Speaker: Noa Bassel (UMass)
Title: Complex anaphors
Time: Thursday, April 4th, 12:30pm – 2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: Anaphors with a complex morphological structure are attested across many different languages and show recurring traits in meaning and distribution. Despite extensive research into these phenomena, there is no broadly-accepted definition of the primary grammatical function(s) of complex anaphors. This talk will evaluate various definitions from previous literature, with the goal of defining complex anaphors in a way that would explain their cross-linguistic properties: morphological complexity, binding effects, and homophony with focus-intensifiers (e.g., The queen HERSELF came to our party).