Whamit!

The Weekly Newsletter of MIT Linguistics

Archive for September, 2018

LingPhil Reading Group 9/24 - on Rothschild and Spectre (2016)

Nathaniel Schwartz will be presenting a very recent paper by Rothschild and Spectre (2016) on knowing conditionals. The meeting will take place on Monday 24th  in the 8th floor seminar room, i.e. the usual time & place.

Title : A Puzzle about Knowing Conditionals

Authors : Daniel Rothschild and Levi Spectre

Abstract :

We present a puzzle about knowledge, probability and conditionals. We show that in certain cases some basic and plausible principles governing our reasoning come into conflict. In particular, we show that there is a simple argument that a person may be in a position to know a conditional the consequent of which has a low probability conditional on its antecedent, contra Adams’ thesis. We suggest that the puzzle motivates a very strong restriction on the inference of a conditional from a disjunction.

MorPhun 9/24: Boer on Old Chinese Morphology

Speaker: Boer Fu (MIT)
Title: Sagart & Baxter’s book on Old Chinese
Date and time: Monday 9/24, 5-6pm
Location: 32-D831
Abstract:

Chinese has been known as a language that does not employ any morphology apart from compounds. Each monosyllabic morpheme can stand as a word on its own, and interact with each other syntactically. But the language has not always been like this. Derivational prefixes, suffixes, and infixes have once been productive in Old Chinese. In this talk, I will draw examples from Sagart & Baxter’s 2014 phonological reconstruction of Old Chinese to illustrate their variety and relations to the writing system. I will also discuss the loss of affixation and its role in the emergence of tonal contrast in Middle Chinese. The implication on the reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan will be discussed briefly as well.

Syntax Square 9/25 - Ljiljana Progovac (Wayne State University/MIT)

Speaker: Ljiljana Progovac (Wayne State University/MIT)
Title: The absolutive vP-less basis of se “middles” in Serbian: A split accusative language?
Date and time: Tuesday September 25, 1-2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: 

 I pursue a unified account of se in its various manifestations in Serbian, including, but not limited to, passive-like, middle-like, reflexive, reciprocal (all of them referred to as “middles”), given that coordination tests establish that these various readings are not syntactically distinct. The idea is that these middle se structures in Serbian (1) avail themselves of only one syntactic argument, a proto-participant in the event (2), often giving rise to massive vagueness, especially when not pragmatically constrained. The only argument in se middles is further proposed to be absolutive-like, in the sense that it does not grammatically discriminate subjects from objects, or agents from patients, the pattern also found with absolutives in syntactically ergative languages such as Tongan, as will be illustrated.

(1) Deca se tuku/grle/prskaju!
children SE hit/hug/sprinkle
‘The children are hitting/hugging/sprinkling each other.’ ‘?The children are hitting/ hugging/ sprinkling themselves.’ ‘The children are hitting/hugging/sprinkling somebody (else.)’ ‘The children are hitting/hugging/sprinkling me!’ ‘One spanks/hugs/?sprinkles children.’

(2) ∃e [H(e) ∧ Participant (Children,e)]

This analysis ties into my work on language evolution (e.g. Progovac 2015, 2016), where I have reconstructed a vP-less and TP-less (intransitive and tenseless) small clause stage in the evolution of language/syntax, with only one (absolutive-like) argument per verb/clause. Arguably, this absolutive-like proto-layer provides a common foundation/denominator for building transitivity, either by adding an ergative argument on the top, or an accusative argument on the bottom, not inconsistent with the postulates of Dependent Case Theory (e.g. Yip et al. 1987; Marantz 1991; McFadden 2004; Baker 2015).
Previous proposals have noted that se in Serbian can be analyzed as neither an argument, nor a reflexive pronoun, but is instead some kind of grammatical marker (e.g. Franks 1995; Marelj 2004; Progovac 2005). A unified account of se in Serbian requires seeing se as flagging a different, parallel type of grammar in a language whose dominant grammar is accsative, suggesting that Serbian may be a split accusative language, on analogy with split ergative languages. Finally, this approach makes some specific testable predictions regarding the processing of se middles, in contrast to their transitive (vP) counterparts, and the fMRI experiments we conducted have yielded some promising initial results (Progovac et al. 2018). 

Phonology Circle 9/26 - Erin Olson (MIT)

Speaker: Erin Olson (MIT)
Title: Pitch and vowel duration make schwa invisible to Passamaquoddy stress
Date/Time: Wednesday, September 26, 5:00-6:30pm
Location: 32-D831
Abstract:

This is a practice presentation for a poster to be presented at AMP.

Ling Lunch 9/27 - Itai Bassi (MIT); Keny Chatain (MIT)

We again have 2 presentations as practice talks for NELS: 
 
Speaker: Itai Bassi (MIT)
Title: Fake Indexicals: the grammar of variable binding
Date and time: Thursday, 9/27, 12:30-1:50pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:
 

In (1), ’my’ can function as a bound variable and doesn’t have to refer to the speaker - it is a “Fake Indexical”. Fake Indexicality has been used in recent decades as a probe into investigating how the logical mechanism of variable binding interacts with syntactic and morphological mechanisms in natural language. In the first part of the talk I will motivate and present an analysis of (1) (building on Bassi and Longenbaugh 2017) on which the “fake” indexical is a true indexical, and more generally that bound-variable pronouns always have their phi-features interpreted in this construction. I will show new evidence from English that supports this analysis over existing accounts within the “minimal pronoun” approach (Kratzer 2009, Wurmbrand 2017) which take bound pronouns to have features only on the surface, without being interpreted. 

(1) I am the only one who takes care of my children (based on Partee 1989)
     bound reading: for every x other than me, x can’t take care of x’s children
 
In the second part of the talk I will turn to some cross-linguistic variation in this domain. In German a bound indexical reading analogous to (1) is not available, (2); but it is available if the pronoun is embedded deeply enough, (3) (Kratzer 2009). Following insights by Wurmbrand and Kratzer, I suggest that the difference between English (1) and German (2) lies in the absence or presence of gender marking on relative pronouns. I’ll propose that variable-binding obligatorily translates to agreement between the binder and the bindee, which leads to a spell-out crash in (2) but not in (1) because of a ban on realizing 1st person on gender-marked (relative) pronouns. This agreement operates only locally, stopping at a CP boundary, which explains the difference between (2) and (3). Cross-linguistic predictions will emerge from the details of the analysis which I will try to substantiate using novel data from French and Hebrew.
 
(2) Ich bin die   einzige  die  meine Kinder  versorgt    (bound reading impossible)
        I   am the.F  only   who.F my     children  takes.care.of 
 
(3) Ich bin die    einzige die     [jemand    kennt  [der meine Kinder versorgt]]   (bound reading possible)
        I   am the.F  only   who.F [someone knows  [who  my      children takes.care.of]]
———————————————————————-
 
Speaker: Keny Chatain (MIT)
Title: Wide-scope distributivity
Date and time: Thursday, 9/27, 12:30-1:50pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:
 

In this talk, I analyse data of the form (1-3), where a referential expression is interpreted with wide scope and a distributive interpretation. This data is mysterious under the standard assumption that distributive readings arise from a covert element D operating on predicates, since the relevant predicate in (1-3) can only be formed by an island-escaping movement.

1. Context: I just got the results from our new experimental drug on the 17 participants we recruited.
Sentence: Either the drug made them sick or it made them sleepy (but it didn’t cure anyone).
Reading: Each of the participants was either made sick or sleepy by the drug

2. Context: Four 3D printers are currently working. They are printing different objects and my therefore finish at different times.
Sentence: When the printers are done, they will emit a loud screeching noise.
Reading: for each of the printers, when it is done, it will emit a loud screeching noise.

3. Sentence: Unless Clinton and Trump don’t want me to, I will give them a mic.
Reading: for each of Clinton and Trump, unless he or she wants me to, I won’t give him or her a mic.

I argue that this data motivates the existence of an index-based covert “all”-operator. Since it is based on indices, this operator can be remote from the plurality it distributes over, even separated from it by a scope island, accounting for (1-3). Further evidence for this operator will come from its ability to license dependent plurals (up to intervention effects). Finally, I will show how we can make sense of the restriction on the type of expressions that can show this wide-scope distributivity (i.e. referential expressions), tying it to their anaphoric nature.

 

MIT Colloquium 9/28: Pavel Caha (Masaryk University)

Speaker: Pavel Caha (Masaryk University)
Title: Phrasal spellout, multiple exponence and bracketing paradoxes
Date and time: Friday 9/28, 3:30-5pm
Location: 32-155 
Abstract:

The talk explores a view on the syntax-phonology interface, where every non-terminal that arises by Merge F must be assigned phonological interpretation, or the derivation fails (Starke, 2018).  Focusing on comparatives, I compare such an architecture to the standard view proposed in Distributed Morphology (Halle and Marantz 1993), where only terminals are subject to phonological interpretation. I also address the concerns raised against the phrasal-spellout model in Embick (2016).

Sylvain Bromberger (1924-2018)

We join our colleagues in the Philosophy side of our department in expressing our sadness at the passing of Sylvain Bromberger last Sunday, September 16. Sylvain was a philosopher with a deep interest in linguistics and linguistic questions. The high-school friend, co-author, and lifelong colleague of Morris Halle, Sylvain was the dedicatee of a linguistics Festschrift from our side of the department (“The View from Building Twenty”, MIT Press), and a constant lively presence at linguistics talks and events as recently as last Spring. He will be greatly missed.

Linguistics and Philosophy Reading Group

The LPRG (Linguistics and Philosophy Reading Group) will hold its first meeting for the fall 2018/spring 2019 terms on September 24 from 1-2pm in the 8th floor seminar room. Everyone interested in either linguistics and philosophy is invited to attend. This year sees the introduction of a new format: unlike previous year, this year’s readings are themed ; this semester in particular will focus on the De Re, De Se, De Dicto distinction. To see a tentative reading list, please consult the LPRG website. If you wish to be informed of the upcoming LPRG events through the LPRG mailing list, get in touch with one of the organizers: Keny Chatain, Maša Močnik, Vincent Rouillard, Nathaniel Schwartz, Harrison Smith-Jaoudi.

MorPhun 9/17: Colin on the morphophonology of case in Buryat

Speaker: Colin Davis (MIT)
Title: The morphophonology of case in Buryat 
Date and time: Monday 9/17, 5-6pm
Location: 32-D831
Abstract:

In this presentation, I’ll overview some morpho-phonological properties of case in Barguzin Buryat (Mongolic) based on my recent fieldwork. I’ll focus on the accusative and genitive cases, which pattern together in displaying a few interesting phenomena. My analysis is tentative and incomplete, but ideally this presentation will go as follows:
   First I’ll argue that a phonological requirement of these case affixes results in the insertion of certain mysterious epenthetic morphemes. Second I’ll argue that the ‘epenthetic’ status of these morphemes is obscured by processes which can subsequently delete the original genitive/accusative marking, thus yielding opaque derivations for many nominal forms. Third I’ll turn to a pattern of plural allomorphy unique to genitive and accusative cases, which I’ll suggest provides a clear counterexample to certain theories of case features and suppletion argued for in recent literature in morphology. Fourth I’ll relate these Buryat facts to analogous patterns in other languages.

LF Reading Group 9/19 - Christopher Baron (MIT)

Speaker: Christopher Baron (MIT)
Title: Measure of Change
Date and time: Wednesday, September 19, 1-2 pm
Location: 32-D461

Abstract:

In this presentation, I’ll discuss Kennedy & Levin’s (2007) paper, “Measure of Change.” The paper discusses so-called Degree Achievements (DAs) like (to) cool,widen, and darken, which describe some kind of change an object undergoes, and which seem to have variable telicity. Kennedy & Levin present and motivate a scalar semantics for DAs, wherein the underlying meaning is a special kind of measure function, systematically related to the measure functions that the adjectival roots of DAs denote, called `measures of change.’ The variable telicity is accounted for on the basis of the structure of the scales that the underlying adjectives make reference to. I’ll discuss some objections and issues for Kennedy & Levin’s analysis as well, in particular some that Piñón (2007) and Križ (2011) raise.

Phonology Circle 9/19 - Chris Yang (MIT)

Speaker: Chris Yang (MIT)
Title: Presenting Serial Markedness Reduction (Jarosz 2014)
Date/Time: Wednesday, September 19, 5:00-6:30pm
Location: 32-D831
Abstract:

A growing body of research provides evidence supporting Harmonic Serialism (HS; McCarthy 2000, 2008a, 2010; Elfner to appear; Pruitt 2010), a serial version of Optimality Theory in which a single ranking of constraints is used iteratively to construct a derivation. This work has led to new insights into several outstanding problems in phonology and has highlighted problematic over-predictions of parallel OT, showing that HS predicts a more restricted range of interactions that better reflects typology. Although HS makes it possible to capture certain generalizations stated at intermediate levels of representation, it does not provide a general solution to phonological opacity. For this reason McCarthy developed a significant elaboration of HS, OT with Candidate Chains (OT-CC; McCarthy 2007), which evaluates complete HS-like derivations in parallel. This paper proposes a novel extension of HS, Serial Markedness Reduction (SMR), which combines advantages of HS and OT-CC. Like OT-CC, SMR includes a family of constraints that enables the modeling of both counterfeeding and counterbleeding opacity. However, SMR significantly streamlines the machinery necessary to model opacity as compared to OT-CC, relying on the gradual optimization inherent to HS to construct a single optimal derivation. The formal and empirical differences between OT-CC and SMR are discussed.

We encourage those attending to read the paper (linked in the title), but by no means is it required!

Ling Lunch 9/20 - Vincent Rouillard, Naomi Francis (MIT)

This week we have 2 presentations one after the other as practice talks for NELS: 
 
Speaker: Vincent Rouillard (MIT)
Title: Number Inflection, Spanish Bare Interrogatives, and Higher-Order Quantification
Date and time: Thursday, 9/20, 12:30-1:50pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:
 
In this joint work with Luis Alonso-Ovalle, we examine the behavior of simplex interrogative expressions in Spanish. Many languages including Spanish inflect who for number; Spanish has quién (who.sg) and quiénes (who.pl). Assuming Dayals’s (1996) ans operator, Maldonado (2017) argues that quién and quiénes challenge Sauerland et al.’s  (2005) theory of number, where the plural is semantically vacuous (weak plural) while the singular presupposes atomicity (strong singular). Maldonado takes quiénes to be a plural ranging over pluralities only while quién is a singular ranging over both atoms and pluralities. In other words, she assumes a vacuous singular (weak singular) and a plural presupposing plurality (strong plural). We show that this fails to capture the behavior of quién and quiénes with collective predicates and argue, extending Elliott et al. (2017), that both wh-expressions range over generalized quantifiers (GQs). We conclude, contra Elliott et al., that having quién range over GQs while being a strong singular is insufficient to account for its behavior and that the data are best described if quién is a weak singular and quiénes a strong plural, extending Maldonado.
———————————————————————-
 
Speaker: Naomi Francis (MIT)
Title: Imperatives under even 
Date and time: Thursday, 9/20, 12:30-1:50pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:
 

Imperative sentences can give rise to strong (e.g. command; □) or weak (e.g. acquiescence, indifference; ◊) readings. The acceptability of even in imperatives tracks this distinction in a surprising way: even can appear with broad focus in imperatives only if they receive a weak reading (1-2).

  1. [Prof. X is invigilating an exam and orders the students to stop writing.]

Put down your pens. [Close your exam papers]F #even!                                                           □imp

  1. [Prof. Y is telling students that they no longer have to complete the exam they had been writing and are free to do whatever they like.]

Put down your pens. [Close your exam papers]F even! (None of this matters.)                   ◊imp

There is no such contrast between sentences with even containing overt possibility and necessity modals.

  1. You have to/must put down your pens. You even have to/must [close your exam papers]F. □mod
  1. You’re allowed to put down your pens. You’re even allowed to [close your exam papers]F. ◊mod

I show that this pattern can be accounted for if we assume that i) even has an additive component (Karttunen & Peters 1979) and ii) imperatives underlyingly contain an existential modal operator (◊imp), with strong readings derived by exhaustifying the prejacent of the imperative operator(Schwager 2005, 2006/Kaufmann 2012, Oikonomou 2016). When seen in this light, the puzzling interaction between even and strong imperatives will be reduced to an incompatibility between the additive component of even and the exclusive component of exh/only.

Fieldwork Reading Group

The Fieldwork Reading Group (FWRG) is being revived this semester! This is a chance for all who are interested in gathering linguistic data via fieldwork to discuss/present/share their work, raw data, elicitation techniques etc.; it also features invited talks by MIT colloquium speakers who do fieldwork.  It will be held on Thursdays 5-6pm in 32-D831. If you want to reserve a date to talk about various aspects of your experience in the field, or present fieldwork data, please get in touch with one of the organizers: Tanya Bondarenko (tbond@mit.edu), Colin Davis (colind@mit.edu), Cora Lesure (lesure@mit.edu), and Mitya Privoznov (dpriv@mit.edu).

Summer defenses

Our happiest congratulations to this summer’s impressive group of doctoral dissertators! The department celebrated the excellent defenses with champagne and some doctoral level baking, including cat-themed cake decorations and vegan Oreo-cheesecake.

  • Athulya Aravind - Presuppositions in Context
  • Kenyon Branan - Relationship Preservation
  • Tingchun (TC) Chen - Multiple Case Assignment: An Amis Case Study
  • Michelle Fullwood - Biases in Segmenting Non-concatenative Morphology
  • Ishani Guha - Distributivity across domains: A study of the distributive numerals in Bangla
  • Sophie Moracchini - Morphosemantics of degree constructions and the grammar of evaluativity
  • Takashi Morita - Unsupervised Learning of Lexical Subclasses from Phonotactics
  • Ezer Rasin - Modular interactions in phonology
  • Milena Sisovics - Embedded Jussives as Instances of Control: The Case of Mongolian and Korean
  • Michelle Yuan - Dimensions of Ergativity in Inuit: Theory and Microvariation

MIT at Sinn und Bedeutung 2018

Sinn und Bedeutung 23 took place last weekend in Barcelona. 4th year student Maša Močnik gave a talk entitled Where Force Matters: Embedding Epistemic Modals (and Attitudes), and 5th year student Hanzhi Zhu gave a talk on ‘Even though’ as ‘even if’. The program was full of MIT alums, former visitors, and friends.

MorPhun 9/10: Filipe presents Stump 1993

Speaker: Filipe Kobayashi (MIT)
Title: Stump 1993 “On rules of referral”
Date and time: Monday 9/10, 5-6pm
Location: 32-D831
Abstract:

In this presentation, I will lead the discussion on Stump’s 1993 classic paper “On Rules of Referral.” As the title indicates, the paper is concerned with rules of referral, a type of rule proposed by Zwicky (1985) to account for certain types of syncretism within the general framework of Word and Paradigm morphology. Stump investigates the properties of such rules and proposes a formal theory of them within the context of his Paradigm Function Morphology. In the discussion, I will mainly focus on the former part of the paper.

LF Reading Group 9/10 - Vincent Rouillard (MIT)

Speaker: Vincent Rouillard (MIT)
Title: Hurford’s constraints and inquisitive semantics 
Date and time: Wednesday, September 12, 1-2 pm
Location: 32-D461
 
Abstract:
 
In this presentation, I will be discussing Ciardelli and Roelofsen’s 2017 paper ”Hurford’s constraint, the semantics of disjunction, and the nature of alternatives”. This paper compares the treatment of Hurford disjunctions in interrogatives  within the frameworks of alternative semantics and inquisitive semantics. The authors argue that the framework of inquisitive semantics, whose basic assumptions will be covered in the presentation, facilitates a unified treatment of Hurford phenomena in both declaratives and interrogatives. 

Ling Lunch 9/13 - Julian Lysvik (University of Oslo, MIT)

Speaker: Julian Lysvik  (University of Oslo, MIT)
Title: Channel bias in artificial language learning of word-final obstruent voicing
Date and time: Thursday, 9/13, 12:30-1:50pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:
 
This talk outlines an ALL experiment designed to test for learning and production biases in word-final voicing. Previous studies (see summary in Moreton & Pater, 2011) have not shown learning effects of such biases in forced-choice tasks. In my experiment, no bias against word-final voiced obstruents was found. However, a channel bias against intervocalic voiceless obstruents was found in the production task for plurals, which is able to account for the markedness of a synchronic process of final voicing. 
 
Two groups of Norwegian native participants (n = 36) were exposed to one of two artificial languages. Either: final obstruent devoicing (FOD) or final obstruent voicing (FOV). Norwegian has both voiceless and voiced final obstruents, but no FOV or FOD rules. There is no structural difference between these two rules, so there should be no complexity effects. FOV, however, is both typologically nonexistent (Kiparsky, 2006) and harder to produce (Yu, 2013). Participants were exposed to auditory/visual stimuli of singular and plural forms. Plural forms were constructed on the form /C1VC1VC2-u/ and singulars: /C1VC1VC3/. C3 was always voiced in FOV language, and voiceless in FOD. C2 could be either voiced or voiceless in both languages.
 
The results show no significant difference between accuracy for singulars in the two languages, consistent with a lack of substantive effects as in previous studies. However, the figures show that in production of plurals, participants in the FOV language produced voiced obstruents when the target was voiceless to a larger degree than FOD participants produced voiceless segments when the target was voiced. The consequence of this is that participants in FOD produce the alternating form rusubu ↔ rusup, a typical devoicing process, as expected. However FOV participants produce rusubu ↔ rusub, rather than the alternating rusupu ↔ rusub. Importantly, in the forced-choice task the same participants chose alternating and non-alternating forms equally frequently. I argue that a production channel bias against intervocalic voiceless obstruents can account for this. 

 

Welcome to Fall 2018!

Welcome to the first edition of Whamit! for Fall 2018! After our summer hiatus, Whamit! is back to regular weekly editions during the semester.

Whamit! is the MIT Linguistics newsletter, published every Monday (Tuesday if Monday is a holiday). The editorial staff consists of Adam Albright, Kai von Fintel, David Pesetsky, Itai Bassi, Elise Newman, Keny Chatain and Frank Staniszewski.

To submit items for inclusion in Whamit! please send an email to whamit@mit.edu by Sunday 6pm.

Welcome to ling-18!

Welcome to the students who are joining our graduate program!

Agnes Bi

Ruyue Bi, who also goes by Agnes, grew up in a small city along the Yangtze River in Mainland China. I received my B.A. in Linguistics and Math from UC Berkeley. My main areas of interest, in general, are syntax, semantics and their interface. My current research focuses on pronoun ellipsis in Mandarin, which hopefully provides a little insight into the broader, cross-linguistic picture. Outside of linguistics, I enjoy traveling and trying new food.

Enrico Flor

I was born and grew up in a tiny alpine village in northern Italy, but I received all my higher education in Austria (I got my MA in General Linguistics in Vienna). Semantics (with a focus on focus, quantification and plurals) has been my primary interest during my studies and work in Vienna. Coming to MIT, I obviously look forward to widening and deepening my knowledge of the field. Outside of Linguistics, I am interested in philosophy (of language and meta-ethics in particular), history, literature and politics - I never get tired of debating! Listening to and singing old music is my main hobby, but when I can I like to spend time in theater. Good typography and Free Software are things of beauty for me.

Peter Grishin

I was born and grew up in Dallas and got my BA in linguistics at the University of Cambridge. My main interests lie in syntax, especially in cases of unexpected agreement and/or movement (or lack thereof), and I have worked a bit on agreement with argument CPs in Zulu and VP fronting in English. I also like to dabble in phonetics, and am especially interested in the question of “how much” phonetics we should encode in the phonology, as well as interactions between prosody and syntax. Outside of linguistics, I’m an avid violinist, cat lover, board gamer, tabletop RPGer, and YouTube cooking video watcher and aspiring home cook.

Tracy Kelley

Wunee Keesuq! I was born and raised in the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe located in Mashpee, Massachusetts. I’m a very proud mother of one son. I received my BA in English and Journalism from the University of Massachusetts—Amherst, where I was also engaged in student life, youth mentoring, and civil rights advocacy. I am passionate about revitalizing my native language, in which I have been growing with since the language project’s inception in 1993, as an apprentice, instructor, illustrator, and author. Some of my personal interests include gaming with my son, teaching language, cooking, swimming, and listening to NPR—oh and coffee!

Anton Kukhto

I’m a Muscovite; I received a BA and an MA in linguistics at Moscow State University. My main interest lies in phonetics and phonology, particularly lexical stress in Irish, Russian, and beyond. I’ve also done some fieldwork on Mordvin, Mari, and Khanty. Outside of linguistics, I enjoy reading, watching films, going to art galleries, taking pictures, singing, learning to play the harp, drinking tea, skiing, and obviously being a bore. But above all, I want to thank all of you who have been ever so ready to lend me a helping hand over the past year (and before). Even eleventy-one years would be far too short a time to spend among you.

Patrick Niedzielski

I grew up in Massachusetts, and did my undergrad at Cornell University, where I majored in Linguistics and Computer Science. After graduating, I took some time away from academia to work in software development.  My research interests are mainly in historical linguistics and the syntax-morphology interface, especially focusing on analyzing data from ancient, highly-synthetic languages that have not received much treatment within the generative tradition—-my undergrad thesis was on clausal structure and polysynthesis in Sumerian, one such language.  I’ve also done work in computer science at the intersection of systems programming and programming language theory.  Otherwise, I spend too much time listening to comedy podcasts, and not enough time playing jazz harmonica.  I also like good espresso, Jethro Tull, and conlanging.

Roger Paul

Katie Van Luven

I’m from Kingston, Ontario in Canada. I received a B.A. in Linguistics and an M.Cog.Sc., both from Carleton University in Ottawa. I am primarily interested in syntax, semantics and their interfaces. In my master’s thesis I looked at various issues surrounding the focal properties of pseudocleft constructions. I’ve also worked on the argumenthood/event structure of directional PPs, as well as locality and low-level effects in phonetics/phonology. Outside of linguistics, I like reading, hiking, re-watching old X Files episodes and getting tattooed.

Hyun Ji Yoo

I was born in Korea, not far from Seoul, and moved to Los Angeles when I was nine. I never really got out of the city since then, and received my B.A. in Linguistics and Psychology and M.A. in Linguistics at UCLA. I am currently working on finding predictability of medial tones in Seoul Korean Accentual phrases, but also am interested in paradigm effects, loanword phonology, and Harmonic Grammar. In my free time, I like to eat good food, watch Korean TV shows and play board games—all the better with coffee and/or ice cream.

Welcome to visitors!

This semester also witnesses the arrival of a contingent of warmly welcomed visitors.

Visiting Professor

Luka Crnic (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) : I work on semantics and syntax. Some of the topics that I have pursued recently are exceptives and approximatives, degree constructions, and exhaustification.

Visiting Scholars

Sascha Alexeyenko (University of Göttingen) : My work lies at the interface of syntax and semantics of natural languages, and I am also interested in linguistic typology. Somewhat more specifically, the domains I have worked on include event semantics, categorial status of adjectives and adverbs, constraints on linearization, semantics of gradability, genericity, morphosyntax and semantics of nominalizations. My current semantic work concerns quantification in event semantics, looked at from the perspective of habituality. And at the syntactic front, I am currently involved in a cross-linguistic investigation of the Head Final Filter, a constraint on linearization which prohibits intervening material between prenominal modifiers and the nouns they modify.

James Fidelholtz (Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla)

Juan Gao (Zhengzhou University of Aeronautics)

Todor Koev (Universität Konstanz) : My research program is grounded in formal semantics and pragmatics, and is informed by my interests in experimental linguistics, dynamic semantics, formal syntax, and Slavic and Germanic linguistics. Broadly speaking, I am interested in how grammar and discourse structure parameters constrain linguistic meaning and I have worked on topics such as parentheticality, evidentiality, modality, indefiniteness, at-issueness, projection, and adverbial modification. The methodologies I use to gain insights into these topics include traditional and experimental techniques of data collection as well as formal tools from logic and probabilistic reasoning. My far-reaching goal is to establish a reliable and predictive theory of the various factors (operator scope, projectivity, evidence source, information status, etc.) that anchor semantic content, thus refining our understanding of how seemingly independent meaning dimensions are integrated into a coherent whole. 

Ljiljana Progovac (Wayne State University)

Sergei Tatevosov (Moscow State University)

Visiting Students

Zohra Fatima (National University of Modern Languages) : My research interests include synatx-semantics interface and experimental approaches to Syntax and Semantics. I am a graduate student from National University of Modern Languages (NUML) Pakistan. I am currently working on the Semantics of temporal reference in Urdu Syntax. I will be staying at MIT for two semesters and working with Prof. Sabine Iatridou.

Julian Lysvik (University of Oslo) : I am a visiting student from the University of Oslo. I am currently investigating phonological biases using Artificial Grammar Learning. In particular I am looking at the bias against word-final voicing. Otherwise I am generally interested in AGL methodologies and acquisition biases.

Shumian Ye (Peking University) : My research centers on syntax-semantics interface, using formal and typological approaches to investigate linguistic universals. I currently work on the meaning and structure of biased polar questions in Chinese, and I’m also interested in negatives and comparatives.

Summer News

We have some summer news to share with you:

The summer school was attended by many MIT students as well: Rafael Abramovitz (4th year), Daniel Asherov (2nd year), Tanya Bondarenko (2nd year), Colin Davis (4th year), Ömer Demirok (5th year), Verena Hehl (4th year), Maša Močnik (4th year), Elise Newman (3rd year), Frank Staniszewski (3rd year) and Stan Zompi (2nd year). Rafael, Daniel, Tanya and Ömer also served as course TAs. Check out nice photos from the event, such as this one below, on the summer school’s Facebook page.

 

  • Justin Colley (4th year), Verena Hehl, Anton Kukhto (1st year) and Mitya Privoznov (4th year) went into the heart of Siberia for a fieldwork expedition in the village of Kazym, Central Khanty. Mitya reports: “We had a lot of fun, suffered from mosquitoes and hopefully gathered some useful data as well :).”

  • In August, Tanya Bondarenko and Colin Davis participated in a joint fieldtrip with a group of researchers from Lomonosov Moscow State University to study Barguzin Buryat in Baraghan village, the Republic of Buryatia, Russia.

 

  • Education:
    • Neil Banerjee, Cora Lesure (3rd year) and Dóra Takács (2nd year) taught a 7-week introductory linguistics course for middle and high school students as part of HSSP, from June till August. Their course, entitled `How language works’, covered topics ranged from sound production and the IPA over cross-linguistic variation and case to NPIs and implicatures. Dóra writes: “About 35 students participated in the class, which was hopefully a lot of fun and definitely an interesting and valuable experience for everyone.”
    • Naomi Francis (5th year), Verena Hehl and Maša Močnik graduated from the Kaufman Teaching Certificate Program (KTCP) in June. The participants report: “Graduates of the KTCP attend 8 sessions on a wide range of topics in teaching and learning and are exposed to current research on pedagogical methodology through assigned readings and in-class discussions. We also had the opportunity to create and receive feedback on teaching philosophy statements for academic job applications.”
    • In May, Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab (J-WEL), an MIT initiative to support global education, announced a grant funding to MITILI  student Newell Lewey and to prof. Norvin Richards for the project Skicinuwi-npisun: A Community-Centered Project for Documentation and Teaching of the Passamaquoddy Language. The project supports language teaching and curriculum development to help preserve the severely endangered Passamaquoddy language of Northern Maine. The grant includes funding for Newell’s language classes, and for a group of graduate students from the department to travel with Norvin to Passamaquoddy country to work with elders. Here you can read a little more about the project. Congratulations Newell and Norvin!
  • Alumni news:
    • Our distinguished alum Heidi Harley (PhD 1995), now at  the University of Arizona, has been elected a 2019 Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America! Heidi’s colleagues as LSA Fellows include 38 other MIT alums and members of our faculty who have been elected in previous years — more than a quarter of the (now) 138 Fellows of the Society. Congratulations Heidi (and our warmest congratulations to the other newly elected Fellows as well)!
    • Another one of our distinguished alums, John McCarthy (PhD 1979) - a pioneer in the development of phonological theory for over four decades - has been named Provost and more at UMass Amherst, where he has taught since 1985. Very exciting news — congratulations John! 

Reading Group Announcements

This semester we are blessed with an abundance of (old and new) reading groups. 

  • LPRG is the Linguistics and Philosophy Reading Group, held Mondays from 1:00 to 2:00pm in 32-D769. Linguists and philosophers join forces to understand language and linguistics. We read and discuss old and new papers in the field (especially in formal semantics and philosophy of language). For more information visit the website or contact the organizers Christopher Baron or Maša Močnik.
  • Morphun is a new reading group that centers on topics in morphology. The group will meet from 5 to 6:30 pm on Mondays (the old Phonology Circle slot) in room 32-D831, a.k.a the 8th floor conference room, hopefully on a weekly basis. We encourage discussion of old and new readings in morphology (including recently snatched conference handouts) and informal data sessions. Since this is aimed to be an informal group, we will give priority to these kinds of proposals as opposed to fully-fleshed-out original research ideas. We also wish to emphasize that you can propose a reading without committing to present it yourself, so that someone else can get interested and hopefully take up the task - add your reading idea to the Google document we created. If you want to reserve one or more dates for presentation, please write your request and your reading proposal to either Stan or Filipe. 
  • Syntax Square exists to facilitate the presentation or discussion of anything relating to syntax. Syntax square will be meeting this semester on Tuesdays from 1-2pm in room 32-D461 (the 4th floor seminar room). As always, we welcome works in progress, presentation of papers on topics of interest, practice talks, etc. There are still plenty of available slots (including next week!): 9/11, 9/18, 10/2, 11/6, 11/13, 11/27, 12/4, 12/11, 12/18. Please contact Colin Davis (colind@mit.edu) and/or Mitya Privoznov (dpriv@mit.edu) if you would like to reserve any of them.
  • LF Reading Group (LFRG) is an informal, weekly semantics and semantics/syntax interface group. LFRG will be meeting as usual on Wednesdays 1-2pm, room 32-D461 (the 4th floor seminar room). We welcome work in progress at any stage, practice talks, presentations on papers on topics of interest etc. In order to bring back the traditional reading group idea behind LFRG and not completely treat it as a formal platform for presentation of original research, this semester we reserve the first three meetings for presentations of papers on topics of interest. Note that you can also suggest a paper for one of these meetings even if you do not want to present it yourself. There is currently one slot available: 9/26. Please let Tanya or Dóra know if you would like to present then.
  • Phonology Circle will be meeting on Wednesdays (notice the day change!), from 5:00–6:30pm, in 32-D831 (the 8th floor conference room). Phonology Circle is the weekly phonology meeting group. It is an informal group, so we welcome presentations on all kinds of topics: work in progress at any stage, presentation of new puzzles you’d like to discuss, tutorials about particular research tools, as well as practice talks. We also encourage you to consider volunteering to lead a discussion of a paper (we will take care of announcing the suggested reading in advance). Following are the available dates for presentations:  9/5, 9/12, 9/19/9/26, 10/3,10/10, 10/17,10/24, 10/31, 11/7, 11/14, 11/21, 11/28, 12/5, 12,12. Please contact Daniel and Chris if you would like to reserve a spot.
  • Ling-Lunch is a series of weekly talks, held on Thursdays from 12:30 to 1:50pm in room 32-D461 (the 4th floor seminar room). Talks can be on any topic in linguistics and everybody is welcome to present their work, though preference is given to members of the MIT Linguistics Department. There are still available dates to present in Ling-Lunch: 10/11, 10/25, 11/8 (and maybe 12/13 if there’s ample interest). Contact Cora and Boer to reserve a slot. There’s Ling-Lunch this week! see separate post below.

Course Announcements: Fall 2018

Course announcements in this post:

  • 24.943 Syntax of a Language Family (Algonquian)
  • 24.949J Language Acquisition
  • 24.967 Topics in Experimental Phonology
  • 24.979 Topics in Semantics

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24.943 Syntax of a Language Family (Algonquian)

  • Instructor: Richards
  • Schedule: R9:30-12:30
  • Room: 32-D461

In 24.943 this year we will be learning about the syntax of the Algonquian languages.  We will pay particular attention to the Eastern Algonquian languages, which include Passamaquoddy-Maliseet and Wampanoag, but will read literature concentrating on languages outside this group as well.

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24.949J Language Acquisition

  • Instructor: Hackl
  • Schedule: T2-5
  • Room: 32-D461

24.949/9.601J is a graduate level class on language acquisition, focussing on (typical) first language acquisition. The course provides A) a forum for discussion of foundational questions in language acquisition based on a review of the state of the art in selected topics in the areas of syntax, semantics and pragmatics and B) an opportunity for students to develop an experimental or corpus-based research project which, by the end of the semester, will consist in a well-defined (set of interrelated) question(s), a research plan (description of concrete hypotheses, data acquisition method(s), and data analysis strategies), and (ideally) pilot data. Potential topics include: 

- Early clause structure, OI, correlations between inflectional morphology and functional syntax

- A-movement, passives, raising, unaccusative syntax, …

- Argument structure

- Binding Theory

- Quantification, quantifier scope, determiners, …

- Comparatives, adjectives, number

- Prepositions, spatial syntax and semantics

- Modals, modality, evidentials, tense, …

- NPIs, negation

- Acquisition of Presupposition

- Scalar Implicatures

- Learning models, statistical approaches to L1-acquisition, learnability theory

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24.967 Topics in Experimental Phonology

  • Instructor: Flemming
  • Schedule: TR2-3:30
  • Room: 32-D769/TBA

In the past decade, the field of phonology has increasingly looked to experimental results to confirm and extend its understanding of phonological patterns. In this course, we will examine some of the issues involved in deriving experimentally testable predictions from a theory, designing and running an experiment, and interpreting the results.

The class has several goals:

  • Consider the relation between linguistic theory, empirical predictions, and experimental results
  • Gain practical knowledge in designing and carrying out experiments in the lab and on-line, and performing data analysis using R
  • Gain familiarity with some commonly used experimental paradigms, comparing what they can tell us about the linguistic system

The emphasis this year will be on statistical analysis. The course will be organized around the statistical models that are most applicable to linguistic experiments (in all areas of linguistics):

  • Linear models and linear mixed-effects models
  • Generalized linear (mixed) models: logistic/probit regression, ordinal logistic regression, log-linear models

The application of these models will be illustrated through case studies selected based on the interests of the participants. Candidate topics include: Perceptual similarity, the P-Map Hypothesis, Universal Grammar/learning biases, phonetic underspecification, and parallel vs. serial sentence processing. Experimental paradigms examined are likely to include production, perceptual identification and discrimination, artificial language learning, phonological and syntactic acceptability judgments.

Note: Please let me know if you plan to attend this class - we’re still trying to arrange a room, and it would be useful to know how many people we need space for.

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24.979 Topics in Semantics

  • Instructor: Crnic
  • Schedule: R2-5
  • Room: 32-D461

In this course, we will study Negative Polarity Items. While raising familiar foundational questions for linguistic theory, Negative Polarity Items enter into complex and often revealing interactions with a host of other phenomena in grammar. We will investigate several such interactions, with the goal of advancing our understanding of not only Negative Polarity Items but also these other phenomena. This investigation will help us address the overarching question of the course: Is the classic insight that the distribution of Negative Polarity Items should be described and explained by recourse to a notion of entailment tenable, and if so, how should it be cashed out? Some of the topics that we will touch on during the course are focus, presupposition, exhaustification, quantification, (in)definiteness, modals and attitudes, comparison and superlatives, and questions. Although our main focus will be on Negative Polarity Items in English, we will also attend to some cross-linguistic variation in this domain.

LF Reading Group 9/5 - Tanya Bondarenko (MIT)

Speaker: Tatiana Bondarenko (MIT)
Title: Elizabeth Bogal-Allbritten 2016, 2017: Building attitudes in Navajo and beyond
Date and time: Wednesday, September 05, 1-2 pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:
In this talk, I will present Elizabeth Bogal-Allbritten’s work on attitude reports of belief and desire in Navajo. Navajo presents an interesting case of expressing several attitudes - think, want, and wish - with one verb: nízin. Elizabeth Bogal-Allbritten shows that there is a correlation between the shape of the complement clause and the attitude expressed. She argues against an analysis where nízin is lexically ambiguous, and also against an analysis where nízin has underspecified meaning that is dependent on the context. In her work she argues that this verb denotes situations of general mental attitude, and that this attitude is constrained by the embedded (modal) material. This analysis suggests that sentences with nízin present a limiting case within the landscape predicted by Kratzer’s (2006,2013) and Moulton’s (2009) analysis of English and German attitude reports and verbs of saying. In the end of the talk, I will show some data from Barguzin Buryat, which also has a verb (hanaxa) that can express several attitudes, including think and want, and I will briefly compare it to Navajo’s nízin.  

Ling Lunch 9/6: Richard Faure

Speaker: Richard Faure (Université Côte d’Azur, Université Nice Sophia Antipolis, CNRS and Harvard University)
Title:Wh-fronting is not wh-movement in colloquial French
Date and time: Thursday, 9/6, 12:30-1:50pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:  

French is said to be one of those languages that have the option to form wh-questions with in-situ (1a) or ex-situ whPs (1c). It is also assumed to have optional subject-verb inversion (1d). Moreover, wh-in-situ structures come actually in two guises, with or without a prosodic break before the whP (1a vs. 1b), a fact little addressed in the literature.

(1) a. Il   a     vu     qui?
         he has seen who
     b. Il   a     vu |  qui?
        he has seen who
     c. Qui  il    a     vu?
        who he has seen
    d. Qui a-t-  il   vu?
       who has  he seen

Starting with these four patterns, I will show that 1) not every pattern belongs to the same variety of French, 2) wh-in-situ questions with a prosodic break, but not those without it pattern with wh-ex-situ in many respects (a source of much confusion in the previous studies): Intervention effects, expressivity, contrastive contexts. Focusing then on colloquial French and the patterns illustrated by (1a) (with no prosodic break) and (1c), I will show that questions like (1c) do not display all the features of wh-movement (e.g., no superiority effect in multiple questions), and claim that colloquial French is actually a bona fide wh-in-situ language, so that wh-fronting is not wh-movement. Finally I address the question as to what triggers wh-fronting in this variety of French and tentatively suggest that it is an Exclusion feature.