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Archive for the ‘Talks’ Category

Roversi @ GLOW in Asia 14

Fourth-year graduate student Giovanni Roversi presented at the biannual GLOW in Asia 14 which took place at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, March 6 to March 8, 2024. Giovanni presented his work “Condition C, Anti-cataphora, and “Reverse Crossover” in Äiwoo”. 

 

Pesetsky @ NLP and Linguistics Workshop

Last Saturday (March 1), faculty David Pesetsky presented a talk titled “Is there an LLM challenge for linguistics? Or a linguistics challenge for LLMs?” at a one-day workshop Magdalen College, University of Oxford. The workshop entitled “Does ChatGPT know language as humans do?” was organized by our own recent alum Danfeng Wu

Rawski @ Caltech

This past weekend, visiting professor Jon Rawski was invited to the “Algebraic Models of Generative Linguistics” workshop at the Merkin Center for Pure and Applied Mathematics at Caltech. 

Workshop description: “This meeting brings together theoretical linguists, mathematicians, mathematical physicists, and computational linguists, for informal discussions on algebraic models of the Merge operation in generative linguistics, models of the syntax-semantics interface, and models of semantic spaces, along with the question of their realization in large language models.”

Summer round-up

A big welcome back to the department, everyone! Here are news of what some of us got up to during the summer:

  • June 24: Shrayana Haldar presented an invited talk at one of LSA’s workshops, How Many Mothers: Multidominance in Syntax. It was titled Linearizing Disintegrated Traces.
  • July 19: Jad Wedbe presented a talk at the homogeneity workshop HNM2, titled Homogeneity as presuppositional exhaustification. 
  • Aug 11: Yurika Aonuki presented a talk at UBC, titled Degree semantics in Gitksan and Japanese.
  • Aug 14-15: Adèle Hénot-Mortier and Eunsun Jou presented posters at SICOGG 25! Adele presented Bridging the gap between French tough-constructions and pseudorelatives, while Eunsun presented Case Marking of Korean Nominal Adverbials Correlates with Subject Position.
  • The 2023 LSA Linguistic Institute was hosted at UMass Amherst. Student participants from MIT included Taieba Tawakoli, Zhouyi Sun, and Shrayana Halder (see above). Several classes were taught by faculty and alums: 
    * Athulya Aravind ‘18 (Acquiring Word Meaning [cotaught])
    * Mark Baker ‘85 (Complementizers Relating to Noun Phrases: Rare Constructions within a Theory of Universal Grammar)
    * Seth Cable ‘07 (Introduction to Semantics)
    * Jessica Coon ‘10 (Structure of Mayan)
    * Ray Jackendoff ‘69 (The Parallel Architecture and its Components)
    * Hadas Kotek ‘14 (Careers in Language Technology)
    * Giorgio Magri ‘09 (What Exactly is Phonological Opacity? [co-taught] & Advanced Phonology)
    * Elise Newman ‘21 (Feeding and Bleeding in Syntax)
    * David Pesetsky ‘82 (Introduction to Syntax)
    * Juliet Stanton ‘17 (Introduction to Phonology)
    * Michelle Yuan ‘18 (The morpho-syntax of case and licensing) 
  • Creteling 2023 was a smashing success! Pictured here is (most of) the CreteLing 2023 Faculty, Staff, and TAs along the beautiful coast: 

Annual joint Linguistics/Philosophy colloquium 4/21: Pranav Anand (UC Santa Cruz)

 
Speaker: Pranav Anand (UC Santa Cruz - Linguistics)
Title: Faultless disagreement and narrative structure: a view from the historical present
Time: Friday, April 21, 3-5pm
Location: 32-141
 
Abstract:
 
This talk reports on joint work with Maziar Toosarvandani on the interaction of the historical present tense and the so-called faultless disagreement property of subjective expressions like predicates of personal taste (PPTs). Assertive disagreements with PPTs are often understood as matters of opinion, disagreements with no one at ‘fault’ regarding an objective matter of fact. We begin from a somewhat complicated case where such disagreements seem to be matters of fact: joint oral narratives in the historical present, as exemplified in (1). Historical present is a stylistic device employed to describe a past moment using the present tense, and narratives containing historical present usages are known to move back and forth between (canonical) past and (historical) present frequently. Interestingly, the choice of tense impacts judgments of faultlessness: when a disagreement is in the canonical past (2a’), the typical sense of faultlessness obtains. But when the disagreement is in the historical present (2a), the judgment of faultlessness does not (and A and B are often taken to be disagreeing about some fact of their narrative).
(1)
a. C: [talking to A and B] How was your vacation?
b. A: Well, after we arrive in Paris, we take a bus to the Normandy coast. We visit an apple orchard.
c. B: They have their own cider. It’s delicious!
 
(2)
a. A: No, it isn’t delicious. [non-faultless disagreement]
a’. A: No, it wasn’t delicious. [faultless disagreement]
We propose an account for the contrast in (2) that relies on an interaction of the semantics of tense (framed in terms of a bicontextual semantics like that of Macfarlane and Sharvit) and the structure of narrative as a genre (phrased in terms of Labov & Waletzky’s distinction between the complication and evaluation of a narrative).
 

Colloquium (12/2) - Sandhya Sundaresan (Stony Brook University)

Speaker: Sandhya Sundaresan (Stony Brook University)
Title: Reconciling replicative & non-replicative processes in syntax
Time: Friday December 2, 3:30pm, 32-141

Abstract:

Many grammatical phenomena are replicative in the following sense: the featural information pertaining to some element A in a syntactic domain D is repeated on some other element B which stands in a c-command relation with A in D. For instance, in cases of clausal φ-agreement, the φ-features of a clausal argument (subject and/or object) are replicated on the clausemate verb. The syntactic operation of Agree in Minimalism (Chomsky, 2001) is specifically designed to capture grammatical replicativeness. This follows from the idea, hardwired into Agree, that syntactic relationships are fundamentally asymmetric, involving dependencies between an independent element and a dependent counterpart. The idea is that the defectiveness of a probe for some (potentially unary) set of features α triggers valuation/checking of α, under c-command, by a local goal which is specified for α. The only possible output of such an Agree operation is a representation involving replication of α across the probe & goal. Under a strongly Minimalist worldview, it is further assumed that all syntactic relationships are derived by Agree, understood in the sense above. This yields the following state-of-affairs: 1. All syntactic relationships are derived via Agree, and; 2. The only possible output of Agree is feature-replication across the Agreeing elements. Ergo. All syntactic relationships must be featurally replicative.

In this talk, I will argue that such a scenario strongly undergenerates. Partially and fully non-replicative processes in grammar do exist – a fairly uncontroversial point. Perhaps more controversially, I argue that a (proper) subset of non-replicative phenomena are (narrowly-)syntactic in nature (piggybacking on prior work in Bobaljik, 2008; Preminger, 2014; Levin, 2015; Yuan, To Appear, showing that case- marking (i) feeds φ-agreement; (ii) is syntactic, and (iii) involves case-competition, not case-licensing). Such cases are fatal to the strongly Minimalist world-view described above since they clearly cannot be derived under Agree, as it stands.

To accommodate these problematic cases, I develop a radically revised model of Agree (renamed RELATE to avoid ambiguity) which abandons the idea that syntactic relationships are (asymmetric) dependencies. RELATE is grounded on the notion that syntactic dependencies are restricted by a generalized OCP constraint that two syntactically local objects cannot be featurally indistinguishable at the interfaces (along the lines of Richards, 2010, with significant deviations). The corollary to this is that a syntactic link between two nodes A & B for some feature α must output a representation where A & B remain distinguishable at LF/PF wrt. some relevant feature β, where β ̸= α. I show that the new powerful algorithm also accurately predicts some long-observed replicative vs. non-replicative differences at LF and PF between local and long-distance anaphora crosslinguistically (Faltz, 1977; Jackendoff, 1992; Lidz, 2001; Reuland, 2011) as well as distinctness effects in predicate-nominal and small clause constructions (Longobardi, 1994; den Dikken, 2007). I believe the model may also be fruitfully extended to capture certain cases of switch-reference (e.g. in Washo, Arregi and Hanink, 2021) and cases of so-called “subset control” (Ackema and Neeleman, 2013) including of partial obligatory control.

 

Colloquium (11/4) - Michelle Yuan (UCSD)

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Speaker: Michelle Yuan (UCSD)
Title: Morphological conditions on movement chain resolution: Inuktitut noun incorporation revisited
Time: Friday November 4, 3:30pm, 32-141

Abstract:  
Prior research on the Copy Theory of Movement has suggested that the realization of movement chains may be regulated by well-formedness conditions governing complex word formation, such as the Stray Affix Filter (e.g. Landau 2006; Kandybowicz 2007). This talk provides new evidence for this idea, based on an investigation of noun incorporation in Inuktitut (Eastern Canadian Inuit). At the same time, this talk aims to offer new insights into the nature of incorporation in Inuktitut (and Inuit as a whole), informed by its interactions with clausal syntax.
 
Noun incorporation in Inuktitut (and Inuit) is cross-linguistically unusual, in that a small set of verbs is obligatorily incorporating (i.e. affixal), while for most other verbs incorporation is not possible. I provide novel data showing that, in Inuktitut, incorporated nominals are syntactically active, able to participate in case and agreement alternations and undergo phrasal movement, despite surfacing within the verb complex. That these nominals nonetheless invariably surface within the verb complex even when extracted follows straightforwardly from the aforementioned interaction between chain resolution and morphological well-formedness. Moreover, in contrast to most previous characterizations of incorporation (in Inuit and cross-linguistically), I conclude that noun incorporation at least in Inuktitut takes place to satisfy the morphological requirements of the incorporating verb—and not in response to the structural deficiency of the noun.


Colloquium 10/14 - Magdalena Kaufmann (UConn)

Speaker: Magdalena Kaufmann (UConn)
Title: How to be impossible or remote
Time:
Friday October 14, 3:30pm

Abstract: Natural languages mark so-called subjunctive conditionals that allow speakers to specify consequences of states of affairs they present as unlikely or counterfactual. Different morphosyntactic strategies within and across languages show what often seem to be idiosyncratic interactions between temporal and modal information. Building on in-depth studies of individual languages and more fine-grained distinctions between types of hypotheticality, the recent literature sees a trend towards a distinction between unrealized past possibilities and co-temporal counterfactual states of affairs.

In this talk, I draw on novel data from Serbian (joint work with Neda Todorović) and German in comparison to English and Japanese (joint work with Stefan Kaufmann), to support this idea and develop a compositional analysis.

Syntax Square 9/13 - Soo-Hwan Lee (NYU)

Speaker: Soo-Hwan Lee (NYU)
Title: Introducing arguments in and out of the thematic domain: Evidence from Korean case markers
Time: Tuesday, September 13th, 1pm - 2pm

Abstract: Extensive research has focused on how VoiceP (Kratzer 1996), ApplP (Pylkkänen 2008), and i* (Wood & Marantz 2017), an overarching term for Voice and Appl, establish argument structure inside the thematic domain (below TP). A question arises as to whether argument structure can be established outside the thematic domain (above TP). This work provides empirical evidence from Korean in arguing that an argument can be introduced by Voice/Appl (i*) in the left periphery. Specifically, it lends support to the claim that the discourse participant ‘addressee’ is represented in syntax (Hill 2007; Haegeman & Hill 2013; Miyagawa 2017; 2022; Portner et al. 2019 among others). In this regard, this work draws parallels between the thematic domain and the speech act domain, which have been considered to be two separate domains.

Colloquium - Ryan Bennett (UC Santa Cruz)

Speaker: Ryan Bennett (UC Santa Cruz)
Title: Vowel Deletion as Grammatically-Controlled Gestural Overlap in Uspanteko
Time: Friday September 9, 3:30pm

Abstract: Uspanteko (Mayan) is spoken by ~5000 people in the central highlands of Guatemala. Unstressed vowels in Uspanteko often delete, though deletion is variable within and across speakers. Deletion appears to be phonological, being sensitive to phonotactics, foot structure, vowel quality, and morphology; and being largely insensitive to speech rate and style. But deletion also appears to be phonetic, being variable, gradient, insensitive to certain phonotactics, and opaque with respect to accent placement. Electroglottography data suggests that even apparently ‘deleted’ vowels may contribute voicing to [C(V)C] intervals, albeit inaudibly. We thus analyze deletion as grammatically-controlled gestural overlap, which masks vowels in [CVC] contexts, either in the phonology proper (e.g. Gafos 2002) or as part of a grammar of phonetic interpretation (e.g. Kingston & Diehl 1994).

Special talk 6/10 - João Costa
(Minister of Education, Portugal; and Professor of Linguistics, Nova University of Lisbon)

 

Speaker: João Costa (Minister of Education, Portugal; and Professor of Linguistics, Nova University of Lisbon)
Title: Language Acquisition and Education Policies
Time: Friday, June 10th, 3:30pm - 5pm

Abstract:

After several decades of findings in the field of generative approaches to language acquisition, this research has still not had an impact on the definition of education policies. Sometimes this is because linguists are too far away from the debates on education, sometimes because education policies are not aware of the full potential of the findings for more effective and relevant policies.

After an overview of current global debates on the “whats”, “whos” and “hows” of education, I will argue that linguists and linguistics matter.

About the speaker:

João Costa has had a unique and brilliant double scientific and political career both as a linguist specializing in syntax and language acquisition and as a leader in research-driven educational innovation currently serving as the Minister of Education in Portugal. Dr. Costa received his PhD in Linguistics from the University of Leiden in 1998 (and in 1995 was a visiting student at MIT Linguistics), and is a renowned researcher in formal linguistics, language acquisition and development, and educational linguistics. He is the author of several books and over 100 articles and book chapters. He has served as Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, at Universidade NOVA de Lisboa and President of the Scientific Council of Social Sciences and Humanities at the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. He has also served as a member of the Scientific Council of the National Reading Plan, the National Commission of the International Institute for the Portuguese Language, and the Consulting Council of the Camões Institute. He was also President of the European Association of Linguistic Students (SOLE) and the Portuguese Linguistic Association.

In March 2022, Dr. Costa was named Minister of Education in the Socialist Party government led by Prime Minister António Costa. From 2015, he served as Secretary of State for Education in the two previous Socialist governments. The Minister of Education formulates, conducts, enforces and assesses the national policy on the education system, in the context of pre-school education, basic education and secondary education, and extra-schooling education. The Minister of Education also articulates the national education policy and the national vocational training policy under the scope of the national policies for fostering the population’s qualification.

https://www.portugal.gov.pt/en/gc23/ministries/education/minister

 



 

Syntax Square 3/1 – Norvin Richards (MIT)

Speaker: Norvin Richards
Date and time: Tuesday March 1, 1-2 pm
Location: 32-D461

Title: Bans on extraction of ergatives (cont’d)

Abstract: A number of ergative languages ban A-bar extraction, or at least certain kinds of A-bar extraction, of ergative nominals (some Mayan languages, Kalaalisut (West Greenlandic), Chukchi, etc.).  This will be a new attempt to derive this effect and its distribution.
 
We will probably only get through the first part, which will be about languages which ban both wh-movement and relativization of ergatives, and will crucially invoke the idea of Affix Support from Contiguity Theory.  We will see that when ergative languages have morphology indicating transitivity, Contiguity Theory allows us to predict whether ergative extraction will be possible from the nature of the transitivity morphology.
 
The second part of the talk, which we will surely not get to, will be about languages that specifically ban relativization of ergatives.  I’ll argue that this kind of ban is about a particular kind of relative clause—again, a kind whose properties can be diagnosed from its morphology.

Phonology Circle 12/7 - Yeong-Joon Kim (MIT)

Speaker: Yeong-Joon Kim (MIT)
Title: Cluster simplification and correspondence at acoustic boundaries
Time: Monday, December 7th, 5pm - 6:30pm

Abstract: In this talk, I discuss the C2 dominance effect in cluster simplification: in intervocalic C1C2 clusters, C1 is a typical target of deletion but C2 is not. This positional asymmetry has been a problem for parallel versions of Optimality Theory, especially when consonant deletion takes place in clusters derived by syncope (Wilson 2001, Jun 2002, McCarthy 2011). For the formal analysis of the C2 dominance effect in cluster simplification and its interaction with syncope, I propose a new approach, based on correspondence constraints for auditory properties within Flemming’s (2008) Realized Input model. Potential benefits and problems of this new proposal will also be discussed in the talk.

Syntax Square 12/1 - Bruna Karla Pereira (UFVJM)

Speaker: Bruna Karla Pereira (UFVJM)
Title: Silent nouns and gender agreement in Brazilian Portuguese copular sentences
Time: Tuesday, December 1st, 1pm - 2pm

Abstract: This work in progress investigates nominal agreement in sentences such as (1), in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), where the subject is feminine whereas the adjective, in the predicate position, is masculine. While current proposals (Rodrigues and Foltran 2013, 2014, and 2015, Conto 2016, Siqueira 2017, and Martin et al. 2020) focus on the “disagreement” between the subject and the adjective, I argue that there is agreement between the adjective and a silent noun, in the internal structure of the post-copula DP. This proposal is coherent with a broader project on constructions with apparent mismatch of agreement in BP (Pereira 2016a, 2016b, 2017, and 2018).

(1) Moto                           é  perigoso.                          (Family conversation, Belo Horizonte, 11/19/2020)
      Motorcycle-FEM.SG is dangerous-MASC.SG
      A motorcycle is dangerous.

Kayne (2005, 2019), Pesetsky (2013), and Höhn (2016) consider the existence of a null category to account for the apparent mismatch of agreement, respectively, in number in Italian and French, in gender in Russian, and in person in Spanish and Greek. Likewise, I assume that a pronominal null category, in the DP predicate, triggers the gender agreement in sentences like (1). Therefore, the predicate of the copular sentence is not simply an adjective, but a DP made up with an indefinite null pronoun (algo ‘something’) plus an adjective, as observed in (2) and (3). This silent (pro)noun bears masculine gender features (and singular number) and triggers agreement in gender with the adjective. In this operation (Pesetsky and Torrego 2007), the adjective (probe), containing uninterpretable gender features, becomes valued [uF val] via agreement with the silent noun algo (goal), containing interpretable and valued gender features [iF val].

(2) Moto                           é  [DP (ALGO)              perigoso                       ].
      Motorcycle-FEM.SG is         (SOMETHING) dangerous-MASC.SG
      A motorcycle is (something) dangerous.

(3) [DP D [AgrP (ALGOMASC)i Agr [AP perigosoMASC A [NP ti]]]].

In sum, this analysis demonstrates that there is no “disagreement”, in the copular sentences at stake, but agreement between the adjective and a silent noun, in the internal structure of the post-copula DP.

Phonology Circle 11/30 - Canaan Breiss (UCLA)

Speaker: Canaan Breiss (UCLA)
Title: Between Grammar and Lexicon: New Experimental Evidence for Lexical Conservatism
Time: Monday, November 30th, 5pm - 6:30pm

Abstract: In this talk I will discuss my dissertation research on Lexical Conservatism (Steriade 1997, et seq.), a theory of the relationship between lexicon and grammar which holds that markedness-improving phonological alternations are enabled by the presence of phonologically-optimizing morphologically-related forms in the lexicon. For example, English cómpensate undergoes rightward stress shift when affixed with -able, to yield compénsable, while phonologically-similar ínundate does not (ínundable, *inúndable): Lexical Conservatism holds that this is due to the presence of a phonologically-optimizing morphologically-related form compéns-(atory), while there is no similar form with a stem allomorph inúnd-. Noting this correlation, however, does not provide the detailed information necessary for a fully fleshed-out phonological model, nor a thorough understanding of how the grammar interacts with the lexicon when forming novel words. Drawing on two experiments on English and a third on Spanish, I demonstrate that Lexical Conservatism is robust in the laboratory setting, but holds as a probabilistic tendency rather than as a rule. That is, I find that we observe both the markedness-avoiding behavior pointed out by the original discussion of Lexical Conservatism in Steriade (1997), but that the likelihood of this behavior is responsive to processing factors like the accessibility of the Remote Base, as manipulated by priming. This implies a dynamic trading relationship between the phonological grammar and the lexicon that is not well-captured by extant theories of lexicon-phonology interaction. I discuss which of these findings we might want to incorporate into a phonological theory, and propose a model couched in a Maximum Entropy framework (Goldwater & Johnson 2003) to account for the phonological facts, while allowing principled integration of lexical characteristics that are, I argue, better thought of as non-phonological.

Experimentalist Meeting 12/4 - Sherry Yong Chen (MIT), Christine Soh (UPenn), Athulya Aravind (MIT)

Speaker: Sherry Yong Chen (MIT), Christine Soh (UPenn), Athulya Aravind (MIT)
Title: Intermediate Wh-Copies in a Non-Wh-Copying Language
Time: Friday, December 4th, 2pm - 3:30pm

Abstract: A core issue within current theories of movement is to explain the conditions that drive and constrain the phonological realization of copies left by movement. Although the moved item syntactically and semantically occupies two positions, in languages including English only the highest copy is pronounced, while all lower copies are deleted. At the same time, multiple copy spell-out is attested in many languages, and is also found in the grammars of children acquiring English, a language where we otherwise do not find such phenomena. English-acquiring preschoolers produce long-distance wh-questions with an extra medial wh-word, as in (1) (Thornton 1990, Lutken et al. 2020), a result taken by some to be indicative of the realization of intermediate copies in children’s grammar:

(1) a. Who do you think who is in the box?
b. What do you think what she brought?

In this work-in-progress, we ask whether English-speaking adults respond differently to violations of copy spell out rules from other kinds of ungrammaticality, to see if there is continuity between adult and child grammars in their treatment of intermediate copies. We will present two experiments where we compare adults’ behavioral responses to sentences like (2a) and (2b). Neither is a well-formed sentence of English and both have a corpus frequency of 0. (2a), however, can be construed as a syntactically well-formed structure that violates constraints on copy spell-out, in contrast to (2b) whose infinitival complement does not provide an intermediate landing site for movement.

(2) a. Who did the consultant expect who the new proposal had pleased?
b. Who did the consultant expect who the new proposal to have pleased?

Pilot results are less-than-promising. We’d like to reflect on some of our operationalization assumptions in light of these results, and would welcome comments and suggestions on how to improve our approach.

Colloquium 12/4 - Candace Kaleimamoowahinekapu Galla (UBC)

Speaker: Candace Kaleimamoowahinekapu Galla (UBC)
Title: Hawaiian language-based digital realities and futures
Time: Friday, December 4th, 3:30pm - 5pm
Zoom link: (Please email ling-coll-org@mit.edu for more information)

Abstract: This presentation discusses the realities of digital technologies – the “promise”, potential, complexities and hindrances – that Indigenous peoples face when engaging in language reclamation, revitalization, maintenance, and education. For language learners and speakers that choose contemporary pathways, digital technologies provide creative, interactive, and/or immersive opportunities for language learning, teaching, and being. Examples of digital technologies that are adopted and adapted for Indigenous language work will be shared to demonstrate how digital tools are used in the Hawaiian language context to bridge language learners and speakers, facilitate access towards resources, and create and develop relevant materials and content that is centered in community.

Syntax Square 11/17 - Cater Chen (MIT)

Speaker: Cater Chen (MIT)
Title: The tough path to passive
Time: Tuesday, November 17th, 1pm - 2pm

Abstract: The Mandarin BEI-construction, where BEI introduces an eventuality proposition that the subject of BEI undergoes, is known to show mixed A-/Aʹ-behavior similar to the English tough-construction. An analysis of the BEI-construction that has been widely accepted involves base-generation of the subject of BEI and Aʹ-movement of a null operator to the left periphery of the eventuality complement, akin to Chomsky’s treatment of the tough-construction. In this talk, I argue that a different derivation of the BEI-construction must be possible (and the default), due to its distinct behaviour when interacting with IP-external topicalization (that shows Aʹ-behavior under the standard diagnostics) and IP-internal topicalization and focalization (that shows mixed A-/Aʹ-behavior), which have also been proposed to involve null operator movement. Specifically, I use the subject-oriented long-distance reflexive ziji as a diagnostic for subjecthood to reveal that two moved objects must conform to a nesting path when BEI-construction and IP-external topicalization are involved, but they must conform to a crossing path when BEI-construction and IP-internal topicalization/focalization are involved. By comparison, when two objects undergo IP-external topicalization and/or IP-internal topicalization/focalization, no systematic nesting/crossing asymmetry is found.

LF Reading Group 11/18 - Frank Staniszewski (MIT)

Speaker: Frank Staniszewski (MIT)
Title: Polarity sensitive weak necessity modals
Time: Wednesday, November 18th, 1pm - 2pm

Abstract: I develop a new analysis of ‘weak necessity’ modals ‘should’ and ‘supposed to’ that is motivated by novel observations of weaker than expected meanings in some environments. For example, ’supposed to’ in (1a) gives rise to a meaning that can be paraphrased as the weaker modal statement in (1b).

(1) A: Can you please pick up a book for me at the office?
      B: I don’t know… Are we supposed to be back on campus without a Covid test?
      B′: I don’t know… Are we allowed to be back on campus without a Covid test?

I argue that this and other evidence of weak readings shows that these modal verbs exhibit a type of variable force. They express universal force in positive sentences and existential force under negation. The analysis will build on an analogy with free-choice disjunction that assumes a basic weak meaning that strengthens in upward-entailing environments (Fox 2007; Bassi & Bar-Lev 2016).  I hypothesize that the precise distribution of the strengthened readings is governed by the polarity-sensitive nature of the modals (cf. Iatridou Zeijlstra 2013; Homer 2015).  In particular, I argue that the polarity sensitivity of the modals is the result of the association of their domains with a covert even-like operator (cf. Lahiri 1998; Crnič 2014, 2019  for NPI ‘any’).

This hypothesis makes intricate predictions about the range of readings that should be observed in various logical environments that I show to be borne out. It predicts that the modals should receive strong interpretations in positive sentences, and weak readings in negative sentences. For environments that contain both negative and positive components, such as the question in (1), and in the scope of non-monotonic quantifiers, two possible readings are predicted: one in which the positive component strengthens, and the negative component remains weak, and another in which both components remain weak, and the contribution of the covert ’even’ results in strong constraints on the discourse context. I discuss the logic of these predictions, and also argue that the analysis provides a natural link between polarity sensitivity and ‘weak necessity’ modals.

LF Reading Group 10/30 - Filipe Hisao Kobayashi (MIT) & Vincent Rouillard (MIT)

Speaker: Filipe Hisao Kobayashi (MIT) & Vincent Rouillard (MIT)
Title: Tying Free Choice in Questions to Distributivity
Time: Wednesday, October 30th, 1pm - 2pm
Location: 32-D461

Abstract:Disjunctive answers to universally modalized wh-interrogatives have been noted to lead to free choice inferences.

(1) Q: Which books are we required to read?
A: The French books or the Russian books.
Implies: You are allowed to read the French books and you are allowed to read the Russian books.

The presence of such inferences has lead many to propose that wh-items can quantify over generalized quantifiers (Spector 2007,2008; a.o.). However, this move does not capture the lack of such inference when the restrictor of the wh-item is singular.

(1) Q: Which book are we required to read?
A: The French book or the Russian book.
Does not imply: You are allowed to read the French book and you are allowed to read the Russian book.

We propose to account for this contrast by capturing the free choice inference using a covert existential distributivity operator (Bar-Lev 2017). We show that this moves derives many restrictions that the generalized quantifier theory must stipulate.

Special Lunch Talk 10/31 - Anne H. Charity Hudley (UCSB)

Speaker: Anne Charity Hudley (UCSB)
Title: Talking College: A Community Based Language and Racial Identity Development Model for Black College Student Justice
Time: Thursday, October 31st, 12:30pm - 1:50pm
Location: 32-D461

Abstract: “Critical knowledge about language and culture is an integral part of the quest for educational equity and empowerment, not only in PreK-12 but also in higher education. As Black students transition from high school to college, they seek to add their voices and perspectives to academic discourse and to the scholarly community in a way that is both advantageous and authentic.

The Talking College Project is a Black student and Black studies centered way of learning more about the particular linguistic choices of Black students while empowering them to be proud of their cultural and linguistic heritage. The Talking College Project is funded by the University of California-Historically Black College and University (UC-HBCU) Initiative and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Program. Students take introductory linguistics courses that examine the role of language in the Black college experience and collect information from college students through interviews and ethnography. We value the perspectives of undergraduates from a range of disciplinary backgrounds as researchers and we have a special focus on students at institutions that do not offer linguistics as a major.

One key question of The Talking College Project is: how does the acquisition of different varieties of Black language and culture overlap with identity development, particularly intersectional racial identity development? To answer this question, we conducted over 50 interviews with Black students at several Minority-Serving Institutions, Historically Black College, and Predominantly White Universities. Based on information collected from the interviews, it is evident that Black students often face linguistic bias and may need additional support and guidance as they navigate the linguistic terrain of higher education. We present themes and examples from the interviews that illustrate the linguistic pathways that students choose, largely without sociolinguistic knowledge that could help guide their decisions.

To address the greater need to share information about Black language with students, we also highlight our findings from interviews with Black students who have taken courses in linguistics to demonstrate the impact of education about Black language and culture on Black students’ academic opportunities and social lives. These findings serve to help us create a model of assessment for what linguistic information Black students need in order to be successful in higher education and how faculty can help to establish opportunities for students to access content about language, culture, and education within the college curriculum. We address the work we need to do as educators and linguists to provide more Black college students with information that both empowers them raciolinguistically AND respects their developing identity choices.”

Syntax Square 10/22 - Colin Davis (MIT)

Speaker: Colin Davis (MIT)
Title: The nature of overlapping A-bar chains as revealed by parasitic gaps (NELS practice)
Time: Tuesday, October 22nd, 1pm - 2pm
Location: 32-D461

Abstract: The intricate properties of parasitic gaps (PGs) have long enriched research on the syntax of (A-bar) movement (Engdahl 1983, Nissenbaum 2000, Legate 2003, Overfelt 2015, Branan 2017, Kotek & Erlewine 2018, Fox & Nissenbaum 2018). In this work, I use PG licensing in English to reveal a novel generalization about derivations where two A-bar movement chains pass through vP. 

Generalization: If XP1 and XP2 move to become A-bar specifiers of vP such that XP1 c-commands XP2, then the final surface position of XP1 c-commands the final surface position of XP2.

While this is surprising for some theories of movement, I argue that it is a natural consequence of Cyclic Linearization (CL; Fox & Pesetsky 2005, a.o.), which predicts that the relative order established for the constituents of a given phase must be preserved throughout the derivation. I also show that CL interacts with the distribution of covert movement to yield Pesetsky’s (1982) Path Containment Condition (PCC).

LF Reading Group 10/23 - Vincent Rouillard (MIT)

Speaker: Vincent Rouillard (MIT)
Title: An Alternative Based Analysis of Temporal in-Adverbials
Time: Wednesday, October 23rd, 1pm - 2pm
Location: 32-D461

Abstract: Following the idea that polarity sensitivity in language results from the logical relation between alternatives, I analyze the changing polarity sensitivity of temporal in-adverbials as the result of a change in the logical structure of alternatives. More precisely, I compare the lack of polarity sensitivity of such modifiers in (1), where they specify the length of an event, with their status as NPIs in (2), where they assign a left-boundary to the Perfect Time Span.

(1) a. Mary wrote the paper in minutes. b. Mary didn’t write the paper in minutes.

(2) a. *Mary has had a seizure in years. b. Mary hasn’t had a seizure in years.

I propose to understand the emergence of polarity sensitivity in (2) as resulting from an interaction between aspect and alternatives. Aspect creates a logical relationship between the alternatives of the sentences in (2), a relationship absent from the alternatives to the sentences in (1).

MorPhun 10/23 - Philip Shushurin (NYU)

Speaker: Philip Shushurin (NYU)
Title: A head movement approach to second position clitics: The case of Russian polar particle li
Time: Wednesday, October 23rd, 5pm - 6:30pm
Location: 32-D831

Abstract: In many languages of the world, certain clitics are restricted to appear in the second position of the clause. Russian polar particle li, for instance, cannot follow branching phrases (2) and cannot contain focussed material to its right (3).

(1) Kvartiru li Anna kupila?
apartment LI Anna bought
`Did Anna buy an apartment?’

(2) *Doroguju kvartiru li Anna kupila?
expensive apartment LI Anna bought
int. `Did Anna buy an expensive apartment?’

(3) Doroguju li kvartiru Anna kupila?
expensive LI apartment Anna bought
`Did Anna buy an expensive apartment?’ — OK
`Did Anna buy an expensive apartment?’ — not possible

I suggest that the ban on phrasal constituents in the pre-li position is a consequence of the Head Movement Constraint: the associated constituent must head move and left-adjoin to li, which is supposed to be the head of the polarity phrase (Sigma) merged directly above the associated constituent. Phrasal constituents, like the one in (2) are unable to do so yielding ungrammaticality. Only those constituents that move to li can get polar interpretation, explaining the pattern in (3). The resulting complex head (X+li) acts as a constituent largely equivalent to a wh-word: at later stages of the derivation, it is attracted to the left periphery of the clause. li can be seen as an analogue of a wh-morpheme, which merges with different morphemes to form a wh-word. Treating X+li as a constituent allows to reduce the second position requirement of li to the left edge requirement on the X+li, a requirement often postulated for wh-words. Next, I show that X+li is different from wh-words in that X+li must always be at the left edge of the DP, while wh-words need not to. I suggest several explanations of this asymmetry.

Phonology Circle 10/16 - Miklós Törkenczy (Eötvös Loránd University)

Speaker: Miklós Törkenczy (Eötvös Loránd University)

Title: Hungarian vowel harmony: beyond the standard data set.

Time: Wednesday, October 16th, 5pm - 6:30pm

Location: 32-D831

Abstract:

Vowel harmony (especially backness harmony) is clearly the best known and most analysed aspect of Hungarian phonology. Nevertheless, even current analyses often rely on a data set that only affords a simplified view and is sometimes misleading. In the talk I will focus on variation and vowel neutrality in backness harmony and discuss phenomena that fall outside the “standard” data set typically used. I will concentrate primarily on the relationship between morphology and harmony and will show that morphology interacts with backness harmony in a way that is far richer than the usual canonical view according to which morphological complexity does not matter within the domain of harmony. If time permits I also want to briefly discuss the results of some experiments we did that extend and partially question experimental results on variation in Hungarian harmony recently published in the literature by Hayes et. al 2006, 2009. Throughout the talk my intention is to highlight problems that any analysis has to tackle in order to give a realistic account of Hungarian backness harmony.

LingLunch 10/17 - Mitya Privoznov and Justin Colley (MIT)

Speaker: Mitya Privoznov and Justin Colley (MIT)

Title: On the topic of subjects: composite Probes in Khanty

Time: Thursday, October 17th, 12:30pm - 2pm

Location: 32-D461

Abstract:

We examine movement to subject position (MSP) in the Kazym dialect of Khanty (Finno-Ugric, Uralic). We show that Khanty MSP is a ‘mixed’ movement, having both A-properties (case and agreement, variable binding) and A′-properties (locality, topic interpretation). We explain these properties in terms of a composite Probe on T, which searches for a Goal with both Topic and ϕ-features. We will also propose a notion of Topic based solely on the semantics of the declarative C (which we assume to be the ~ operator from Rooth 1985) and briefly discuss the typology of the relation between C and T (and topics and subjects).

Full abstract: https://nels50.mit.edu/sites/default/files/abstracts/382-ColleyPrivoznov.pdf

Experimentalist meeting 10/18 - Filipe Hisao Kobayashi and Sherry Yong Chen (MIT)

Speaker: Filipe Hisao Kobayashi and Sherry Yong Chen (MIT)

Title: Comprehending and: Development Path of English Conjunction in Child Language

Time: Friday, October 18th, 2pm - 3pm

Location: 32-D461

Abstract:

And presents a challenging case for language learning because of its abstract meaning and cross-categorial flexibility. Nevertheless, previous studies report that even 2-year-olds use and productively in various syntactic environments (Sentence-and, VP-and, & NP-and), leaving open the possibility that and is acquired as an intrinsically cross-categorial operator. 

In this on-going project, we exploits scope interaction with quantifiers to distinguish S-and and NP-and:

(1) Somebody has a pineapple and somebody has a donut. (adult: and > somebody)

(2) Somebody has a pineapple and a donut. (adult: somebody > and)

Building on a recent study by Koring et al, we used an act-out paradigm to test children’s comprehension of sentences like (1) and (2). We present preliminary results suggesting that (i) children as young as 3-years-old have adult-like understanding of S-and, but their performance on NP-and is less adult-like; (ii) For NP-and specifically, children’s performance differs in the adult-true vs adult-false scenarios; (iii) there is no clear improvement for both ands from 3-year-olds to 5-year-olds. The difference between our results and Koring et al’s results will be discussed.

CompLang 10/18 - Reuben Harry Cohn-Gordon (Stanford University)

Speaker: Reuben Harry Cohn-Gordon (Stanford University)
Title: Bayesian Pragmatic Models for Natural Language
Date and time: Thursday, 10/18, 5-6pm
Location: 46-5165
Abstract: The Rational Speech Acts model (RSA) formalizes Gricean reasoning through nested models of speakers and listeners. While this paradigm offers an elegant way to simulate pragmatic behavior in NLP tasks such as image captioning and translation, scaling from simple models to natural language presents several challenges. In particular, I discuss the problem of choosing alternative utterances among an unbounded set of sentences, including work on image captioning and on-going work on translation.

Ling-Lunch 10/11 - Ljiljana Progovac (Wayne State)

Speaker: Ljiljana Progovac  (Wayne State)
Title: What use is half a clause? The Five Problems facing language evolution research
Date and time: Thursday, 10/11, 12:30-1:50pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:
 

I have proposed that human languages reconstruct back to an intransitive absolutive-like grammar, which provides the foundation and common denominator for crosslinguistic variation in the expression of transitivity (e.g. Progovac 2015, 2016). The proposal is based both on an internal reconstruction using syntactic theory (in particular, Chomsky’s 1995 Minimalism), and on comparative typological considerations, in an attempt to directly bring together formal, typological, and evolutionary considerations.

The internal reconstruction is achieved by peeling off, from the top, the syntactic layers postulated to form the basic skeleton of the modern sentence/clause (CP>TP > vP > VP/SC), leading to reconstructing the initial, ancestral grammar as intransitive, featuring only the VP/SC layer with one single argument. Approximations of such one-argument grammars are arguably found in the absolutive and middle constructions across a variety of languages, as well as in certain verb-noun compounds, both of which will be illustrated and discussed. Rather than staying with general, vague claims, I will use specific data and detail in an attempt to make this proposal testable, and will report the results of an fMRI experiment designed to test some predictions of this proposal (Progovac et al. 2018: doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00278).

I will furthermore introduce The Five Problems/Challenges routinely encountered in language evolution research (Progovac, In Press), and will use the proposal above as a test case to demonstrate how these challenges can begin to be addressed.

  1. Identification of the initial stage(s) of language (The Decomposition Problem)
  2. The genetic basis for language, i.e. how genetic basis for language came to be (The Selection Problem)
  3. The language-brain-genes linkage (The Loop Problem)
  4. Compatibility with the parameters of language variation and change (The Variation Problem)
  5. Grounding in linguistic theory and analysis (The Theoretical Grounding Problem)

Especially thorny are The Decomposition and The Selection Problems, partly because they are intertwined, in the sense that only a successful decomposition will reveal utility, which can in turn identify possible reasons for natural/sexual selection. Consistent with the proposal above, I will explore a specific natural/sexual selection scenario which attempts to disentangle the two, while addressing the question of “What use is half a clause?”

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.

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! 

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.  

special summer talk: Jessica Coon (McGill) — Thursday 8/23, 1pm

Speaker: Jessica Coon (McGill)
Title:  Feature Gluttony and the Syntax of Hierarchy Effects   (joint work with Stefan Keine, USC)
Date/Time: Thursday, August 23, 1:00pm-2:30pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:

This talk offers a new take on a family of hierarchy effect-inducing configurations, with a focus on Person Case Constraint (PCC) effects (Anagnostopoulou 2005, Nevins 2007) copular constructions (Coon, Keine, and Wagner 2017), and dative-nominative configurations (Sigurdsson & Holmberg 2008, Rezac 2008). Following previous work, we take these effects to arise in contexts in which two accessible DPs are found in the same domain as a single agreeing probe (Béjar & Rezac 2003; Anagnostopoulou 2005). We draw on Cyclic Agree in the sense of Béjar & Rezac (2009), according to which an articulated probe continues probing if at least some features are left unvalued after an Agree relation.

Béjar & Rezac (2003) and many related accounts seek to derive hierarchy effects from an underapplication of Agree and concomitant failures of nominal licensing, formalized as a Person Licensing Condition (see also Béjar & Rezac 2009, Baker 2011, Preminger to appear). By contrast, we argue that hierarchy effects are the result of an overapplication of Agree. We propose that in hierarchy effect-inducing structures, a probe participates in more than one valuation relation, effectively “biting off more than it can chew”, a configuration we refer to as feature gluttony. Feature gluttony––i.e., the coexistence of multiple values on a single probe––can then create conflicting requirements for subsequent operations, leading to a crash.

Our account captures commonalities and differences across hierarchy constructions, both in terms of the types and specifications of the features involved, as well as in the result of hierarchy violations and their possible repairs. In the case of PCC configurations, a probe which interacts with more than one DP creates an intervention problem for clitic-doubling. In violations involving agreement, gluttony in features may result in a configuration with no available morphological output. Important motivation for our account comes from the fact that hierarchy effects commonly disappear in the absence of agreement. This is unexpected on a standard licensing account, but it receives a principled explanation in terms of gluttony: because the probe that otherwise creates the conflict is absent, the conflict disappears.

Phonology Circle 5/14 - Koichi Tateishi (Kobe College/MIT)

Speaker: Koichi Tateishi (Kobe College/MIT)
Title: Trimoraicity and Monomoraicity: Cases in Japanese
Date/Time: Monday, May 14, 2018, 5:00-6:30pm
Location: 32-D831
Abstract:

This presentation is about Japanese syllables, which appear to be one of the best-studied areas in phonology, starting from McCawley (1968) and traditional Japanese linguistics papers preceding it. I will point out that /N/, a moraic nasal, which is never a nuclear component of a syllable and hence can never be accented according to McCawley and later works, actually stands out as an independent syllabic nucleus at some morphological peripheries. This syllabic /N/ can be accent-bearing and can undergo Initial Lowering, another signatory tonal phenomenon that is typically observed only with a syllabic nucleus. The presentation also points out that the syllabic /N/ is only for the borrowings and mimetics, while we find an independent phenomenon in the Yamato (native Japanese) stratum that derives a string that appears to derive a syllabic /Q/, moraic obstruent, and that this constitutes a counterargument to Ito and Mester’s (1995) strata-dependent reranking hypothesis.

Phonology Circle 5/7 - Thomas Schatz and Naomi Feldman (UMD/MIT)

Speakers: Thomas Schatz and Naomi Feldman (UMD/MIT)
Title: A simple framework to study how phonological structure can emerge from the interaction of social, physical and cognitive evolutionary pressures
Date/Time: Monday, May 7, 2018, 5:00-6:30pm
Location: 32-D831
Abstract:

Nowak and Krakauer (1999) proposed a framework to study how combinatoriality in language can emerge from evolutionary pressures to communicate in the presence of noise in the communication channel. I will present this framework and discuss possible extensions that might lead to functional accounts for certain phonological phenomena. I will focus in particular on an extension of the framework that adds a pressure to limit the production costs of words in the language, for which I will present a few preliminary results.
This is very preliminary work in collaboration with Matthias Hofer and Naomi Feldman. The main object of the presentation will be to get feedback on the potential of the framework and to advertise the project to students with a formal background in phonology - which both Matthias and me lack - who might be interested in collaborating with us.

Syntax Square 5/8 - Carolyn Spadine (MIT)

Speaker: Carolyn Spadine (MIT)
Title: Evaluating Syntactic Approaches to Interrogative Flip: Test cases from English and Malayalam
Date and time: Tuesday May 8, 1-2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:

“Interrogative flip” describes a phenomena in which elements that appear to orient to the speaker in a declarative utterance shift perspective and orient to the addressee in an interrogative context — evidentials, perspective-sensitive anaphora, modals, adverbs, predicates of personal taste, and others have been reported to show this behavior. In proposing a mechanism for encoding discourse-pragmatic information in syntax, interrogative flip is one of the core phenomena that Tenny and Speas 2003 intend to address, and the same problem has been subsequently taken up in Woods 2014, Zu 2018, and many others.

This talk presents preliminary work on two constructions that display interrogative flip, and examines the ways in which existing syntactic approaches to modeling interrogative flip account for or fail to account for this data. The first is discourse participant-oriented modifiers in English, as in (1):

1. a. [As a film critic], this movie deserves an Oscar.
b. [As a film critic], does this movie deserve an Oscar?

In (1a), the preferred and perhaps only interpretation of the bracketed constituent is that the speaker is a film critic, whereas in (1b), English speakers report both speaker- and addressee-oriented interpretations for the same constituent. A similar but more constrained pattern emerges for embedded instances of these modifiers, posing a challenge for some proposals. The second comes from a reportative evidential marker ennu (glossed as REP) in Malayalam (2a), which can either scope under or over the question particle, yielding two different interpretations — either a question about a report heard by the addressee (2b), or a declarative report of a question overhead by the speaker (2c).

2. a. prime minister varunnu ennu
prime minister come.PROG REP
“I heard that the Prime Minister is coming”
b. prime minister varunnu enn-oo?
prime minister come.PROG REP-Q
“Did you hear if the Prime Minister is coming?”
c. prime minister varunn-oo ennu
prime minister come.PROG-Q REP
“I heard someone ask if the Prime Minister is coming”

In both cases, I suggest the data supports the general pattern that existing proposals intend to account for, but also raise concerns about the specific structures proposed to implement them.

LingPhil Reading Group 4/23 - on Schlenker (2012)

Title: on Schlenker (2012) 
Date and time: Monday April 23th, 1-2pm
Location: 32-D831

Vincent will be presenting Philippe Schlenker’s paper ‘Maximize Presupposition and Gricean Reasoning’.


As per usual, reading the paper is not mandatory, although feel free to read it if you’re feeling brave.

Phonology Circle 2/4 - Jaehyun Son (Duksung Women’s University)

Speaker: Jaehyun Son (Duksung Women’s University)
Title: Pitch Accent Systems in Korean
Date and time: Monday, 23 April 2018, 5:00-6:30pm
Location: 32-D831
Abstract:

Research on the Korean accent has been carried out within the Korean linguistics community, but in that context, the Korean accent system has traditionally been compared to the tone system of Chinese, in which pitch contours are syllabic. In contrast, Japanese researchers have proposed that the Korean accent system should be analyzed from the point of view of word-level and phrase-level accentual systems seen in Japanese dialects. One possible reason for this difference of opinion is that recently in Japan, despite the growing influence of the accentual systems of Tokyo Japanese and the dialects of other major cities, a great variety of smaller dialects have been observed and documented, and as a result of this work researchers have discovered accent types that have played a crucial role in uncovering the history and evolution of the Japanese accentual system. In Korea, on the other hand, accent has been lost in the regions surrounding and including Seoul (the national capital) but there are still dialects, mainly in the south-eastern regions of the Korean peninsula, that retain an accentual system and can shed light on the history of accent in Korea. For the present study, I took the Japanese-oriented view rather than the traditional Chinese-oriented view and analyzed the accentual systems of Korean dialects using data from a purely synchronic field survey of several locations across the Korean-speaking region. The field survey includes dialects that have already been documented by Korean and Japanese researchers, but by including the whole Korean-speaking region in its scope and using a new theoretical framework, the current study was able to highlight the shortcomings of previous work. The current study presents the Korean accent types and their geographical distribution. Moreover, by comparing the various accent types, it was possible to look back and investigate how the Korean accent system has evolved up to the present day.

CompLang 4/23 - Hendrik Strobelt (IBM)

Speaker: Hendrik Strobelt (IBM)
Title:  Visualization for Sequence Models for Debugging and Fun
Date and time: Monday, April 23, 5-6pm
Location: 46-5165
Abstract:

Visual analysis is a great tool to explore deep learning models when there is no strong mathematical hypothesis yet
available. I will present two visual tools where we used design study methodology to allow exploration of
patterns in hidden state changes in RNNs/LSTMs (LSTMVis) and exploration of Sequence2Sequence models (Seq2Seq-Vis).
Both model types have shown superior performance for NLP like language modeling or language translation.
Examples about both tasks will be shown on a variety of models.

As beautiful distraction, we also utilize data science methods to investigate large data in a more artistic way.
Formafluens is such a data experiment where we analyze a large collections of doodles made by humans in the Google
Quickdraw tool.

LF Reading Group 4/17 - Hanzhi Zhu (MIT)

Speaker: Hanzhi Zhu (MIT)
Title: Conditionals in although constructions
Date and time: Wednesday, April 18, 1-2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:

In this talk, I’ll be looking at biclausal constructions with although/even though which convey the truth of two propositions as well as the oddness of their juxtaposition:

1. John went out for a walk, even though it’s raining.
2. Although Bailey is rich, she doesn’t give to charity.

The link between although constructions and conditionals has been explored in previous accounts, in which “although p, q” is analyzed as presupposing “normally, if p then ¬q”. However, these accounts ignore the compositional contribution of even, which appears in these constructions in English as well as cross-linguistically. Lund (2017), borrowing from Guerzoni and Lim’s (2007) account of even if, proposes an account in which “although p, q” asserts a conjunction and has a scalar likelihood presupposition: ¬p and q is less likely/expected than p and q. I’ll present a counterexample to this account which favors having a presupposition even closer to Guerzoni and Lim’s proposal for even if: “although p, q” presupposes that if ¬p, q is less likely/expected than if p, q. I’ll also discuss further consequences of this proposal regarding the role of the additive presupposition of even.

LingPhil Reading Group 4/9 - on Stalnaker 2004

Title: on Stalnaker (2004)
Date and time: Monday April 9th, 1-2pm
Location: 32-D831

This week’s paper is Stalnaker’s Assertion Revisited: On the Interpretation of Two-Dimensional Modal Semantics, available here

Christopher will be presenting the paper.

Phonology Circle 4/9 - Yunjing Li (Tianjin\MIT)

Speaker: Yunjing Li (Tianjin Foreign Studies University & MIT)
Title:  Rule Interaction in Mandarin Tonal Phonology
Date and time: Monday, April 9th, 5:00-6:30pm
Location: 32-D831
Abstract:

In Mandarin Chinese, there are some rules governing tone sandhi changes. In some cases, more than one rule may be applicable, hence rule interaction occurs.

This talk will introduce some basic facts about Mandarin tonesand their representation, followed by a description of the interaction between the Third Tone Sandhi Rule and the Neutral Tone Rule in disyllabic words. The ordering of these two rules causes phonological opacity. An analysis in the framework of Harmonic Serialism is proposed.

Syntax Square 4/10 - Sze-Wing Tang (The Chinese University of Hong Kong/MIT)

Speaker: Sze-Wing Tang (The Chinese University of Hong Kong/MIT)
Title: On the Syntax of Sentence-final Elements
Date and time: Tuesday, April 10, 1-2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:

Insights of Ross (1970) of the analysis of the clausal periphery have been revived under the cartographic approach (Rizzi 1997, 2004, Cinque 1999, see also Speas 2004, Tenny 2006, Hill 2007, Miyagawa 2012, 2017, and Wiltschko and Heim 2016). The goal of this talk is twofold. First, it is argued that there should be two distinct syntactic layers in the clausal periphery that are dedicated to “grounding” and “responding” (Wiltschko and Heim 2016), respectively, by examining the grammatical properties of the Mandarin sentence-final particle (“SFP”) ma and Cantonese SFP ge and the “h-family”. Second, it is argued that some sentence-final expressions, such as tags in tag questions in English should be in the highest syntactic position and form a coordination structure with a silent head, in the sense of Kayne (2016). A hierarchical structure/ordering “Proposition > SFP > Tag” is proposed, which may serve as a working hypothesis to study the syntax of speech act cross-linguistically.

LF Reading Group 4/11 - Frank Staniszewski (MIT)

Speaker: Frank Staniszewski (MIT)
Title: Wanting, Acquiescing, and Neg-raising
Date and time: Wednesday, April 11, 1-2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:

I argue that neg-raised (NR) readings for negated sentences containing want are the result of want expressing an underlying weak (existential) quantificational force, which gives rise to the globally strong meanings under negation. To derive the universal interpretation that is attested for non-negated want, then, I adopt Bassi & Bar-Lev (2016)’s treatment of bare conditionals, and hypothesize that want undergoes strengthening in a manner analogous to Free Choice disjunction, as analyzed in Fox (2007).

As evidence for this view, I examine a puzzling paradigm discussed in Homer (2015), in which want appears to show scopal ambiguity w.r.t. the presuppositional adverbial no longer. I show how assuming an underlying existential semantics for want, motivated by a new observation about the data, provides a solution to the puzzle.

Homer’s puzzle: Assuming that the negative adverbial no longer presupposes that the proposition denoted by the clause that is in its scope used to be true, sentence (1a) is ambiguous between narrow and wide scope of want w.r.t. no longer (Homer 2015).

(1) a. Consumers no longer want to be kept in the dark about food.
b. I no longer want to be called an idiot.

Homer suggests that on its most salient reading, want takes wide scope over no longer, as it is not assumed that consumers ever had a desire to be kept in the dark about food, or that the speaker of (1b) used to want to be called an idiot. The absence of want from the presupposition of no longer on the most natural reading is taken to be evidence that want can QR over no longer, which is consistent with additional evidence that want may be a ‘mobile positive polarity item’ (PPI).

I provide evidence against a QR approach, and suggest that want is indeed within the scope of no longer in sentences like (1a-b). While I agree that they don’t presuppose that consumers used to have a desire to be kept in the dark (or be called an idiot), the meaning of want is not entirely absent from the presupposition. Instead, (1a-b) appear to require the weaker assumption that consumers in some way used to ‘be willing to’ or ‘be OK with’ being kept in the dark (or being called an idiot).

In the spirit of von Fintel and Iatridou (2017)’s discussion of weak variants of imperatives, I refer to these asacquiescence readings, which in addition to being detected in the presupposition of no longer, can also be detected in sentences like (2a-b).

(2) a. If you want to wait here for a minute, I’ll be right back.
b. Do you wanna give me a hand with this box?

The acquiescence readings in (2a-b), as well as the attested NR readings for want in other DE environments (sentential negation, scope of no NP, restrictor of comparatives/superlatives) suggest that an analogy with free choice is on the right track. There are, however, some DE environments (restrictor of no NP, additional questions/conditionals) that don’t show the predicted pattern. I address these, and other problems, and suggest possible solutions. I also explore how this analysis could extend to other priority modals, like should and for-infinitival relative clauses.

LingLunch 4/12 -  Matthew Tyler (Yale) and Michelle Yuan (MIT)

Speaker: Matthew Tyler (Yale) and Michelle Yuan (MIT)
Title: Nominal-clitic case mismatches (WCCFL Practice Talk) 
Date and time: Thursday, April 12, 12:30-1:50pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: 

When arguments are clitic-doubled, the clitic and the nominal it doubles typically bear the same case feature. However, recent theoretical work on clitic-doubling, including but not limited to so-called ‘Big DP’ analyses (e.g. Uriagereka 1995, Nevins 2011, Kramer 2014) treats clitics and nominals as separable entities in the syntactic derivation. Given this background, we propose that under the right syntactic conditions, nominals and their clitics should be able to mismatch in case features. In particular, we identify and investigate two classes of mismatch, which form the mirror image of each other. In Choctaw (Muskogean), nominals acquire case features that their associated clitics lack, while in Yimas (Lower-Sepik; data from Foley 1991), clitics acquire case features that their associated nominals lack. We argue that these mismatches are the consequence of case-assignment operations that target nominals or clitics individually.

The availability of such targeted case-assignment operations is contingent on the language creating the right syntactic configurations. In Choctaw, nominals may be individually targeted for a round of NOM/ACC case-assignment because clitics are doubled at a low position on the clausal spine—by the time that NOM/ACC case is assigned at TP, clitics have already separated from their nominal associates. And in Yimas, while nominals are morphologically unmarked (ABS), clitics may be individually targeted for a round of ERG/ABS case-assignment because they adjoin to the same functional head: following Yuan (2017), multiple clitics adjoined to the same head may employ case-assignment as a dissimilation strategy.
 
 

 

 

LingPhil Reading Group 4/2 - on Stalnaker 1978

Title: on Stalnaker (1978)
Date and time: Monday April 2nd, 1-2pm
Location: 32-D831

This week’s paper is Robert Stalnaker’s Assertion. Pre-read is not required.

Mallory will be presenting the paper.

Phonology Circle 2/4 - Gašper Beguš (Harvard)

Speaker: Gašper Beguš (Harvard)
Title:  Learning the Blurring Process
Date and time: Monday, April 2nd, 5:00-6:30pm
Location: 32-D831
Abstract:

Many artificial grammar learning experiments have provided strong evidence for the assumption that learning biases influence phonological typology: typologically rare processes have been shown to be more difficult to learn. Most of the experiments, however, fail to control for diachronic influences: in many cases, the observed typology can be explained by diachronic factors equally well. In this talk, I present a method for controlling for diachronic influences when testing learning biases. Unnatural processes provide a crucial solution to this problem. I show that a statistical model of diachronic development (that I call Bootstrapping Sound Changes) identifies a crucial mismatch in predictions between the learning and diachronic bias approaches. This mismatch allows me to design experiments such that diachronic factors are controlled for. I present results from two experiments that test learnability of complex vs. unnatural processes and suggest that learnability differences have to influence observed typology in cases that cannot be explained by historical factors. I also discuss implications of this approach for phonological theory in general.

CompLang 4/2 - Idan Blank (MIT)

Speaker: Idan Blank (MIT)
Title:  When we “know the meaning” of a word, what kind of knowledge do we have?
Date and time: Monday, April 2nd, 5:00-6:00pm
Location: 46-5156
Abstract: 

Understanding words seems to require both linguistic knowledge (stored form-meaning pairings and ways to combine them) and world knowledge (object properties, plausibility of events, etc.). In this talk, I will pose some challenges for common distinctions between these knowledge sources. First, I will ask whether rich information about concrete objects could be, in principle, learned from just the co-occurrence statistics of different words even in the absence of non-linguistic (e.g., perceptual) information. To this end, I will introduce a domain-general approach for leveraging such statistics (as captured by distributional semantic models, DSMs) to recover context-specific human judgments such that, e.g., “dolphin” and “alligator” appear relatively similar when considering size or habitat, but different when considering aggressiveness. Second, I will probe DSMs for “syntactic”, abstract compositional knowledge of verb-argument structure (e.g., “eat”, but not “devour”, can appear without an object). I will demonstrate that these syntactic properties of verbs can often be predicted from distributional information (i.e., without explicit access to “syntax”), indicating that DSMs capture those aspects of verb meaning that correlate with verb syntax. Nevertheless, only a small fraction of distributional information is needed for predicting verb argument structure - the rest appears to capture semantic properties that are relatively divorced from syntax. In fact, the overall similarity structure across verbs in a DSM is independent from the similarity structure across verbs as determined by their syntax, and both kinds of similarity are needed for explaining human judgments. Together, these two studies attempt to push against the upper bound on the potential complexity of distributional word meanings.

LingLunch 4/5 - Stanislao Zompí (MIT)

Speaker: Stanislao Zompí (MIT)
Title: Ergative is not inherent: Evidence from *ABA in suppletion and syncretism
Date and time: Thursday, April 5, 12:30-1:50pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: 

This is a practice talk for GLOW 41. The abstract can be found here.

Syntax Square 3/20 - Abdul-Razak Sulemana (MIT)

Speaker: Abdul-Razak Sulemana
Title: Obligatory Controlled Subjects in Buli
Date and time: Tuesday March 20, 1-2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:

It has long been noted that PRO makes no contribution to PF, as it is phonetically null. Several approaches to control have been developed based on this conclusion. These theories could be put into two broad categories. Under one (Bresnan 1978, 1982, Chierchia 1984, Dowty 1985, Jackendoff and Culicover 2003, a.o) this has been taken as evidence that there is no syntactic representation of this element. Under the other (Chomsky 1981, Manzini 1983, Landau 2000, 2001, 2013, 2015 a.o) PRO is syntactically present but its nullness is due to the licensing properties of the controlled structure. In this paper, I present data from Buli a Mabia (Gur) language spoken in Sandema (Ghana) that argue against theories that deny the syntactic presence of PRO. I argue that Buli is a language where PRO is overtly expressed and conclude that phonetic nullness is not an inherent property of PRO.

LingPhil Reading Group 3/12 - on Goldstein

Title: on Goldstein- Free Choice and Homogeneity
Date and time: Monday, March 12th, 1-2pm
Location: 32-D831

 

David Boylan will be presenting. No preread required.

Syntax Square 3/6 - Colin Davis (MIT)

Speaker: Colin Davis
Title: Parasitic Gaps and the Structures of Multiple Movement
Date and time: Tuesday March 6, 1-2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:

In this talk, I present some work in progress about the structure of derivations where multiple A’-movement chains overlap. These derivations show interesting complexities that do not (and could not) arise in derivations with only one A’-movement (Pesetsky 1982, Richards 1997). Towards deepening our understanding of this issue, I use Nissenbaum’s (2000) findings about parasitic gap licensing as a diagnostic for the multiple specifier structures created by successive-cyclic movement through vP in these derivations.

This test reveals a puzzle: While Richard’s (1997) theory of specifier formation predicts tucking-in structures at vP in these scenarios, I show via parasitic gap licensing that (at least sometimes) tucking-in fails to occur. Observations about parasitic gaps in superiority violating D-linking from Nissenbaum provide another instance of the same puzzle. It seems to be the case that the structure at vP, tucked-in or not, reflects the final order of the moved phrases. This is exactly what we predict under the hypothesis of Order Preservation (Fox & Pesetsky 2005). However, it remains mysterious how derivations can ‘know’ what vP configurations to form based on what the final result of the derivation will be. I do not have a good solution, but I hope discussing these puzzles will help.

LF Reading Group 3/7 - Itai Bassi (MIT)

Speaker: Itai Bassi
Title: Fake Indexicals without feature transmission
Date and time: Wednesday March 7, 1-2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:

In a footnote, Partee (1989) mentioned that 1st person pronouns can be semantically bound (“fake indexicals”), pointing to sentence (1). That footnote generated a line of research (Kratzer 1998, Kratzer 2009, Wurmbrand 2017; Heim 2008) according to which bound variables (can) enter the syntactic derivation lacking interpreted phi-features, and inherit features from their binder at the PF branch, as a result of some “feature transmission” mechanism(s).

(1) I am the only one around here who will admit that I could be wrong
—> the speaker is the only individual in {x: x is willing to admit that x could be wrong}

In this talk I offer a formal syntax-semantics for this construction which derives a bound reading for (1) while maintaining that the bound “I” has its person feature interpreted, rendering feature transmission unnecessary. My proposal is to reduce (1) to focus constructions like (2), for which there are alternatives to the feature-transmission story (Bassi and Longenbaugh 2017, a.o.). I will thus propose, building on a suggestion made in Bhatt (2002), that the construction in (1) involves silent association with focus. In addition, I show how my proposal can account for the contrast between (1) and the minimally different (3), which does not have a bound reading for “I” and constitutes a problem for existing feature-transmission analyses (Wurmbrand, Kratzer).

(2) Only I will admit that I could be wrong

(3) I met the only one around here who will admit that I could be wrong (no bound reading)

Invited talk 3/8 - Athulya Aravind (MIT)

Speaker: Athulya Aravind (MIT)
Title: Principles of presupposition in development
Time: Thursday March 8th, 12:30-2:00pm 
Place: 32-D461
Abstract:

Natural language affords us the means to communicate not only new information, but also information that we are already taking for granted, our presuppositions. The proper characterization of presuppositions–the way they enter into the compositional semantics and the way they fit into the exchange of information in communicative situations–has been at the center of long-standing debate. One class of theories treat presuppositions as categorically imposing restrictions on the conversational common ground: presuppositions must signal information that is already mutually known by all participants. While principled and elegant, these theories are often thought to be empirically inadequate, as the common ground requirement is not always met in everyday conversation. A second class of theories, therefore, adopt weaker and less categorical approaches to the phenomenon that are nonetheless a better fit to the empirical facts. 

 
This talk compares these two classes of approaches to presupposition in terms of their implications for language acquisition. I argue that children initially adopt a view of presuppositions as uniformly placing restrictions on the conversational common ground, even in situations where these requirements may be bent. More tellingly, I show that children initially lack the ability to use presuppositions in ways that violate the common ground requirement. The observed two-step developmental trajectory supports a common ground theory of presuppositions, according to which the “rule of thumb” is that presuppositions are already common knowledge, and informative uses involve strategic violations of this rule. In turn, the acquisition data vindicate some of the theoretical idealizations whose empirical validity is masked in part due to the pragmatic sophistication of adult language users.

MIT Colloquium 3/9: Sandhya Sundaresan

Speaker: Sandhya Sundaresan (Leipzig)
Title: An Alternative Treatment of Indexical Shift: Modelling Shift Together Exceptions, Dual Contexts, and Selectional Variation
Date and time: Friday March 9, 3:30-5:00pm
Location: 32-155
Abstract:

I present the following three types of evidence that challenge both context-overwriting and quantifier-binding approaches to indexical shift (the phenomenon where the denotation of an indexical is interpreted, not against the utterance context, but against the index associated with an intensional verb). (I) Systematic exceptions to Shift Together (the constraint that all shiftable indexicals in a local intensional domain must shift together) in Tamil, varieties of Zazaki and Turkish, and potentially also Late Egyptian; (II) novel evidence from imperatives in Korean and supporting secondary data from imperatives in Slovenian, showing that the utterance context continues to be instantiated even in putatively shifted environments; and (III) results from personal fieldwork in Tamil dialects and secondary data from 26 languages (from 19 distinct language families) showing that there is structured selectional variation in the intensional environments in which indexical shift obtains and, furthermore, that such variation is one-way implicational. The following desiderata emerge: 1. Shift Together holds whenever possible, but systematic exceptions may nevertheless obtain; 2. the utterance-context is never overwritten; 3. indexical shift is an embedded root phenomenon that privileges speech predicates. To capture these, I develop an alternative model of indexical shift with the following properties. The context-shifter is not a context-overwriting operator, but a contextual quantifier. At the same time, unlike with standard quantificational approaches to shifting, this contextual quantifier (or “monster”) is a distinct grammatical entity severed from the attitude verb. Specifically, I present evidence from nominalization patterns and complementizer deletion to show that the monster is encoded on the complementizer selected by the attitude verb. I then propose that selectional variation for indexical shift ensues as the result of the monster being encoded on structurally distinct types of complementizer head, each selected by a different class of attitude verb (as has also been recently proposed in the literature).

CompLang 2/26 - Thomas Schatz (UMD/MIT)

Speaker: Thomas Schatz (UMD/MIT)
Title: Leveraging automatic speech recognition technology to model cross-linguistic speech perception in humans
Date and time: Monday, February 26 5:00-6:00pm
Location: 46-3310
Abstract: 

Existing theories of cross-linguistic phonetic category perception agree that listeners perceive foreign sounds by mapping them onto their native phonetic categories. Yet, none of the available theories specify a way to compute this mapping. As a result, they cannot provide systematic quantitative predictions and remain mainly descriptive. In this talk, I will present a new approach that leverages Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology to obtain fully specified mapping between foreign and native sounds. Using the machine ABX evaluation method, we derive quantitative predictions from ASR systems and compare them to empirical observations in human cross-linguistic phonetic category perception. I will present results both where the proposed model successfully predicts empirical effects (for example on the American English /r/-/l/ distinction) and where it fails (for example on the Japanese vowel length contrasts) and discuss possible interpretations.

Invited talk 2/27 - Shota Momma (UC San Diego)

Speaker: Shota Momma (UC San Diego)
Title: Aligning parsing and generation
Time: Tuesday, February 27th, 1:00-2:30pm 
Place: 32-D461
Abstract:

We use our grammatical knowledge in at least two ways. On one hand, we use our grammatical knowledge to say what we want to convey to others. On the other hand, we use our grammatical knowledge to understand what others say. In either case, we need to assemble sentence structures in a systematic fashion, in accordance with the grammar of our language. Despite the fact that the structures that comprehenders and speakers assemble are systematic in an identical fashion, the cognitive systems that assemble the mental representation of sentence structures in comprehension and production might or might not be the same. The potential existence of two independent systems of structure building doubles the problem of linking the theory of linguistic knowledge and the theory of linguistic performance, making the integration of linguistics and psycholinguistic harder. In this talk, I will discuss whether it is possible to design a single system that builds mental representations of sentence structures in comprehension, i.e., parsing and in production, i.e., generation. I will discuss existing and new experimental data pertaining to how sentence structures are assembled in real-time comprehension and production, and attempt to show that the unification between parsing and generation is possible.

LF Reading Group 2/28 - Milena Sisovics (MIT)

Speaker: Milena Sisovics
Title:  Embedded imperatives and voluntatives in Mongolian  
Date and time: Wednesday February 28, 1-2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:

Imperatives have long been considered immune to embedding, though recent research has found numerous counterexamples across languages. I introduce novel data showing that Mongolian likewise allows for genuine embedding of (hearer-directed) imperative as well as a speaker-directed non-assertive speech acts (“voluntative”). I propose a uniform analysis of voluntatives and imperatives (collapsed under the term “jussives”) as necessity modals. Moreover, I address the interesting question as to the analysis of jussive subjects: Subjects of embedded jussives are interpreted relative to the reported context in that they denote the reported speaker (in voluntatives) or hearer (in imperatives), rather than the actual discourse participants. I demonstrate how an analysis of imperative and voluntative clauses as PRO clauses can derive this fact, and provide arguments why such an analysis is preferable over an alternative, indexical shift analysis of embedded jussive subjects.

Invited talk 3/2 - Lyn Tieu (Western Sydney)

Speaker: Lyn Tieu (Western Sydney)
Title: Semantic theory and meaning acquisition
Date and time: Friday, March 2nd, 3:30-5:00pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: 

The overarching goal of my research program is to understand the nature of language by drawing on different empirical sources of data in a way that is informed by linguistic theory. In this talk, I will present three examples of recent work that highlight the interplay between theoretical issues in semantics and empirical facts about meaning acquisition. I will begin with the acquisition of the polarity-sensitive item ‘any’ in English (Tieu 2013). In this case, corpus and experimental data from child language suggest a potential learnability problem. A possible solution can be found in current linguistic theory; specifically, the cross-linguistic typology of polarity-sensitive items (Chierchia 2013) may provide a restricted hypothesis space for the learner to consider. In the second example, I discuss a series of recent developmental studies of various kinds of implicatures (Tieu et al. 2016, Tieu et al. 2017, and others). In this case, the child data suggest the presence of a developmental stage where children have mastered some implicatures but not others. Crucially, here too the relevant distinction turns out to quite naturally align with one made in current linguistic theories, specifically about scalar alternatives (Katzir 2007; Fox & Katzir 2011). In the final example, I discuss ongoing work that experimentally investigates the semantic contribution of co-speech gestures (gestures that accompany speech) and pro-speech gestures (gestures that replace spoken words) (Tieu et al. 2017, 2018, ongoing). In this case, experimental work with adults suggests people can very rapidly learn new meanings and project presuppositions from a single exposure to novel iconic gestures that they have never seen before, suggesting productive rules for triggering presuppositions.

Invited talk 2/23 - Shayne Sloggett (Northwestern)

Speaker: Shayne Sloggett (Northwestern)
Title: Understanding reflexives: Combining psycholinguistic and theoretical perspectives
Time: Friday, February 23th, 3:30-5pm 
Place: 32-D461
Abstract:

Should evidence from real-time sentence comprehension routines inform our grammatical models? In this talk I present evidence that they should, drawing on recent findings from investigations of on-line reflexive reference resolution. Reflexive pronouns in English are grammatically constrained to refer to local referents which agree with the reflexive’s morphosyntactic features (Chomsky, 1986; Pollard & Sag, 1992; Reinhart & Reuland, 1993; i.a.), and many studies in sentence processing have found that comprehenders initially consider only these referents when determining a reflexive’s antecedent (Nicol & Swinney, 1989; Sturt, 2003; Dillon, Xiang, Dillon, & Phillips, 2009; i.m.a.). However, some recent work has found that comprehenders entertain long-distance reference when local referents present a particularly poor morphosyntactic match (Parker & Phillips, 2017). This raises an interesting question: are such findings the result of a processing mistake, or rooted in grammatical principles? I present evidence from two sets of studies which suggest the latter, demonstrating that native English-speaking comprehenders are less willing to entertain long-distance interpretations in the presence of an indexical (first/second person) pronoun. Notably, this pattern of behavior bears a striking resemblance to the “person blocking” phenomenon associated with the Mandarin long-distance reflexive “ziji” (Huang & Liu, 2001). In light of these findings, I propose a unified treatment of Mandarin and English reflexives which claims that comprehenders consider long-distance referents which could act as logophoric antecedents. Thus, by approaching the study of reflexive reference from theoretical and psycholinguistic perspectives simultaneously, insights from each inform the other. Moreover, this proposal has strong implications for both our understanding of real-time reflexive comprehension, and our grammatical models of reflexive binding. First, it suggests that the adoption of a long-distance interpretation in English does not reflect a processing “error”, but rather the function of a grammatically available, but otherwise dispreferred, alternative (c.f. Parker & Phillips, 2017). Second, it assigns a processing-based explanation to the fact that English speakers generally do not take such interpretations, rather than a grammatical one. Finally, the proposed model is more consistent with a specification of Binding Theory in terms of locality and c-command, rather than predicates, supporting recent theoretical work on French (Charnavel & Sportiche, 2016) which has reached similar conclusions.

LingPhil Reading Group 12/11 - Matt Mandelkern (Oxford)

Speaker: Matt Mandelkern (Oxford)
Title: Constructing the conditional
Date and time: Monday, December 11, 1-2pm
Location: 32-D769
Abstract:

I argue, contra the dominant line in the linguistics literature, that conditionals validate Conditional Excluded Middle in full generality, and invalidate Duality:

Conditional Excluded Middle: ‘If p, q, or if p, not q’ is always true

Duality: ‘If p, q iff Not: if p, might not q’

I argue that we can, however, give a semantics for conditionals which makes these predictions, without abandoning the insights of Kratzer’s restrictor analysis.

LingPhil Reading Group 12/4 - on Pietroski 2015

Title: Discussion of Pietroski 2015: Framing Event Variables
Date and time: Monday December 4, 1-2pm
Location: 7th Floor Seminar room
Abstract:

I find myself writing two papers that are due around the same time. This one develops an objection, based on Davidson’s (1967a) analysis of action reports, to truth-theoretic accounts of linguistic meaning. The other one is about the relevance of Liar Paradoxes for such accounts; see Pietroski (forthcoming). In both papers, the first numbered sentence is (1).

(1) The first numbered sentence in “Framing Event Variables ” is false.

But here, (1) is simply a reminder of a familiar difficulty for the idea that declarative sentences of a Human Language have truth conditions; where for these purposes, a Human Language is a spoken or signed language that any biologically normal child can acquire given an ordinary course of linguistic experience. In my view, (2) and (3) present further difficulties for this idea.

(2) Alvin chased Theodore gleefully and athletically but not skillfully.

(3) Theodore chased Alvin gleelessly and unathletically but skillfully.

Following Davidson and others, I think action reports have “eventish ” logical forms like (2a-3a).

(2a) ∃e[Chased(e, Alvin, Theodore) & Gleeful(e) & Athletic(e) & ~Skillful(e)]

(3a) ∃e[Chased(e, Theodore, Alvin) & Gleeless(e) & Unathletic(e) & Skillful(e)]

We can stipulate that these existential generalizations—sentences of an invented language—have recursively specifiable truth conditions, and that ‘Chased(e, x, y)’ is true of <α, β, γ> if and only if α was an event of β chasing γ. But as we’ll see, there are good reasons for denying that (2) and (3) exhibit the specified truth conditions. There are potential replies. But I argue that they are implausible, especially given the many independent illustrations (e.g., via Kahneman and Tversky) of how human judgments are affected by linguistic framing.

The discussion will be led by Christopher Baron.

LingLunch 12/7 - Suzana Fong (MIT)

Speaker: Suzana Fong (MIT)
Title: A featural and edge-based analysis of hyper-raising
Date and time: Thursday, December 7, 12:30-1:50pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: 

Hyper-raising (HR) consists in raising a subject of an embedded finite clause into the subject or object position in the embedding clause (Ura 1994, Tanaka 2002, Yoon 2007, Nunes 2008, Halpert & Zeller 2015, Halpert 2016, Bondarenko 2017, Deal 2017, Zyman 2017, a.o.). Because the clause a DP hyper-raises from is a finite CP, this introduces a challenge to common assumptions about the phasehood of this type of domain. Moreover, both the position a DP hyper-raises from and the landing site in the matrix clause are case-marked. This introduces a challenge to common assumptions about case assignment.

To circumvent the phase problem, I follow van Urk (2015)’s featural definition of syntactic positions. Specifically, I propose that the complementizer of HR sentences has A-features (i.e. not A-bar). The A-features in the HR complementizer trigger the movement of the subject to the edge of the embedded clause, [Spec, CP] (cf. Tanaka 2002, Takeuchi 2010, Zyman 2017, a.o.). As a consequence of being at the edge of a phase, the embedded subject is accessible to a probe in the dominating phase. This allows the embedded finite subject to be accessed by a matrix probe (T or v).

The postulation of features in C will be argued for by HR to object in Mongolian. As first discussed by Hiraiwa (2005) and Bondarenko (2017) regarding Japanese and Buryat, respectively, an embedded finite subject can receive accusative case while remaining in the embedded clause. I will call ‘medial-raising’ this variety of HR, where the accusative subject does not exit the embedded clause. In a canonical, non-HR sentence, if the embedded nominative subject contains a locally-bound reflexive, the reflexive cannot be bound by the matrix subject. However, in the medial-raised counterpart, binding is possible. [Spec, CP] is a position that can account for the dual properties of medial-raising: it is still inside the embedded clause, but it extends the binding domain of the medial-raised subject, and allows it to receive accusative case from the matrix v. [Spec, CP] will also be relevant to provide an explanation to the interaction between HR and (seemingly) long distance scrambling in Mongolian.

Also following van Urk (2015), I assume that probes can also come in a composite, A/A-bar variety. If HR is triggered by A-features in C and if there can be composite probes, we may expect for there to be an instance of HR that is triggered by composite probes. I tentatively analyze data from Kipsigis and Imbabura Quechua as this type of HR. In these languages, what seems to undergo HR is an embedded argument that is lower than the subject. This creates an additional minimality problem. If this lower argument bears the features that the composite probe in C is looking for, while the subject does not, the minimality question is avoided.

To circumvent the case problem, I first try to show that HR consists of a multiple case checking (Béjar & Massam 1999, a.o.). I propose that the same DP can be assigned more than one case, as long as it is able to move from one domain of case assignment into another (cf. Levin 2016). Under this view, we can characterize HR as an instance of movement across domains of case assignment.

Ling-Lunch 11/30 - Michelle Yuan (MIT)

Speaker: Michelle Yuan (MIT)
Title: Anaphors and antipassives in Inuktitut
Date and time: Thursday, November 30th, 12:30-1:50pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: 

The Anaphor Agreement Effect (AAE) refers to the cross-linguistic (possibly universal) inability for anaphors to be cross-referenced with co-varying phi-agreement (Rizzi 1990, et seq.). In this talk, I investigate the AAE in Inuktitut (Inuit; Eskimo-Aleut) as a window into its antipassive construction and clause structure more generally. It has been claimed that the Inuit languages avoid phi-agreement with anaphoric objects by resorting to the antipassive construction, which demotes the object to an oblique (Woolford 1999; Sundaresan 2015). However, a closer look reveals that the interaction of anaphors and antipassives in Inuktitut is both more nuanced and more complex than previously assumed.

Despite surfacing with identical case morphology, I argue that anaphors enter the derivation with inherent case, while true (non-anaphoric) antipassive objects receive structural Case (building on Spreng 2006, 2012). Thus, Inuktitut obviates the AAE by enclosing its anaphors in a PP layer, not by antipassivization. Evidence for this distinction comes from the possibility of case stacking on anaphors (not otherwise possible in Inuktitut), as well as from the parallel behaviour of phi-agreement and verbal antipassive morphology in anaphoric contexts. I also explore the wider implications of this analysis for Inuktitut clause structure and argument licensing.

MIT Colloquium 12/1 - Nina Sumbatova (RSUH)

Speaker: Nina Sumbatova (Russian State University for the Humanities)
Title: Referential, Radical Alliterative, and other uncommon instances of gender agreement
Time: Friday, December 1st, 3:30-5pm
Place: 32-155
Abstract:

According to the widely cited definition by Charles Hockett, “genders are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words” (Hockett 1958: 231). In other words, genders are defined via agreement. At the same time, in most languages with gender systems, the speakers cannot determine the gender of an arbitrary noun neither by its meaning nor by any formal properties – it is a lexical feature of the noun and should be kept in the lexicon.

However, there is a whole number of languages whose gender systems are described as totally semantic as well as some languages where (almost) all nouns are assigned to particular genders by applying some simple and highly regular formal rules. In this talk, I shall discuss some languages of these two types.

First, I shall present the data of Dargwa (East Caucasian), a language with a “semantic” gender system. I hope to show that gender assignment in Dargwa is rather based on the properties of the NP referents than on the lexical features of the nouns.

Second, I shall discuss the possibility of systems where gender is assigned solely by a set of rules and probably does need to be stored in the lexicon. The language of Landuma (Mel < Niger-Congo) is a unique example of a language where the choice of agreement markers seems to be conditioned by a purely phonological rule. The “gender” system in Landuma needs a serious discussion, since it looks as a violation of the well-known principle of phonology-free syntax (Zwicky 1969; Zwicky, Pullum 1986, etc.).

The data of Dargwa and Landuma were obtained in course of fieldwork in Daghestan (Russian Federation) and in the Republic of Guinea, respectively.

LingPhil Reading Group 11/20 - on Koev (under review)

Title: Discussion of Koev (under review): Parentheticality and Assertion Strength
Date and time: Monday November 20, 1-2pm
Location: 7th Floor Seminar room
Abstract:

The traditional picture in linguistics and philosophy is that descriptive content and illocutionary force are cleanly separated. This paper argues that this orthodoxy is incorrect: descriptive content can modify the strength of the main assertion of the sentence, thus blurring the boundary between semantics and pragmatics. One prominent such case are sentences with SLIFTING PARENTHETICALS (e.g. The dean, Jill said, greeted the secretary; Ross 1973), which grammaticalize an intriguing interaction between compositional meaning and speech act function. In such sentences, the main clause (the non-parenthetical part of the sentence) pragmatically depends on the parenthetical, which provides evidential information. The discourse effect of this setup is that slifting parentheticals modulate the strength with which the main clause is asserted (cf. Urmson 1952; Asher 2000; Rooryck 2001; Jayez & Rossari 2004; Davis et al. 2007; Simons 2007; Murray 2014; Maier & Bary 2015; AnderBois 2016; Hunter 2016). Building on Lewis (1976) and Davis et al. (2007), this paper develops a probabilistic dynamic model that captures the role of parentheticality as a language tool for qualifying commitments. The model also derives three properties that set apart slifting sentences from regular embedding constructions (e.g. Jill said that the dean greeted the secretary), i.e. (i) the fact that slifting parentheticals invariably express upward-entailing operators, (ii) the fact that they modify root clauses and do not occur in subordinate clauses, and (iii) the fact that slifted claims are more difficult to reject or doubt by the speaker than claims expressed in complement clauses.

The discussion will be lead by Maša

Phonology Circle 11/20 - Koichi Tateishi (Kobe College & MIT)

Speaker: Koichi Tateishi (Kobe College & MIT), joint work with Shinobu Mizuguchi (Kobe University)
Title: Focus Prosody in Japanese Reconsidered
Date/Time: Monday, 20 November 2017, 5:00-6:30pm
Location: 32-D831
Abstract:
This study, a part of ongoing joint project on production/perception of Japanese intonation and focus, discusses topics that have hardly been touched upon in relation to them. Most previous studies on Japanese accent and pitch have focused on mechanisms of accentuation, how lexical accents manipulate pitch/F0, how intonation patterns are parsed into prosodic phrases, and how focus affects intonational patterns and prosodic phrasing. However, except for sporadic mention by, for example, Pierrehumbert and Beckman (1988), Selkirk and Tateishi (1988, 1991), Sugahara (2003), and Ishihara (2011a), the discussions are solely on accented words and Downstep (Catathesis), and discussions on unaccented words are hardly found. In this study, we did preliminary experiments on perception/production of focus under various accentual conditions, to examine whether the so-called effects of focus in Japanese (and other languages perhaps) apply to other accentual environments. Due to the preliminary nature of our study, we do not intend to say that the points below are valid, but our interim conclusion is a very moderate one, namely that our results accord with what has been being said about the effects of focus in recent years (Ishihara (2003, 2011ab, 2016, 2017), Sugahara (2003), among others), with several findings that may be novel.
  1. An unaccented prosodic phrase also undergoes Focal Boost of F0, which means that focal prosody is not an accent.
  2. Related to this, the boost of F0 due to focus is not so strong that it nullifies previous F0-manipulating effects, such as Downstep. (Ishihara (2003), Shinya (1999))
  3. Because of the Boost and other factors (such as Lowering of F0 due to GIVENness), Downstep-like effects CAN be observed after an unaccented word with focus. (somehow related to Sugahara’s (2003) results, but a little different)
  4. When there is a string of enough length with GIVEN information contents, there appears to be PRE-focal lowering. This lowering appears to lower the pitch of the focus following it. (There have been studies on GIVEN strings AFTER focus, but not BEFORE in our understanding.)
  5. Given 1.-4., the manipulation of F0 by focus is affected by so many factors, and perhaps it is not appropriate to say that focus initiates a new Major Phrase (or Phonological Phrase). (Ishihara’s series of work)

LFRG 11/22 - Moshe Bar-Lev - rescheduled to 11/29

LF Reading Group meeting with a talk from Moshe Bar-Lev on Homogeneity will take place on November 29th 1-2pm.

LingPhil Reading Group 11/13 - on Romero & Han 2004

Title: Discussion of Romero & Han 2004: On Negative Yes/No Questions
Date and time: Monday November 13, 1-2pm
Location: 7th Floor Seminar room
Abstract:

Preposed negation yes/no (yn)-questions like Doesn’t John drink? necessarily carry the implicature that the speaker thinks John drinks, whereas non-preposed negation yn-questions like Does John not drink? do not necessarily trigger this implicature. Furthermore, preposed negation yn-questions have a reading “double-checking” p and a reading “double-checking” ≠ p, as in Isn’t Jane coming too? and in Isn’t Jane coming either? respectively. We present other yn-questions that raise parallel implicatures and argue that, in all the cases, the presence of an epistemic conversational operator VERUM derives the existence and content of the implicature as well as the p/≠ p-ambiguity.

The discussion will be led by Milica.

Phonology Circle 11/13 - Erin Olson (MIT)

Speaker: Erin Olson (MIT)
Title: Influence of schwa duration on stress/pitch patterns in Passamaquoddy
Date/Time: Monday, 13 November, 5:00-6:30pm
Location: 32-D831
Abstract:

Passamaquoddy-Maliseet (Eastern Algonquian; Maine and New Brunswick) is well-known for the fact that reduced vowels are in many cases invisible to the stress/pitch accent system (LeSourd 1988, 1993; Hagstrom 1995). While previous analyses have assumed that this invisibility is due to some sort of structural deficiency of these vowels, I assume that it is at least in part due to the phonetics of stress/pitch accent. I will present a preliminary phonetic study of pitch and vowel duration in the language, based on data from the Passamaquoddy-Maliseet Dictionary Project (Language Keepers & Passamaquoddy-Maliseet Dictionary Project 2016). I will show that the syllables marked as stressed in the literature crucially involve a rise in pitch, and I hypothesize that the odd behaviour of schwa can be derived from the fact that it is too short to host either this rise in pitch or a fall from one pitch to the next. A brief sketch of this hypothesis in OT is provided.

Syntax Square 11/14 - Michelle Yuan (MIT)

Speaker: Michelle Yuan (MIT)
Title: Last Resort licensing in Inuktitut
Date and time: Tuesday November 14, 1-2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: 

The traditional Case Filter (Chomsky 1981, et seq.) regulates the syntactic distribution of nominal arguments; nominals cannot appear in positions where they are inaccessible for licensing (e.g. Case assignment). It has also been argued that nominals in such positions may nonetheless be later licensed by a Last Resort mechanism that rescues the derivation. In much of this literature, Last Resort Case assignment is modeled as the countercyclic insertion of a Case-bearing head directly onto the nominal in question (e.g. Harley & Noyer 1998, Rezac 2011, Levin 2015, van Urk 2015).

I argue for the existence of this kind of Last Resort Case assignment in Inuktitut (Eskimo-Aleut), thus providing evidence in favour of this idea more generally. Along the way, I also show how this analysis sheds light on various other aspects of Inuktitut morphosyntax. In Inuktitut, regular nominal licensing strategies may be blocked or disrupted in certain environments. When this happens, these nominals uniformly receive a certain kind of oblique case. Crucially, this oblique case morphology must be countercyclically inserted once the clause structure has been fully built. In Inuktitut, this derivational logic is particularly transparent: phi-agreement, the language’s regular nominal licensing strategy, is in C0, meaning that failure to license a lower nominal via phi-agreement can only be seen once the CP layer is Merged. Finally, I argue that, despite surface similarities, this Last Resort Case-insertion process is distinct from default case (e.g. Schutze 2001).

LF Reading Group 11/15 - Tanya Bondarenko (MIT)

Speaker: Tanya Bondarenko (MIT)
Title: Results, Repetitives and Datives: towards an account of the crosslinguistic variation
Date and time: Wednesday November 15, 4-5pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:

Repetitive adverbs like ‘again’ are ambiguous in sentences with dative (= indirect) arguments in some languages (ex., in English, (1)), but not in others (ex., in Russian, (2)):

(1) Thilo gave Satoshi the map again.
REP(etitive): ‘Thilo gave Satoshi the map again, and that had happened before.’
RES(titutive): ‘Thilo gave Satoshi the map, and Satoshi had had the map before.’
(Beck & Johnson 2004: 113)

(2) Maša opjat’ otdala Vase kartu.
Masha.NOM again gave Vasja.DAT map.ACC
REP(etitive): ‘Masha gave Vasja the map, and that had happened before.’
RES(titutive): *’Masha gave Vasja the map, and Vasja had had the map before.’

Following the structural ambiguity approach to repetitives ((von Stechow 1996), (Beck 2005), among others), I will argue that the availability of the restitutive reading in constructions with dative arguments depends on the syntactic configuration. The restitutive reading in ditransitives has been previously attributed either to presence of a small clause in the structure (Beck & Johnson 2004), or on the presence of an applicative phrase (Bruening 2010). I will explore another hypothesis: that the restitutive reading arises due to existence of a prepositional phrase in the structure.

Ling-Lunch 11/16 - Tom Roeper (UMass-Amherst)

Speaker: Tom Roeper (UMass-Amherst)
Title: Strict Syntax/Semantic Interfaces and Ellipsis: an explanatory role for acquisition theory
Date and time: Thursday November 16, 12:30-1:50pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: 

It has often been said that linguistic theory should account for acquisition. Modern work extends this claim to the more important goal: account for steps on the acquisition path itself, where micro-operations are often visible. The abstract claim has particular relevance when it can resolve long-standing questions in theory. We show that the acquisition path for ellipsis must entail a shift from an Open Interface, dependent upon inference, to a Strict Syntax/semantic Interface which involves a perfect correspondence of syntax and semantics and minimizes pragmatics:

Strict Interface Hypothesis: The acquisition device assumes that there should be an isomorphic connection between LF-semantics, syntax, and phonology.

This is based upon an acquisition principle:

Minimization Goal: Minimize pragmatic inference and maximize the information determined by explicit grammar.

One tradition, epitomized in the work of Hardt (1999), claims that a broad empty category like pro and general cognitive biases toward parallelism (Jackendoff and Culicover (2005)) are needed to account for ellipsis. Another tradition is captured in Kennedy’s (2008) Syntax-Semantics Identity Hypothesis:

A recovered syntactic representation generates an LF form with variables that allow sloppy readings.

Merchant (2015, to appear) and Craenenburg (2014) argue for a “hybrid” account which is theoretically unsatisfying. They claim the system is strict, but then the system assumes pronominal forms (or just do that) when necessary. The literature has also shown an ongoing debate about less than full reconstruction in syntactic representations, given various deviations known as “mismatches”. The acquisition path perspective makes this outcome natural.

The empirical basis of this argument works with evidence about VP ellipsis, NP-ellipsis, and Partitive interpretation. Children overgenerate possible reconstructions beyond sloppy identity and then must somehow retreat. eg. They allow John patted his dog and so did his grandfather to mean grandfather pats an uncle’s dog. This creates a learnability problem since interpretations both include and exceed the adult grammar. Evidence on early VP-ellipsis from Santos, and Wijnen and Roeper (2003) on NP-ellipsis and Hulk and Schleeman (2014) on partitives, and Perez et al (to appear) on empty pro objects support this account.

The acquisition path claim is: Children will step by step, following Minimize Pragmatics, replace a pronominal representation with an explicit syntactic representation and a fixed link to semantic representations.

This Strict Interface perspective is deliberately much more stringent than a claim that interfaces involve “Third Factor” effects (Chomsky (2005) which weakens learnability. A big challenge is to develop a notation that makes the connection transparent and simple for the child and natural within UG.

CompLang 11/16 - David Alvarez Melis (MIT CSAIL)

Speaker: David Alvarez Melis (MIT CSAIL)
Title: Interpretability for black-box sequence-to-sequence models
Date/Time: Thursday, November 16th, 5:00-6:30pm
Location: 46-5165
Abstract:

Most current state-of-the-art models for sequence-to-sequence NLP tasks have complex architectures and millions —if not billions—of parameters, making them practically black-box systems. Such lack of transparency can limit their applicability to certain domains and can hamper our ability to diagnose and correct their flaws. Popular black-box interpretability approaches are inapplicable to this context since they assume scalar (or categorial) outputs. In this work, we propose a model to interpret the predictions of any black-box structured input-structured output model around a specific input-output pair. Our method returns an “explanation” consisting of groups of input-output tokens that are causally related. These dependencies are inferred by querying the black-box model with perturbed inputs, generating a graph over tokens from the responses, and solving a partitioning problem to select the most relevant components. We focus the general approach on sequence-to-sequence problems, adopting a variational autoencoder to yield meaningful input perturbations. We test our method across several NLP sequence generation tasks.

MIT Colloquium 11/17 - Michelle Sheehan (Anglia Ruskin)

Speaker: Michelle Sheehan (Anglia Ruskin)
Title: Different routes to partial control: German/English = French + Icelandic
Time: Friday, November 17th, 3:30-5:00 pm
Venue: 32-155
Abstract:
 
One of the biggest challenges to the movement theory of control (Hornstein 1999, et seq.) is the existence of partial control (PC), whereby (descriptively speaking) big PRO denotes the controller plus some other contextually given individual(s) (Landau 2000, 2003, 2004):
 
  1. Johni wants PROi+ to part company now. 
Early accounts of this phenomenon attribute it to an imperfect control relation between the controller and PRO, mediated by C, which allows PRO to be syntactically singular but semantically plural (Landau 2000, 2004). More recent accounts, however, recognise the problems such an account and attribute PC to either the semantics of attitude predicates (Pearson 2013, 105, Landau 2015) or the presence of an associative marker on the embedded predicate (Landau 2016). On the latter kinds of approaches, note, PC seems less problematic for the movement theory of control. Moreover, Boeckx, Hornstein and Nunes (2010) propose an account of PC which is straightforwardly compatible with the movement theory of control: PC involves exhaustive control with a covert comitative.
 
In this paper, I give experimental data from a number of languages to show that PC remains problematic for the movement theory of control in some (but not all) languages. That is to say that PC is not a uniform phenomenon. While there are languages in which PC does reduce to exhaustive control plus a covert comitative (French), there are also languages in which it only sometimes does (German, English, European Portuguese) and others in which it never does (Icelandic, Russian). There are thus two types of PC, which I label fake PC and true PC. Moreover, in instances of true PC in languages with rich case/agreement morphology, we can see that PRO is actually plural in instances of true PC, and also that it has its own case specification. This raises serious problems for the claim that control is always derived via movement.
 
As a solution to this puzzle, I propose that there are two syntactic routes to control: movement and failed movement. Where a complement CP lacks case/phi-features, an argument in spec TP is indeed free to move to the thematic domain of the matrix clause, according to PIC2 (Chomsky 2001). This gives rise to an exhaustive control reading. Following van Urk and Richards (2015), however, I claim that where the complement CP has case/phi-features, as it can in Icelandic, Russian, European Portuguese and German, this movement is blocked as the clause is an intervener. In such cases, a matrix thematic head can only agree with an embedded subject, but the latter cannot move. A distinct DP is therefore externally merged with that thematic head. At PF, the two arguments form a partial chain, leading to deletion of the lower copy and at LF the two arguments are required to be non-distinct, leading to partial control. 
 
An extended abstract is also available.

LingPhil Reading Group 11/6 - on Cariani 2013

Title: Discussion of Cariani 2013: `Ought’ and Resolution Semantics
Date and time: Monday November 6, 1-2pm
Location: 7th Floor Seminar room
Abstract:

I motivate and characterize an intensional semantics for ‘ought’ on which it does not behave as a universal quantifier over possibilities. My motivational argument centers on taking at face value some standard challenges to the quantificational semantics, especially to the idea that ‘ought’-sentences satisfy the principle of Inheritance. I argue that standard pragmatic approaches to these puzzles are either not sufficiently detailed or unconvincing.

The discussion will be led by David.

Syntax Square 11/7 - Andrew Peters (University of Toronto)

Speaker: Andrew Peters (University of Toronto)
Title: Keeping Finiteness Syntactic: Propositions, bare events and the lack of a finite distinction in Mandarin Chinese
Date and time: Tuesday November 7, 1-2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: 

Lacking morphological diagnostics, arguments for or against the presence of a finiteness contrast in Mandarin Chinese (MC) have focused primarily around the distribution of modal verbs and aspectual markers, and the analysis of control and raising. Lin (2011, 2015), for example, posits (1) that MC raising verbs take finite TP complements, control taking non-finite TP complements, (2) that epistemic modals are raising verbs and root modals are control verbs, and (3) that root and epistemic modals’ differing distribution with respect to aspect requires a finiteness distinction. This talk departs from Lin’s argument by positing that the fundamental clause-type distinction in Mandarin is between propositions and bare events. This distinction relies on a PROP(osition) feature (Cowper, 2005; 2016) which I argue is hosted on AspP in Mandarin, and is responsible for taking bare events and returning propositions. Epistemic modals require propositions in their prejacent (Kratzer, 1991; Butler 2003 inter alia), while root modals may take bare events in Mandarin (Grano, 2015). Thus, finiteness may remain a purely syntactic distinction involving the licensing of structural case (Cowper, 2016), and need not be defined semantically. Lacking further evidence for its existence, I posit that there is no finiteness distinction in Mandarin. 

LF Reading Group 11/08 - Verena Hehl (MIT)

Speaker: Verena Hehl (MIT)
Title: From times to worlds
Date and time: Wednesday November 8, 1-2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:

In this work in progress I will examine the meaning of sentences with German eher ’sooner’/’rather’ which exhibits temporal and modal meanings, in light of Gergel’s 2010, a.o. analysis of English rather, taking into account the historical development of both particles. I will develop an analysis for German eher that has at its core the notion of a scale, basically an ordered set of degrees. The degree approach simplifies the formal account of how this particle came to be used in temporal as well as modal domains. Temporal and modal readings of eher have in common that they consist of a gradable property which combines with a comparative morpheme. They are, however, distinguished in terms of the scale they operate on, leading to different LF attachment sites for the temporal vs. the modal reading.

LingPhil Reading Group 10/30 - on Jacobson 1995

Title: Discussion of Jacobson 1995: On the Quantificational Force of English Free Relatives
Date and time: Monday October 30, 1-2pm
Location: 7th Floor Seminar room
Abstract:

The late 70’s and early 80’s witnessed considerable debate as to the correct syntactic analysis of free relatives in English and other languages with a similar construction: is the internal structure of an NP free relative basically like that of an ordinary NP, or is its internal structure instead like that of other wh constituents such as wh questions? The underlying concern surrounding this debate was whether the gap in a free relative could be analyzed as the result of wh movement; this question in turn, of course, bore on the status of Subjacency and on the feasibility of reducing a large class of phenomena to wh movement. But the correct syntactic analysis of free relatives also has significant implications for the syntax/semantics map and for the theory of NP meanings, and it is to this question that this paper is addressed. In particular, I wikk present some ecidence suggesting that English free relatives do indeed have the internal strcture of other wh constituents — they contain no overt lexical head and therefore also contain no overt quantificational element.1 Just how and why, then, du these have NP-type meanings and — given the claim that there is no overt lexical quantifier — what is it that supplies them with their particular quantificational force?

The discussion will be led by Kelly.

Phonology Circle 10/30 - Michael Kenstowicz (MIT)

Speaker: Michael Kenstowicz (MIT)
Title: The Accent of Surnames in Kyengsang Korean: A Study in Analogy
Date/Time: Monday, October 30th, 5:00-6:30pm 
Location: 32-D831
Abstract:
(Joint work with Hyang-Sook Sohn)

The canonical Korean name consists of a monosyllabic surname followed by a disyllabic given name: Kim, Yu-na. The surname is normally not used alone and must be combined with a given name or title. As a result, underlying contrasts among high, low, and rising accents are partially neutralized in this phrasal context. This presentation reports and analyzes the tonal contours that arise when Kyengsang speakers are tasked with inflecting the surname by itself (Kim, Yu-na -> Kim, Kim-i, Kim-ɨl, etc.)—a type of wug-test. The results suggest that speakers take recourse to the most reliable rules underlying the lexical distribution of the accents relative to specific strata of the lexicon as well as to default rules of word-level inflection.

Syntax Square 10/31 - Rafael Abramovitz (MIT)

Speaker: Rafael Abramovitz (MIT)
Title: Verb-stranding vP Ellipsis in Russian: Evidence from unpronounced subjects
Date and time: Tuesday October 31, 1-2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: 

In this presentation of work in progress, I contribute to the debate on the status of verb-stranding verb phrase ellipsis (VVPE) in Russian with novel evidence from the interpretation of unpronounced subjects. I argue that a heretofore unnoticed construction involving a silent subject in clauses embedded under an attitude verb is the result of VVPE, supporting Gribanova (2013, 2017)’s conclusion that Russian has this type of ellipsis, contra Erteschik-Shir et. al. (2013) and Bailyn (2014). Based on a surprising ban on quantificational elements in the subject of the ellipsis sites, I propose a modification to Takahashi and Fox (2005)’s definition of parallelism domains to allow them to contain certain instances of unbound traces. The ban on quantificational subjects, as well as vehicle change from R-expressions to pronouns (Fiengo and May 1994), follows naturally from this modification.

LF Reading Group 11/01 - Frank Staniszewski (MIT)

Speaker: Frank Staniszewski (MIT)
Title: Modal ambiguity and neg-raising
Date and time: Wednesday November 1, 1-2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:

In a constrained range of environments, some modal operators appear to show an ambiguity in modal force between weak (existential) readings and strong (universal) readings. In English, this weak/strong ambiguity has been discussed with respect to For-Infinitival Relative clauses (Hackl and Nissenbaum (2010)). In this presentation based on work-in-progress, I will examine additional environments in which modal ambiguity can be detected. These include modal mismatches in sluicing (Klein (1985), Merchant (2001), Rudin (2017)), as well as instances in which weaker than expected meanings for want and should can satisfy the presupposition of anymore (based on observations by Keny Chatain p.c.). I will explore the hypothesis that these ambiguities are the result of an underlying weak semantics for the modal operators in question, and that this is the also source of their strengthened ‘neg-raised’ meanings under negation.

Ling-Lunch 11/2 - Asia Pietraszko (UConn)

Speaker: Asia Pietraszko (UConn)
Title: Obligatory clause nominalization in Ndebele
Date and time: Thursday November 2, 12:30-1:50pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: 

Clausal DP shells (CPs embedded directly in a DP) have been argued to have a different distribution than bare CPs (e.g. in-situ vs derived sentential subjects), which in turn led to treatments of clausal DP shell as a last resort phenomenon (e.g. Hartman 2012). In this talk, I present evidence for the existence of obligatory clausal DP shell. In Ndebele, a Bantu language of Zimbabwe, DP-contained CPs appear in non-derived positions, rendering the last resort status of a clausal DP shell unlikely in this language. Furthermore, I show that a DP shell must appear even in contexts where it is problematic, namely in N-complement clauses and relative clauses (Ndebele does not allow adnominals of category D). Instead of “dropping” the DP-shell in those contexts, extra functional structure is necessary to combine the clause with the head noun.

LingPhil Reading Group 10/23 - on Fodor & Sag 1982

Title: Discussion of Fodor & Sag 1982: Referential and Quantificational Indefinites
Date and time: Monday October 23, 1-2pm
Location: 7th Floor Seminar room
Abstract:

The formal semantics that we have proposed for definite and indefinite descriptions analyzes them both as variable-binding operators and as referring terms. It is the referential analysis which makes it possible to account for the facts outlined in Section 2, e.g. for the purely instrumental role of the descriptive content; for the appearance of unusually wide scope readings relative to other quantifiers, higher predicates, and island boundaries; for the fact that the island-escaping readings are always equivalent to maximally wide scope quantifiers; and for the appearance of violations of the identity conditions on variables in deleted constituents. We would emphasize that this is not a random collection of observations. They cohere naturally with each other, and with facts about other phrases that are unambigously referential. We conceded at the outset of this paper that the referential use of an indefinite noun phrase does not, by itself, motivate the postulation of a referential interpretation. Our argument has been that the behavior of indefinites in complex sentences cannot be economically described, and certainly cannot be explained, unless a referential interpretation is assumed. It could be accounted for in pragmatic terms only if the whole theory of scope relations and of conditions on deletion could be eliminated from the semantics and incorporated into a purely pragmatic theory. But this seems unlikely.

The discussion will be led by Keny.

Phonology Circle 10/23 - Edward Flemming (MIT)

Speaker: Edward Flemming (MIT)
Title: Stochastic Harmonic Grammars
Date/Time: Monday, 23 October, 5:00-6:30pm 
Location: 32-D831
Abstract:

MaxEnt grammars have become the tool of choice for analyzing phonological phenomena involving variation or gradient acceptability. MaxEnt grammars are a probabilistic form of Harmonic Grammar in which harmony scores (sums of weighted constraint violations) of candidates are mapped onto probabilities (Goldwater & Johnson 2003). But MaxEnt grammar is not the only proposal for deriving probabilities from Harmonic Grammars – one alternative is Noisy Harmonic Grammar (Boersma & Pater 2016), in which variation is derived by adding random ‘noise’ to constraint weights, and further variants of this scheme are discussed by Hayes (2017). I will report on an investigation into the properties of these stochastic grammar formalisms, with the ultimate goal of identifying predictions that could be used to evaluate them empirically.

In spite of the superficial differences between MaxEnt and Noisy Harmonic Grammar, they can both be formulated as NHGs where the noise is added to the harmony scores of each candidate. This common format facilitates analysis and comparison of the two formalisms. The differences identified are difficult to assess empirically, but in the absence of evidence in favor of NHG, MaxEnt is to be preferred for its simplicity and tractability.

 

Syntax Square 10/24 - Sherry Chen (MIT)

Speaker: Sherry Chen (MIT)
Title: Double topicalization, I find really interesting
Date and time: Tuesday October 24, 1-2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: 

Whether Chinese topics are syntactically constrained remains a debatable issue. In this talk, I present on-going work suggesting that in double topicalization constructions, the base- generated topic must precede the moved topic, and if both topics are derived via movement, the two intersecting movement paths must be in a “nested” relation (i.e. the Path Contain ment Constraint, Pesetsky (1982)). This challenges the view that Chinese topics are only constrained by a semantic “aboutness” relation with the comment clause (cf. Xu and Lan- gendoen, 1985), and provides new cross-linguistic evidence for PCC effects (see Appendix).

For the second part of this talk, I discuss a new puzzle regarding topicalization in embedded environments. Specifically, I observe that for certain predicates in non-asserted contexts (Hooper & Thompson, 1973; Miyagawa, to appear), embedded topicalization is possible only if the matrix subject binds a pronoun or a reflexive ziji in the embedded clause. 

Ling-Lunch 10/26 - Deniz Özyıldız (UMass-Amherst)

Speaker: Deniz Özyıldız (UMass-Amherst)
Title: The interaction between factivity and prosodic structure in Turkish attitude reports
Date/Time: Thursday, October 26, 12:30-1:50pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:

This talk articulates two puzzles raised by the interaction between the availability of the factive inference in Turkish attitude reports, and their prosodic structure.

Puzzle 1: Where is a trigger?
For a class of attitude reports, we observe the following contrast. 1a) and 1b) are string identical. The position of the sentences Nuclear Pitch Accent (on the matrix verb in 1a), on the embedded object in 1b), seems to correlate with the availability of the factive inference (available in 1a), unavailable in 1b)).

1a) Aybike [Dilara’nin Ankara’da oldugunu] BILIYOR.
  Aybike Dilara.GEN Ankara.LOC be.NMZ know.PRES
  Aybike knows that Dilara is in Ankara (factive).

1b) Aybike [Dilara’nin ANKARA’da oldugunu] biliyor.
  Aybike Dilara.GEN Ankara.LOC be.NMZ know.PRES
  Aybike believes that Dilara is in Ankara (non-factive).

Faced with this contrast, we must ask: Is it the prosodic structure of an attitude report that is driving the availability of the factive inference? Or is it the availability of the factive inference that has an effect on prosodic structure? The former option is appealing, but I argue for the latter. 1a) and 1b) are associated with two distinct semantic representations. Prosody follows. But how?

Puzzle 2: Getting from presupposed to given?
In out of the blue contexts, non-factive attitude reports must be realized with embedded NPA.

2a) What’s up?
  Aybike [Dilara’nin ANKARA’da oldugunu] saniyor.
  Aybike Dilara.GEN Ankara.LOC be.NMZ believe.PRES
  Aybike believes that Dilara is in Ankara.

2b) What’s up?
  #Aybike [Dilara’nin Ankara’da oldugunu] SANIYOR.
  (Out because the embedded clause isn’t given.)

On the other hand, in out of the blue contexts, factive attitude reports are realized with matrix verb NPA.

3a) What’s up?
  Aybike [Dilara’nin Ankara’da oldugunu] unuttu.
  Aybike Dilara.GEN Ankara.LOC be.NMZ forget.PST
  Aybike forgot that Dilara is in Ankara.

3b) What’s up?
  #Aybike [Dilara’nin ANKARA’da oldugunu] unuttu.
  (Out because a contrastive interpretation is triggered, but not licensed in context.)

There is mixed evidence as to whether presupposing a proposition p makes the clause that denotes p given (which would explain why the NPA migrates to the matrix verb in 3). Kallulli (2006, 2010) argues that it does. Others argue that presupposition and givenness are two independent dimensions of meaning (Wagner 2012, Rochemont 2016, Buring 2016). Do the Turkish facts offer a way out? We will see.

CompLang 10/26 - Jon Gauthier (MIT BCS)

Speaker: Jon Gauthier (MIT BCS)
Title: What does NLP tell us about language?
Date/Time: Thursday, October 26, 5:00-6:30pm
Location: 46-5165
Abstract:

Many state-of-the-art models in natural language processing achieve top performance in challenging shared tasks while doing little to explicitly model the syntax or semantics of their input. In light of these results, I will attempt to pitch two of my own past projects in natural language processing with a philosophical spin. I first present a model which reduces syntactic understanding to a by-product of more general pressures of semantic accuracy. I next present evolutionary simulations in which word meanings spontaneously arise due to nonlinguistic cooperative pressures. We close with potentially heretical and hopefully interesting discussion on the ideal relationship between AI engineering and cognitive science.

MIT Colloquium 10/27 - Mark Baker (Rutgers)

Speaker: Mark Baker (Rutgers)
Title: Allocutive Agreement and Indexical Shift in Magahi: A Wedge into the Ghostly Operators at the Clausal Edge
Time: Friday, October 27th, 3:30-5pm
Place: 32-155
Abstract:
In this talk I focus on the phenomenon of allocutive agreement in Magahi, an Indo-Aryan language of North Eastern India, and how it interacts with indexical shift.  Allocutive agreement is known to occur in a fairly small set of languages (Basque, Japanese, Tamil, …) in which the finite verb varies in form depending on who the sentence is addressed to.  Like previous researchers, I argue that there is a syntactic representation of the addressee (“Hr”) in the periphery of the clause which can be the goal of an Agree operation.  More specifically, I claim that allocutive agreement in Magahi happens then finite V+T moves (optionally) from T to Fin, where it gains access to Hr.  Unlike other languages, allocutive agreement in Magahi can happen in a wide range of embedded clauses. Interesting in itself, this also makes it possible to study the interaction between allocutive agreement and the phenomenon of indexical shift: using pronouns like “I” and “you” in embedded clauses to refer to the subject and object of the matrix clause.  I show that indexical pronouns in Magahi shift if and only if allocutive agreement shifts. I use this to develop an analysis in which “Hr” (and similarly “Sp”, a representation of the speaker) is the vehicle of indexical shift—not a sui generis nonnominal context shifting operator, as in most previous analyses of indexical shift.  More specifically, indexical shift happens in the special case where the “Hr” of an embedded clause is controlled by the goal argument of a higher clause rather than by the “Hr” of the higher clause, and then binds a second person pronoun in the embedded clause.  This brings the analysis of indexical shift more in line with how logophoric pronouns have been analyzed in West African languages in the tradition of Koopman and Sportiche 1989 (contrary to the distinction drawn between the two by Deal (2017)).  I give further support to the syntactic control-and-binding style analysis of indexical shift by showing that the antecedent of a shifted first person pronoun needs to be not just the semantic author of the content of the embedded clause, but the syntactic subject of the matrix clause in both Magahi and Sakha—parallel to logophoric phenomena and complementizer agreement in Niger-Congo languages.

Ling-Lunch 10/12 - Itai Bassi and Nick Longenbaugh (MIT)

Speaker: Itai Bassi and Nick Longenbaugh (MIT)
Title: Features on bound pronouns: an argument for a semantic approach [NELS practice]
Date/Time: Thursday, October 12, 12:30-1:50pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:

Phi-features (person, gender, number) seem not to be semantically interpreted when they appear on bound pronouns. For example, in (1) the bound “my” appears to contribute an unrestricted variable, rather than a variable restricted to the speaker.

(1) Only I did my homework
(bound reading: no x other than the speaker did x’s homework: for any x)

On one influential approach (Kratzer 1998, Heim 2008, a.o.), bound pronouns enter the derivation without phi-features, which are then transferred to them at PF from the binder. The spelled out phi-features are therefore absent at LF. Recent works (Sauerland 2013, Jacobson 2012, Spathas 2010 a.o.) have taken a more semantic approach which denies this ‘LF-PF mismatch’ view. Those works have argued that phi-features on bound pronouns in cases like (1) do get semantically interpreted, except that they don’t contribute to focus alternatives. This talk provides a novel argument for the semantic approach. The argument comes from the observation that (non-trivial) phi-features appear on donkey pronouns - pronouns that show covariance without c-command:

(2) Only the woman who is dating ME introduced me to her parents
(sloppy reading available)

We show why cases like (2) are a problem for the morpho-syntactic approach and how they are derived on the semantic approach. We further demonstrate how our implementation of the semantic approach is advantageous over the morpho-syntactic approach in accounting for the phenomenon of split binding (Rullmann 2004).

MIT Colloquium 10/13 - Benjamin Spector (CNRS)

Speaker: Benjamin Spector (CNRS)
Title: Plural predication, vagueness and principles of language use
Time: Friday, October 13th, 3:30-5:00 pm
Venue: 32-155
Abstract:

(Based on joint work w/ Manuel Kriz)

The interpretation of plural definites (among others) displays two somewhat unexpected properties: non-maximality and homogeneity.

- Non-maximality refers to the fact that, sometimes, plural definites have less-than-universal quantificational force:

(1) Non-Maximality

[Context: A job interview]
The committee members smiled.
>> Can be appropriately used if, say, 8 out of 10 committee members smiled.

- Homogeneity refers to the fact that plural definites tend to have (near)-universal force in affirmative sentences, but only existential force in the scope of negation:

(2) Homogeneity
(a) John read the books on the reading list.
>> He must have read roughly all of them.
(b) John didn’t read the books on the reading list.
>> He must have read roughly none of them.

These two properties are not restricted to plural definites, but are pervasive over other types of constructions (embedded interrogatives, conditionals, singular predication over complex objects, etc.). They are also both removed when the quantifier ‘all’ is added, as in The committee members all smiled.

We show how, by adopting (a) an underspecified semantics for plural predication making it intrinsically vague, and (b) certain principles of language uses, we can account for both properties in a way that makes very specific and apparently correct predictions. Time-permitting, I will discuss the interactions of homogeneity/non-maximality with binding and quantification.

Ling-Phil Reading Group 10/2 - on Mourelatos 1978

Title: Discussion on Mourelatos 1978: Events, processes, and states
Date and time: Monday October 2, 1-2pm
Location: 7th Floor Seminar room
Abstract:

The familiar Vendler-Kenny scheme of verb-types, viz., performances (further differentiated by Vendler into accomplishments and achievements), activities, and states, is too narrow in two important respects. First, it is narrow linguistically. It fails to take into account the phenomenon of verb aspect. The trichotomy is not one of verbs as lexical types but of predications. Second, the trichotomy is narrow ontologically. It is a specification in the context of human agency of the more fundamental, topic-neutral trichotomy, event-process-state.The central component in this ontological trichotomy, event, can be sharply differentiated from its two flanking components by adapting a suggestion by Geoffrey N. Leech and others that the contrast between perfective and imperfective aspect in verbs corresponds to the count/mass distinction in the domain of nouns. With the help of two distinctions, of cardinal count adverbials versus frequency adverbials, and of occurrence versus associated occasion, two interrelated criteria for event predication are developed. Accordingly, Mary capsized the boat is an event predication because (a) it is equivalent to There was at least one capsizing of the boat by Mary, or (b) because it admits cardinal count adverbials, e.g., at least once, twice, three times. Ontologically speaking, events are defined as those occurrences that are inherently countable.

The discussion will be lead by Christopher.

Phonology Circle 10/2 - Chiyuki Ito (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, ILCAA & MIT)

Speaker: Chiyuki Ito (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, ILCAA & MIT)
Title: A Sociophonetic Study of the Ternary Laryngeal Contrast in Yanbian Korean
Date/Time: Monday, 2 October, 5:00-6:30pm
Location: 32-D831
Abstract:

This paper investigates the three-way tense-lax-aspirated laryngeal contrast for stop consonants in Yanbian Korean. Data from 61 speakers (DoB 1935-1992) finds three phonetic correlates dependent on laryngeal type, place of articulation, tone, gender, age, and sub-dialect. VOT has significantly shortened over apparent time. The difference between lax and tense is relatively small but still distinguished reliably.

We compare our Yanbian result with the sound changes reported for Seoul Korean, and analyze them based on the dispersion theory of contrast (Flemming 2004). We show that both the Yanbian and Seoul Korean developments were motivated by the same mechanism: minimizing articulatory effort (*Long VOT) while maximizing the number of contrasts (Maximize Contrasts) and the distinctiveness of contrasts (Mindist=VOT: Xms). An economy constraint (*Over-specify) is postulated to ban the ternary laryngeal contrast in the VOT dimension, which is over-differentiated, suggesting a change from ternary → binary distinction.

We point out that another alternative acoustic cue for the relevant laryngeal contrast existed before the VOT merger took place in both dialects. Thus, we conclude that Korean never had a laryngeal contrast based solely on the VOT dimension, and that the sound change that occurred in Seoul Korean is not a (typical case of) tonogenesis.

Ling-Lunch 10/5 - Sarah Zobel (Tübingen & MIT)

Speaker: Sarah Zobel (University of Tübingen and MIT)
Title: On the semantic variability of weak adjunct “as”-phrases
Date/Time: Thursday October 5, 12:30-1:50pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:

Stump (1985) discusses the behavior of free adjuncts, like the sentence-initial adjuncts in (1). He observes that certain free adjuncts (which he calls “weak”) are interpreted as restrictors of co-occurring quantifiers (i.e., modals, adverbs of quantification, Gen/Hab), see (1a), while others (which he calls “strong”) only allow for a non-restrictive, causal interpretation, see (1b).

(1) a. Playing with his toys, Peter is often content. (weak)
   (Possible: When Peter is playing with his toys, he is often content.)

 b. Having three toy cars, Peter is often content. (strong)
   (Not possible: When Peter has three toy cars, he is often content.)

My work focuses on English “as”-phrases (and German “als”-phrases), which are weak adjuncts according to Stump’s distinction. Compare (1a) and (2).

(2) As a passenger of Lufthansa, Peter is often content. (weak)
  (Possible: When Peter is a passenger of Lufthansa, he is often content.)

Starting out with a straightforward analysis of the interactions between “as”-phrases and co-occurring operators (inspired by Stump 1985), I take a closer look at the restrictive possibilities of “as”-phrases (and weak adjuncts in general), and I show that these are in fact more restricted than previously assumed.

CompLang 10/5 - Kasia Hitczenko (UMD & MIT)

Speaker: Kasia Hitczenko (UMD & MIT)
Title: Exploring the efficacy of normalization in the acquisition and processing of the Japanese vowel length contrast
Date/Time: Thursday, October 5, 5:00-6:30pm
Location: 46-5165
Abstract:

Infants must learn the sound categories of their language and adults need to map particular acoustic productions they hear to one of those learned categories. These tasks can be difficult because there is often a lot of overlap between the acoustic realizations of different categories that can mask which sounds should be grouped together. Previous work has proposed that this overlap is caused, at least in part, by systematic and predictable sources of variability, and that listeners could learn about the structure of this variability and normalize it out to help learn from and process the incoming sounds. In this work, we further explore this idea of normalization, by applying it to the problem of Japanese vowel length contrast – a contrast that current computational models fail to learn due to high overlap between short and long vowels. We find that, at least in the way it is implemented here, normalizing out systematic variability does not substantially improve categorization performance over leaving acoustics unnormalized. We then present an alternative path forward by showing that a strategy that uses both acoustic cues and non-acoustic top-down information in categorization is better able to separate the short and long vowels.

LPRG 9/25 - on Stone 1994

Title: Discussion on (Stone 1994) The reference argument of epistemic must
Date and time: Monday September 25, 1-2pm
Location: 7th Floor Seminar room
Abstract:

Epistemic must is used to present a conclusion. In this paper, I explore the hypothesis that this should be modeled computationally using the notion of argument presented by Simari and Loui. An utterance of must p in conversational context K is interpreted as asserting that the argument ‹A,p› is justified in K. The parameter A provides a set of reasoning rules which, along with factual premises from which they derive p, must be salient in K for the utterance to be felicitous.

Simari and Loui’s formulation describes a relationship of defeat between arguments. Thus, in this account as in previous ones, the conclusions presented by epistemic must may be defeasible. This proposal improves on previous accounts in three key respects. First, the criterion that the argument be justified ensures that the speaker believes p when uttering must p. Second, the requirement that the speaker intend the hearer to recover the argument helps to explain the distribution and of must in discourse and the accommodation sometimes involved in understanding uses of must. Third, the link between the claim made by must and a specific argument correctly predicts the variation in apparent force of the modal in different contexts: it varies according to the strength of the argument and the speaker’s intentions in providing the argument.

Because this interpretation for must incorporates restrictions based on salience into a frame- work designed to be relatively tractable, it may be uniquely suited for implementation.

The discussion will be lead by Maša Močnik.

Phonology Circle 9/25 - Kasia Hitczenko (UMD & MIT)

Speaker: Kasia Hitczenko (UMD & MIT)
Title: Exploring the efficacy of normalization in the acquisition and processing of the Japanese vowel length contrast
Date/Time: Monday, September 25, 5:00-6:30pm
Location: 32-D831
Abstract:

Infants must learn the sound categories of their language and adults need to map particular acoustic productions they hear to one of those learned categories. These tasks can be difficult because there is often a lot of overlap between the acoustic realizations of different categories that can mask which sounds should be grouped together. Previous work has proposed that this overlap is caused, at least in part, by systematic and predictable sources of variability, and that listeners could learn about the structure of this variability and normalize it out to help learn from and process the incoming sounds. In this work, we further explore this idea of normalization, by applying it to the problem of Japanese vowel length contrast – a contrast that current computational models fail to learn due to high overlap between short and long vowels. We find that, at least in the way it is implemented here, normalizing out systematic variability does not substantially improve categorization performance over leaving acoustics unnormalized. We then present an alternative path forward by showing that a strategy that uses both non-acoustic and acoustic cues to categorize the sounds is better able to separate the short and long vowels.

Ling-Lunch 9/28 - Naomi Francis (MIT)

Speaker: Naomi Francis (MIT)
Title: There’s something odd about presupposition-denying even
Date/Time: Thursday September 28, 12:30-1:50pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract:

This talk will explore a puzzle about even. Even can be used in denials of presuppositions, but only when it is below negation in the surface string, as shown in (1).

1. A: Did Kenji bring his wife to the picnic?
  B: He isn’t even married!
  B’: #He’s even unmarried/a bachelor!

I show that this asymmetry is not straightforwardly reducible to independent properties of even or of presupposition denials, but is instead a property unique to sentences that are both presupposition denials and contain even. I present a solution to this puzzle that makes crucial use of the additive presupposition of even. This presupposition is controversial; I argue that the evidence used to challenge its presence does not show what it is usually claimed to show, and that when examined more closely these data turn out to be an argument in favour of the additive presupposition rather than against it. I show that this asymmetry is not unique to English and sketch crosslinguistic implications of the proposed analysis.

CompLang 9/28 - Ray Jackendoff (Tufts)

Speaker: Ray Jackendoff (Tufts)
Title: Morphology and Memory
Date/Time: Thursday, September 28, 5:00-7:00pm
Location: 46-5165
Abstract:

(in collaboration with Jenny Audring)

We take Chomsky’s term “knowledge of language” very literally. “Knowledge” implies “stored in memory,” so the basic question of linguistics is reframed as

What do you store in memory such that you can use language, and in what form do you store it?

Traditionally – and in standard generative linguistics – what you store is divided into grammar and lexicon, where grammar contains all the rules, and the lexicon is an unstructured list of exceptions. We develop an alternative view in which rules of grammar are lexical items that contain variables, and in which rules have two functions. In their generative function, they are used to build novel structures, just as in traditional generative linguistics. In their relational function, they capture generalizations over stored items in the lexicon, a role not seriously explored in traditional linguistic theory. The result is a lexicon that is highly structured, with rich patterns among stored items.

We further explore the possibility that this sort of structuring is not peculiar to language, but appears in other cognitive domains as well. The differences among cognitive domains are not in this overall texture, but in the materials over which stored relations are defined – patterns of phonology and syntax in language, of pitches and rhythms in music, of geographical knowledge in navigation, and so on. The challenge is to develop theories of representation in these other domains comparable to that for language.