propose a hybrid approach to compose the semantics of questions. Under this approach, the root denotation of a question is a topical property (a la categorial approaches), while then exercising an answerhood-operator returns a set of good propositional answers (like Hamblin-Karttunen semantics) or a set of good short answers. Second, to predict mention-some grammatically, I adopt Fox’s (2013) view that completeness amounts to maximal informativity instead of strongestness. I argue that the mention-some/mention-all ambiguity in a diamond-question comes from the absence/presence of a covert DOU-operator (viz., the covert counterpart of Mandarin dou) (compare Fox 2013). Third, to solve the dilemma between uniqueness and mention-some, I propose that the strongestness of a true short answer can be evaluated under any property that yields the same world partition (Groenendijk & Stokhof 1984) as the actual topical property.
Colloquium 2/19 - Seth Cable
Speaker: Seth Cable (UMass)
Title: The Curious Implicatures of Optional Past Tense in Tlingit (and Other Languages)
Date: Friday, Feb 19th
Time: 3:30-5:00 PM
Place: 32-141
Some languages appear to have a morpheme that combines the meaning of past tense with a variety of additional implications, the nature of which depend upon the aspectual marking of the verb. For non-perfective verbs (imperfective, habitual, future,etc.), the additional implication is that the event/state in question fails to extend into the present. For perfective verbs, however, the additional implication is either that (i) the result state of the event fails to extend into the present, or (ii) some natural, expected consequence of the event failed to occur. Importantly, unlike the superficially similar ‘cessation implicatures’ of past tense in languages like English, these aforementioned implications cannot be directly cancelled. Consequently, prior authors have viewed these additional inferences as semantic in nature, as being encoded directly in the lexical semantics of the morpheme (Leer 1991; Copley 2005; Plungian & van der Auwera 2006). Under this view, the morphemes in question express a special category of tense, one that has been labeled ‘discontinuous past’ by Plungian & van der Auwera (2006).
Through in-depth investigation of one such ‘discontinuous past’ marker in the Tlingit language, I argue that – to the contrary – the special inferences of these morphemes are not semantic, and are instead defeasible pragmatic inferences. Consequently, putative instances of ‘discontinuous past’ are in their semantics simply past tenses. I provide a formalized analysis of the pragmatic inferences associated with these past tenses, whereby they ultimately follow from (i) the optionality of the tense markers in question, and (ii) a special principle relating to the inherent topicality of the utterance time. The empirical and analytic results align well with a restrictive theory of cross-linguistic variation in tense semantics, one where the only tense categories across language are Past, Non-Future, and (maybe) Present (Cable 2013).
Speaker: Seth Cable (UMass) Title: The Curious Implicatures of Optional Past Tense in Tlingit (and Other Languages) Date: Friday, Feb 19th Time: 3:30-5:00 PM Place: 32-141
Some languages appear to have a morpheme that combines the meaning of past tense with a variety of additional implications, the nature of which depend upon the aspectual marking of the verb. For non-perfective verbs (imperfective, habitual, future,etc.), the additional implication is that the event/state in question fails to extend into the present. For perfective verbs, however, the additional implication is either that (i) the result state of the event fails to extend into the present, or (ii) some natural, expected consequence of the event failed to occur. Importantly, unlike the superficially similar ‘cessation implicatures’ of past tense in languages like English, these aforementioned implications cannot be directly cancelled. Consequently, prior authors have viewed these additional inferences as semantic in nature, as being encoded directly in the lexical semantics of the morpheme (Leer 1991; Copley 2005; Plungian & van der Auwera 2006). Under this view, the morphemes in question express a special category of tense, one that has been labeled ‘discontinuous past’ by Plungian & van der Auwera (2006).
Through in-depth investigation of one such ‘discontinuous past’ marker in the Tlingit language, I argue that – to the contrary – the special inferences of these morphemes are not semantic, and are instead defeasible pragmatic inferences. Consequently, putative instances of ‘discontinuous past’ are in their semantics simply past tenses. I provide a formalized analysis of the pragmatic inferences associated with these past tenses, whereby they ultimately follow from (i) the optionality of the tense markers in question, and (ii) a special principle relating to the inherent topicality of the utterance time. The empirical and analytic results align well with a restrictive theory of cross-linguistic variation in tense semantics, one where the only tense categories across language are Past, Non-Future, and (maybe) Present (Cable 2013).
Ling Lunch 2/18 - Sam Zukoff
Speaker: Sam Zukoff (MIT)
Title: The Mirror Alignment Principle: Morpheme Ordering at the Morphosyntax-Phonology Interface (Part 1: Bantu)
Date: Thursday, February 18
Time: 12:30-1:45pm
Location: 32-D461
Since at least Baker’s (1985) proposal of the “Mirror Principle”, it has been widely recognized that the linear order of morphemes within a morphologically complex word generally correlates with hierarchical syntactic structure (see also Muysken 1981). In morphologically complex words, morphemes which represent the exponents of morphosyntactic terminals that are lower in the syntactic tree generally surface closer to the root than those morphemes which are exponents of higher morphosyntactic terminals. A question that Baker does not directly explore in his original proposal is by what formal means this ordering relation is implemented in the grammar
In this talk, I outline a new proposal for implementing the Mirror Principle, which I refer to as the “Mirror Alignment Principle” (MAP). The MAP is an algorithm which translates c-command relations in the hierarchical (morpho)syntactic structure into ranking relations between Alignment constraints (McCarthy & Prince 1993) in the phonological component:
(1) The Mirror Alignment Principle:
If α c-commands β → Align-α » Align-β
By using ranked, competing Alignment constraints on different morphemes in this way, we can determine the surface order of morphemes through constraint interaction while still having a principled connection to the syntax.
I will demonstrate that this framework can straightforwardly generate Mirror Principle effects in Bantu, where differences in semantic scope between verbal derivational morphemes (Causative, Applicative, Reciprocal, Passive) correlate with differences in linear order. I will also address how the apparent counterevidence to the Mirror Principle posed by the so-called “CARP Template” (Hyman 2003) can be accommodated within the present proposal.
Speaker: Sam Zukoff (MIT) Title: The Mirror Alignment Principle: Morpheme Ordering at the Morphosyntax-Phonology Interface (Part 1: Bantu) Date: Thursday, February 18 Time: 12:30-1:45pm Location: 32-D461
Since at least Baker’s (1985) proposal of the “Mirror Principle”, it has been widely recognized that the linear order of morphemes within a morphologically complex word generally correlates with hierarchical syntactic structure (see also Muysken 1981). In morphologically complex words, morphemes which represent the exponents of morphosyntactic terminals that are lower in the syntactic tree generally surface closer to the root than those morphemes which are exponents of higher morphosyntactic terminals. A question that Baker does not directly explore in his original proposal is by what formal means this ordering relation is implemented in the grammar
In this talk, I outline a new proposal for implementing the Mirror Principle, which I refer to as the “Mirror Alignment Principle” (MAP). The MAP is an algorithm which translates c-command relations in the hierarchical (morpho)syntactic structure into ranking relations between Alignment constraints (McCarthy & Prince 1993) in the phonological component:
(1) The Mirror Alignment Principle: If α c-commands β → Align-α » Align-β
By using ranked, competing Alignment constraints on different morphemes in this way, we can determine the surface order of morphemes through constraint interaction while still having a principled connection to the syntax.
I will demonstrate that this framework can straightforwardly generate Mirror Principle effects in Bantu, where differences in semantic scope between verbal derivational morphemes (Causative, Applicative, Reciprocal, Passive) correlate with differences in linear order. I will also address how the apparent counterevidence to the Mirror Principle posed by the so-called “CARP Template” (Hyman 2003) can be accommodated within the present proposal.
LFRG 2/10 - Despina Oikonomou
Speaker: Despina Oikonomou
Time: Wednesday, February 10, 1-2pm
Place: 32-D831
Title: Imperatives are existential modals; Deriving the must-reading as an Implicature
The diverse interpretation of Imperatives has been a long-lasting puzzle in the literature (Wilson & Sperber 1988, Han 2000, Schwager 2006 / Kaufmann 2012, Portner 2007, Condoravdi & Lauer 2012, von Fintel & Iatridou 2015). For example, the sentence in (1) is interpreted as permission in a context where the Addressee wants to open the window and as command/request in an out-of-the-blue context where a Professor asks a student to open the window:
(1) Open the window.
In this talk I argue that Imperatives involve an existential modal, drawing evidence from scopal ambiguities in the presence of other quantificational elements such as only and few (cf. Haida & Repp 2011). I show that the need for a covert existential operator in Imperatives is evident in languages like Greek where overt movement resolves scopal ambiguities. The universal reading is explained on the basis of two factors; i) lack of a stronger scalar counterpart as opposed to overt modals (cf. Deal 2011) ii) strengthening via an implicature derived in the presence of certain Focus Alternatives (cf. Schwager 2005). If time permits, I will discuss some other covert modals (unembedded subjunctives in Greek and dispositional middles) which also seem to be ambiguous between an existential and a universal reading and suggest that the present analysis can be extended in these environments as well.
Speaker: Despina Oikonomou Time: Wednesday, February 10, 1-2pm Place: 32-D831 Title: Imperatives are existential modals; Deriving the must-reading as an Implicature
The diverse interpretation of Imperatives has been a long-lasting puzzle in the literature (Wilson & Sperber 1988, Han 2000, Schwager 2006 / Kaufmann 2012, Portner 2007, Condoravdi & Lauer 2012, von Fintel & Iatridou 2015). For example, the sentence in (1) is interpreted as permission in a context where the Addressee wants to open the window and as command/request in an out-of-the-blue context where a Professor asks a student to open the window:
(1) Open the window.
In this talk I argue that Imperatives involve an existential modal, drawing evidence from scopal ambiguities in the presence of other quantificational elements such as only and few (cf. Haida & Repp 2011). I show that the need for a covert existential operator in Imperatives is evident in languages like Greek where overt movement resolves scopal ambiguities. The universal reading is explained on the basis of two factors; i) lack of a stronger scalar counterpart as opposed to overt modals (cf. Deal 2011) ii) strengthening via an implicature derived in the presence of certain Focus Alternatives (cf. Schwager 2005). If time permits, I will discuss some other covert modals (unembedded subjunctives in Greek and dispositional middles) which also seem to be ambiguous between an existential and a universal reading and suggest that the present analysis can be extended in these environments as well.
Ling Lunch 2/11 - John Kingston
Speaker: John Kingston (UMass Amherst)
Title: When Do Words Influence Perception? Converging Evidence that the Ganong Effect is Early
Date: Thursday, February 11
Time: 12:30-1:45pm
Location: 32-D461
(joint work with Amanda Rysling, Adrian Staub, Andrew Cohen, and Jeffrey Starns)
Ganong (1980, JEP:HPP, 6, 110-125) first showed that listeners prefer to
categorize ambiguous stimuli from a word-nonword continuum with the
category corresponding to the word endpoint. Fox (1984, JEP:HPP 10,
526-540) showed that this preference, the so-called “Ganong effect,” was
stronger in slower than faster responses, perhaps because it takes time
for a word to be activated and for that activation to feed back on the
phonemic decision process. Subsequent work has failed to replicate Fox’s
finding (see Pitt & Samuel, 1993, JEP:HPP, 19, 699-725, for additional
evidence and a metanalysis). We present evidence using four different
designs, free response, response signal, eye tracking, and gating, that
words are instead activated and influence categorization as soon as the
listener hears supporting acoustic evidence.
Speaker: John Kingston (UMass Amherst) Title: When Do Words Influence Perception? Converging Evidence that the Ganong Effect is Early Date: Thursday, February 11 Time: 12:30-1:45pm Location: 32-D461
(joint work with Amanda Rysling, Adrian Staub, Andrew Cohen, and Jeffrey Starns)
Ganong (1980, JEP:HPP, 6, 110-125) first showed that listeners prefer to categorize ambiguous stimuli from a word-nonword continuum with the category corresponding to the word endpoint. Fox (1984, JEP:HPP 10, 526-540) showed that this preference, the so-called “Ganong effect,” was stronger in slower than faster responses, perhaps because it takes time for a word to be activated and for that activation to feed back on the phonemic decision process. Subsequent work has failed to replicate Fox’s finding (see Pitt & Samuel, 1993, JEP:HPP, 19, 699-725, for additional evidence and a metanalysis). We present evidence using four different designs, free response, response signal, eye tracking, and gating, that words are instead activated and influence categorization as soon as the listener hears supporting acoustic evidence.
MIT Linguistics Colloquium Schedule, Spring 2016
The colloquium series talks are held on Fridays at 3:30pm. Please check the Colloquium webpage for any updates.
February 5: Junko Ito , UC Santa Cruz
February 19: Seth Cable , UMass Amherst
March 4: Veneeta Dayal, Rutgers
March 11: Elliott Moreton, UNC
April 1: Bruce Hayes, UCLA
April 15: Amy Rose Deal, Berkeley
April 22: Roni Katzir, Tel Aviv University
May 6: Daniel Buring , University of Vienna
The colloquium series talks are held on Fridays at 3:30pm. Please check the Colloquium webpage for any updates.
MIT at the LSA meeting in Washington
Last weekend, many MIT and recently MIT linguists converged on Washington, D.C. for the annual meeting of the LSA.
- Alums Karlos Arregi (PhD ‘02) and Jonathan Bobaljik (PhD ‘95) were honored as LSA Fellows, along with alum and colleague Sabine Iatridou (PhD ‘91) and our colleague Kai von Fintel!
- Barbara Partee of UMass Amherst (PhD 1965), a member of our very first graduate class, received the Victoria A. Fromkin Lifetime Service Award!
(photos: mitcho Erlewine)
Several current students, faculty and recent grads gave talks and posters at the LSA, including:
- Richard Futrell (Brain & Cognitive Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Adam Albright (Linguistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Peter Graff ‘12 (Intel Corporation), Timothy J. O’Donnell (Brain & Cognitive Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology): “Subsegmental structure facilitates learning of phonotactic distributions”
- Michelle Yuan (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Ruth Brillman (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Zuzanna Fuchs (Harvard University): “Inuktitut mood-agreement interactions as contextual allomorphy”
- Ryo Masuda (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): “The learnability of tone-voicing associations and the absence of place-sensitive tonogenesis”
- Michelle Yuan (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): “Subordinate clause types and the left periphery in Gikuyu”
- Miriam Nussbaum (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): “Tense and scope in superlatives”
- Suyeon Yun (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): “Non-native cluster perception by phonetic confusion, not by universal grammar”
- Theodore Levin ‘15 (University of Maryland): “Unmarked case is unvalued case: Default Voice in Formosan restructuring”
- Hadas Kotek ‘14 (McGill University), Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine ‘14 (National University of Singapore): “Unifying definite and indefinite free relatives: evidence from Mayan”
- Patrick Jones ‘14 (Harvard University): “Tonal mobility and faithfulness in Kikuyu”
- Youngah Do ‘13 (Georgetown University), Elizabeth Zsiga (Georgetown University), Jonathan Havenhill (Georgetown University): “Naturalness and frequency in implicit phonological learning”
- Jonah Katz ‘10 (West Virginia University), Sarah Lee (University of California, Berkeley): “Cue integration and fricative perception in Seoul Korean”
- Nicholas Baier of UC Berkeley, who spent the Fall as a much-appreciated visiting student with us, presented a talk of “Deriving partial anti-agreement” (the First Place Student Abstract Award Winner — congratulations!).
- From McMaster University, Cassandra Chapman, a visiting student last Spring, and Ivona Kucerova ‘07 presented a talk on “Structural and semantic ambiguity of why-questions: an overlooked case of weak islands in English”
Very recent grad Coppe van Urk ‘15 (Queen Mary University), who did not give a talk, couldn’t stay away, nor could several of our current students who attended just for the fun. And as always, many many MIT alums from decades past attended and presented talks, too numerous to mention.
Last weekend, many MIT and recently MIT linguists converged on Washington, D.C. for the annual meeting of the LSA.
- Alums Karlos Arregi (PhD ‘02) and Jonathan Bobaljik (PhD ‘95) were honored as LSA Fellows, along with alum and colleague Sabine Iatridou (PhD ‘91) and our colleague Kai von Fintel!
- Barbara Partee of UMass Amherst (PhD 1965), a member of our very first graduate class, received the Victoria A. Fromkin Lifetime Service Award!
(photos: mitcho Erlewine)
Several current students, faculty and recent grads gave talks and posters at the LSA, including:
- Richard Futrell (Brain & Cognitive Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Adam Albright (Linguistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Peter Graff ‘12 (Intel Corporation), Timothy J. O’Donnell (Brain & Cognitive Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology): “Subsegmental structure facilitates learning of phonotactic distributions”
- Michelle Yuan (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Ruth Brillman (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Zuzanna Fuchs (Harvard University): “Inuktitut mood-agreement interactions as contextual allomorphy”
- Ryo Masuda (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): “The learnability of tone-voicing associations and the absence of place-sensitive tonogenesis”
- Michelle Yuan (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): “Subordinate clause types and the left periphery in Gikuyu”
- Miriam Nussbaum (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): “Tense and scope in superlatives”
- Suyeon Yun (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): “Non-native cluster perception by phonetic confusion, not by universal grammar”
- Theodore Levin ‘15 (University of Maryland): “Unmarked case is unvalued case: Default Voice in Formosan restructuring”
- Hadas Kotek ‘14 (McGill University), Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine ‘14 (National University of Singapore): “Unifying definite and indefinite free relatives: evidence from Mayan”
- Patrick Jones ‘14 (Harvard University): “Tonal mobility and faithfulness in Kikuyu”
- Youngah Do ‘13 (Georgetown University), Elizabeth Zsiga (Georgetown University), Jonathan Havenhill (Georgetown University): “Naturalness and frequency in implicit phonological learning”
- Jonah Katz ‘10 (West Virginia University), Sarah Lee (University of California, Berkeley): “Cue integration and fricative perception in Seoul Korean”
- Nicholas Baier of UC Berkeley, who spent the Fall as a much-appreciated visiting student with us, presented a talk of “Deriving partial anti-agreement” (the First Place Student Abstract Award Winner — congratulations!).
- From McMaster University, Cassandra Chapman, a visiting student last Spring, and Ivona Kucerova ‘07 presented a talk on “Structural and semantic ambiguity of why-questions: an overlooked case of weak islands in English”
Very recent grad Coppe van Urk ‘15 (Queen Mary University), who did not give a talk, couldn’t stay away, nor could several of our current students who attended just for the fun. And as always, many many MIT alums from decades past attended and presented talks, too numerous to mention.
Ling Lunch 2/4 - Christopher Tancredi
Speaker: Christopher Tancredi (Keio University)
Title: The Grammar of TOPIC, FOCUS and Givenness
Date: Thursday, February 4
Time: 12:30-1:45pm
Location: 32-D461
Theories of contrastive topic, focus and Givenness overlap to a high degree in what phenomena they explain. Each theory, however, uses its own primitives to explain its share of the phenomena. This suggests the possibility of reducing the number of primitives appealed to and also eliminating one or more of the explanations in favor of the other(s). I argue in this talk that such a reduction is not possible. The argument is made by showing that Givenness cannot be reduced to a side effect of focus or of contrastive topic, and nor can the revers reduction be made, and finally by showing that focus and contrastive topic show distinct phonological behavior that requires their being differentiated in the syntax. I finally show how this result is consistent with the analysis of focus and contrastive topic of Constant 2014.
Speaker: Christopher Tancredi (Keio University) Title: The Grammar of TOPIC, FOCUS and Givenness Date: Thursday, February 4 Time: 12:30-1:45pm Location: 32-D461
Theories of contrastive topic, focus and Givenness overlap to a high degree in what phenomena they explain. Each theory, however, uses its own primitives to explain its share of the phenomena. This suggests the possibility of reducing the number of primitives appealed to and also eliminating one or more of the explanations in favor of the other(s). I argue in this talk that such a reduction is not possible. The argument is made by showing that Givenness cannot be reduced to a side effect of focus or of contrastive topic, and nor can the revers reduction be made, and finally by showing that focus and contrastive topic show distinct phonological behavior that requires their being differentiated in the syntax. I finally show how this result is consistent with the analysis of focus and contrastive topic of Constant 2014.
Course announcements, Spring 2016
24.956 Topics in Syntax: Finiteness and clause size
Instructor: David Pesetsky
Tuesdays 2-5
Room: 32-D461
website: http://stellar.mit.edu/S/course/24/sp16/24.956 (nothing there yet, sorry!)
We too easily become used to facts about language that should strike us as strange. One of these is the menagerie of clause types and clause sizes in the world’s languages that are categorized with ill-understood labels such as infinitive, non-finite, gerund, nominalized, large, small, restructuring, defective, and more.
I come to this class with a germ of an idea with two parts, the first of which is familiar, the second of which is probably novel:
Many (ambitious version: all) of these distinctions should be reduced to distinctions in clause size — specifically, given a universal hierarchy of clausal projections, which one is the highest in a given clause? This is familiar to us from analyses in which raising infinitives differ from English for-infinitives merely in the addition of a complementizer layer, and restructuring infinitives differ from their non-restructuring counterparts in the absence of (all or most) layers above the verbal domain. One can imagine extending the spirit of such proposals to other clause-type distinctions as well.
Non-full-size clauses are often (ambitious version: always) created derivationally, as an obligatory concomitant of movement from that clause. In a nutshell: if an extended version of Erlewine’s (2015) version of an Anti-locality condition is correct, an element α that has merged in the higher clausal domain cannot exit the clause by first moving to its edge (because such movement is too short). Either some process must render the phase transparent (Branan 2015; Rackowski & Richards 2005), which I will try not to assume — or else α itself must already occupy the phase edge. My proposal: if Anti-locality prevents you from moving to the phase edge, make the phase edge come to you! — by deleting the structure that separates you from it. In the most ambitious version of the proposal, this is the source of all infinitives and other reduced clauses. In a deep sense, this proposal is a return to standard theories of clausal complementation before Bresnan’s dissertation, in which distinctions between finite and non- finite clauses were the result of syntactic transformations, and absent in the base. This similarity will be discussed.
In Raising constructions, for example, on this view, it is not a property of certain small infinitives that they trigger Raising, but rather a property of Raising that it triggers the creation of an infinitive. An array of mysterious absences that correlate with movement may have a similar source: doubly-Filled COMP effects, that-trace phenomena, and anti-agreement, to begin with. The proposal also interacts with Halpert’s (2015) work on the interaction of raising with the distribution of clausal φ-features. And yes, if all infinitives are created by movement of their subject (or similar high element), we are committed to the notorious Movement Theory of Control — so we have to join the effort to understand how the many objections to that proposal might be surmounted.
I will begin the class with a very rough look at the proposal and some of its motivations — but the class as a whole will not be devoted to developing the proposal per se, but rather to learning about the phenomena that it (or any other proposal on this topic) should cover, and the most promising approaches that have been developed.
Schedule for the first two weeks of the semester:
- Week 1: my germ of an idea
- Week 2: Raising and ECM — a closer look
Topics to be covered in the other weeks include:
- Anti-agreement (credit: Nico Baier for suggesting readings)
- Complementizer-trace effects
- Clausal cartography (Rizzi 1999 and work in that tradition)
- Restructuring (including both Wurmbrand’s older book and most recent work)
- Bantu hyper-raising and clausal φ-features (including Halpert’s most recent work)
- Raising in languages without non-finite clauses (guest speaker: Sabine)
- English for-infinitives and their distribution
- Gerunds and “nominalized” clauses cross-linguistically
- Movement Theory of Control (including lots of Landau)
(No ordering of topics implied yet. Schedule to be determined after the first class.)
Requirements
As an experiment, this class will have something of the spirit of Syntactic Models, in that I am not requiring a final paper or squibs.
Instead, I will ask for:
- weekly submission of a comment or question+discussion based on that week’s reading
- co-presentation of one or two of the papers assigned during the term (how many depends on registration numbers)
- investigation and short presentation or co-presentation of an issue connected to the class topics in a language or language family of your choice — your presentation + detailed handout will be sufficient to fulfill this requirement.
If you find the class topic interesting and plan to attend, please consider registering! My hope is that people who attend will be active participants, and without the burden of a final research paper will find it more attractive to register — so they truly involve themselves in these fascinating topics.
24.979 Topics in Semantics
Instructors: Kai von Fintel, Sabine Iatridou, Roger Schwarzschild
Time and room: F10-1 (32-D461)
Readings: https://stellar.mit.edu/S/course/24/sp16/24.979/materials.html
1. Nominal semantics (first 4 or 5 sessions)
In the first third of the seminar, Roger will explore some issues in nominal semantics. In the stative clause “Jack is a lawyer”, the noun ‘lawyer’ describes a state that Jack is in. That’s a reason to posit a state-argument for the noun. On a neo-Davidsonian analysis, that would be the only argument the noun has. We’ll explore the motivation and consequences for adopting the idea that (simple) nouns are 1-place predicates of states (= the N-state hypothesis).
- I. We’ll review discussion of neo-Davidsonianism – the hypothesis that syntactic arguments are not semantic arguments but rather combine via thematic roles.
- II. Simple nouns divide into count nouns and mass nouns. We’ll eventually want see what the N-state hypothesis allows us to say about this distinction. In part II, we’ll take a look at analyses of mass nouns, particularly those that try to treat mass nouns as plurals.
- III. The N-state hypothesis and: how to combine a predicate with a noun phrase argument, the semantics of number marking, mass-count, counting, thematic-roles.
Reading for the first classes: Parsons 1995 and then Chierchia 1998.
2. Counterfactual marking (remainder of the semester)
In the final two thirds of the seminar, Sabine and Kai will look at counterfactual marking, both its morphosyntax and its contribution to meaning. Counterfactual marking occurs, of course, in “counterfactual” conditionals, but also in wishes, in some expressions of weak necessity, and elsewhere. There are already some readings on the Stellar site.
Class requirements include two squibs on the two topic areas and will be discussed further in the first meeting.
Auditors are welcome to pick and choose their attendance.
24.956 Topics in Syntax: Finiteness and clause size
Instructor: David Pesetsky Tuesdays 2-5 Room: 32-D461 website: http://stellar.mit.edu/S/course/24/sp16/24.956 (nothing there yet, sorry!)
We too easily become used to facts about language that should strike us as strange. One of these is the menagerie of clause types and clause sizes in the world’s languages that are categorized with ill-understood labels such as infinitive, non-finite, gerund, nominalized, large, small, restructuring, defective, and more.
I come to this class with a germ of an idea with two parts, the first of which is familiar, the second of which is probably novel:
Many (ambitious version: all) of these distinctions should be reduced to distinctions in clause size — specifically, given a universal hierarchy of clausal projections, which one is the highest in a given clause? This is familiar to us from analyses in which raising infinitives differ from English for-infinitives merely in the addition of a complementizer layer, and restructuring infinitives differ from their non-restructuring counterparts in the absence of (all or most) layers above the verbal domain. One can imagine extending the spirit of such proposals to other clause-type distinctions as well.
Non-full-size clauses are often (ambitious version: always) created derivationally, as an obligatory concomitant of movement from that clause. In a nutshell: if an extended version of Erlewine’s (2015) version of an Anti-locality condition is correct, an element α that has merged in the higher clausal domain cannot exit the clause by first moving to its edge (because such movement is too short). Either some process must render the phase transparent (Branan 2015; Rackowski & Richards 2005), which I will try not to assume — or else α itself must already occupy the phase edge. My proposal: if Anti-locality prevents you from moving to the phase edge, make the phase edge come to you! — by deleting the structure that separates you from it. In the most ambitious version of the proposal, this is the source of all infinitives and other reduced clauses. In a deep sense, this proposal is a return to standard theories of clausal complementation before Bresnan’s dissertation, in which distinctions between finite and non- finite clauses were the result of syntactic transformations, and absent in the base. This similarity will be discussed.
In Raising constructions, for example, on this view, it is not a property of certain small infinitives that they trigger Raising, but rather a property of Raising that it triggers the creation of an infinitive. An array of mysterious absences that correlate with movement may have a similar source: doubly-Filled COMP effects, that-trace phenomena, and anti-agreement, to begin with. The proposal also interacts with Halpert’s (2015) work on the interaction of raising with the distribution of clausal φ-features. And yes, if all infinitives are created by movement of their subject (or similar high element), we are committed to the notorious Movement Theory of Control — so we have to join the effort to understand how the many objections to that proposal might be surmounted.
I will begin the class with a very rough look at the proposal and some of its motivations — but the class as a whole will not be devoted to developing the proposal per se, but rather to learning about the phenomena that it (or any other proposal on this topic) should cover, and the most promising approaches that have been developed.
Schedule for the first two weeks of the semester:
- Week 1: my germ of an idea
- Week 2: Raising and ECM — a closer look
Topics to be covered in the other weeks include:
- Anti-agreement (credit: Nico Baier for suggesting readings)
- Complementizer-trace effects
- Clausal cartography (Rizzi 1999 and work in that tradition)
- Restructuring (including both Wurmbrand’s older book and most recent work)
- Bantu hyper-raising and clausal φ-features (including Halpert’s most recent work)
- Raising in languages without non-finite clauses (guest speaker: Sabine)
- English for-infinitives and their distribution
- Gerunds and “nominalized” clauses cross-linguistically
- Movement Theory of Control (including lots of Landau)
(No ordering of topics implied yet. Schedule to be determined after the first class.)Requirements
As an experiment, this class will have something of the spirit of Syntactic Models, in that I am not requiring a final paper or squibs.
Instead, I will ask for:
- weekly submission of a comment or question+discussion based on that week’s reading
- co-presentation of one or two of the papers assigned during the term (how many depends on registration numbers)
- investigation and short presentation or co-presentation of an issue connected to the class topics in a language or language family of your choice — your presentation + detailed handout will be sufficient to fulfill this requirement.
If you find the class topic interesting and plan to attend, please consider registering! My hope is that people who attend will be active participants, and without the burden of a final research paper will find it more attractive to register — so they truly involve themselves in these fascinating topics.
24.979 Topics in Semantics
Instructors: Kai von Fintel, Sabine Iatridou, Roger Schwarzschild Time and room: F10-1 (32-D461) Readings: https://stellar.mit.edu/S/course/24/sp16/24.979/materials.html
1. Nominal semantics (first 4 or 5 sessions)
In the first third of the seminar, Roger will explore some issues in nominal semantics. In the stative clause “Jack is a lawyer”, the noun ‘lawyer’ describes a state that Jack is in. That’s a reason to posit a state-argument for the noun. On a neo-Davidsonian analysis, that would be the only argument the noun has. We’ll explore the motivation and consequences for adopting the idea that (simple) nouns are 1-place predicates of states (= the N-state hypothesis).
- I. We’ll review discussion of neo-Davidsonianism – the hypothesis that syntactic arguments are not semantic arguments but rather combine via thematic roles.
- II. Simple nouns divide into count nouns and mass nouns. We’ll eventually want see what the N-state hypothesis allows us to say about this distinction. In part II, we’ll take a look at analyses of mass nouns, particularly those that try to treat mass nouns as plurals.
- III. The N-state hypothesis and: how to combine a predicate with a noun phrase argument, the semantics of number marking, mass-count, counting, thematic-roles.
Reading for the first classes: Parsons 1995 and then Chierchia 1998.
2. Counterfactual marking (remainder of the semester)
In the final two thirds of the seminar, Sabine and Kai will look at counterfactual marking, both its morphosyntax and its contribution to meaning. Counterfactual marking occurs, of course, in “counterfactual” conditionals, but also in wishes, in some expressions of weak necessity, and elsewhere. There are already some readings on the Stellar site.
Class requirements include two squibs on the two topic areas and will be discussed further in the first meeting.
Auditors are welcome to pick and choose their attendance.
Colloquium 2/5 - Junko Ito
Speaker: Junko Ito (UC Santa Cruz)
Title: Doubling up or remaining single—gemination patterns in Japanese loanwords
Date: Friday, Feb 5th
Time: 3:30-5:00 PM
Place: 32-141
In Japanese, a language whose native system employs consonant length contrastively, the distribution of geminates (/pp/, /dd/, /mm/, etc.) as opposed to singletons (/p/, /d/, /m/, etc.) in loanwords raises an interesting question: How is it determined in adaptations from English, a language with no contrastive length distinctions? Starting with the seminal work of Lovins (1975), who offered an insightful analysis of some of the gemination patterns in Japanese loanwords, there is a wealth of literature and research in more recent decades focusing on different aspects that include not only phonological, but also phonetic (acoustic and articulatory), experimental, as well as corpus studies. The goal of this research (in collaboration with Armin Mester and Haruo Kubozono) is to develop an optimality-theoretic analysis that accounts for all previously established generalizations as well as new factors that have emerged in the course of our own investigation. Whether or not a given consonant is geminated depends on a host of segmental factors that are the result of a family of anti-gemination and prosodic faithfulness constraints, ranked at different points within the OT constraint hierarchy. Finally, it appears that significant higher-level prosodic factors that are part of the native system are also at work, and explain many details of the gemination pattern that are rooted neither in faithfulness to the source word nor in segmental features.
Speaker: Junko Ito (UC Santa Cruz) Title: Doubling up or remaining single—gemination patterns in Japanese loanwords Date: Friday, Feb 5th Time: 3:30-5:00 PM Place: 32-141
In Japanese, a language whose native system employs consonant length contrastively, the distribution of geminates (/pp/, /dd/, /mm/, etc.) as opposed to singletons (/p/, /d/, /m/, etc.) in loanwords raises an interesting question: How is it determined in adaptations from English, a language with no contrastive length distinctions? Starting with the seminal work of Lovins (1975), who offered an insightful analysis of some of the gemination patterns in Japanese loanwords, there is a wealth of literature and research in more recent decades focusing on different aspects that include not only phonological, but also phonetic (acoustic and articulatory), experimental, as well as corpus studies. The goal of this research (in collaboration with Armin Mester and Haruo Kubozono) is to develop an optimality-theoretic analysis that accounts for all previously established generalizations as well as new factors that have emerged in the course of our own investigation. Whether or not a given consonant is geminated depends on a host of segmental factors that are the result of a family of anti-gemination and prosodic faithfulness constraints, ranked at different points within the OT constraint hierarchy. Finally, it appears that significant higher-level prosodic factors that are part of the native system are also at work, and explain many details of the gemination pattern that are rooted neither in faithfulness to the source word nor in segmental features.
Patrick Grosz and Pritty Patel-Grosz at the University of Oslo
We have just received the great news that our alumni Patrick G. Grosz (PhD 2011) and Pritty Patel-Grosz (PhD 2012) have accepted tenured Associate Professor positions at the University of Oslo. Congratulations, Patrick and Pritty!
We have just received the great news that our alumni Patrick G. Grosz (PhD 2011) and Pritty Patel-Grosz (PhD 2012) have accepted tenured Associate Professor positions at the University of Oslo. Congratulations, Patrick and Pritty!
A conference in honor of Ken Wexler
The Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT is organizing a conference on the occasion of Ken Wexler’s retirement, to honor and celebrate his foundational, lasting contributions to the field. We will host a two day conference at MIT, with colleagues and friends in linguistics and cognitive science presenting work connected to or inspired by Ken’s research. The conference will take place April 30-May 1, 2016, and will be preceded by a reception on the evening of April 29. The conference, as well as the reception, are open to the public and all are welcome!
The Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT is organizing a conference on the occasion of Ken Wexler’s retirement, to honor and celebrate his foundational, lasting contributions to the field. We will host a two day conference at MIT, with colleagues and friends in linguistics and cognitive science presenting work connected to or inspired by Ken’s research. The conference will take place April 30-May 1, 2016, and will be preceded by a reception on the evening of April 29. The conference, as well as the reception, are open to the public and all are welcome!
Books and papers
- We are thrilled to take note of the publication of a book by our very recent alum (and very recent colloquium speaker) Claire Halpert (PhD 2012), from Oxford University Press! The book is called Argument licensing and agreement. More information is available here.
- Congratulations also to 4th-year student Juliet Stanton on the acceptance for publication in Language of her paper “Learnability shapes typology: the case of the midpoint pathology”! A pre-publication version of her paper can be downloaded here. Another paper of Juliet’s has just appeared in Linguistic Inquiry: “Wholesale Late Merger in Ā-Movement: Evidence from Preposition Stranding”. A prepublication version can also be downloaded here.
- Congratulations to 4th-year student Sam Zukoff, whose paper “The Reduplicative System of Ancient Greek and a New Analysis of Attic Reduplication” has been accepted for publication by Linguistic Inquiry! Download a pre-publication version at either lingbuzz or Sam’s webpage.
- We are thrilled to take note of the publication of a book by our very recent alum (and very recent colloquium speaker) Claire Halpert (PhD 2012), from Oxford University Press! The book is called Argument licensing and agreement. More information is available here.
- Congratulations also to 4th-year student Juliet Stanton on the acceptance for publication in Language of her paper “Learnability shapes typology: the case of the midpoint pathology”! A pre-publication version of her paper can be downloaded here. Another paper of Juliet’s has just appeared in Linguistic Inquiry: “Wholesale Late Merger in Ā-Movement: Evidence from Preposition Stranding”. A prepublication version can also be downloaded here.
- Congratulations to 4th-year student Sam Zukoff, whose paper “The Reduplicative System of Ancient Greek and a New Analysis of Attic Reduplication” has been accepted for publication by Linguistic Inquiry! Download a pre-publication version at either lingbuzz or Sam’s webpage.
Syntax Square - call for presentations
This semester, Syntax Square will be meeting on Tuesdays. There is no Syntax Square meeting this week, please contact the organizers Carrie Spadine (cspadine@mit.edu) and/or Colin Davis (colind@mit.edu) if you would like to reserve a slot. Presentations about work in progress, papers from the literature, and old squibs are every bit as welcome as practice talks. The following dates are still open:
February: 9
March: 8, 28
April: 5, 19, 26
May: 3, 10, 17
This semester, Syntax Square will be meeting on Tuesdays. There is no Syntax Square meeting this week, please contact the organizers Carrie Spadine (cspadine@mit.edu) and/or Colin Davis (colind@mit.edu) if you would like to reserve a slot. Presentations about work in progress, papers from the literature, and old squibs are every bit as welcome as practice talks. The following dates are still open:
February: 9 March: 8, 28 April: 5, 19, 26 May: 3, 10, 17
Phonology Circle - call for presentations
This semester, Phonology Circle will be meeting on Mondays. Presentations about work in progress, papers from the literature, and old squibs are every bit as welcome as practice talks. The following dates are still open:
February: 8, 16, 22, 29
March: 14, 28
April: 4
Please contact Juliet Stanton (juliets@mit.edu) and/or Sam Zukoff (szukoff@mit.edu) if you would like to reserve a slot.
This semester, Phonology Circle will be meeting on Mondays. Presentations about work in progress, papers from the literature, and old squibs are every bit as welcome as practice talks. The following dates are still open:
February: 8, 16, 22, 29 March: 14, 28 April: 4
Please contact Juliet Stanton (juliets@mit.edu) and/or Sam Zukoff (szukoff@mit.edu) if you would like to reserve a slot.