Issue of Monday, November 10th, 2025
Elsewhere 11/13 - Daniar Kasenov (NYU)
Speaker: Daniar Kasenov (NYU)
Title: Nonce word wellformedness and abstract URs: the case of Russian yers
Time: Thursday, November 13th, 5pm - 6pm
Location: 32-D769
Abstract: Nonce word studies are part of the toolbox to probe productivity, especially of non-automatic phonological alternations, such as Russian vowel-zero alternations (Russian yers). Existing work (Gouskova, Becker 2013; Becker, Gouskova 2016) shows that Russian speakers extend phonotactic tendencies regarding which words do and do not undergo the alternations to nonce items. Becker and Gouskova argue that the results support Gouskova’s (2012) diacritic-based account of Russian yers against approaches that rely on abstract contrasts between vowels. In this talk, I wish to explore how a proponent of the abstract UR approach might account for Becker and Gouskova’s results without ignoring the experimental results altogether. I present preliminary results that a simple bigram model over URs and SRs might do the trick (cf. Scheer’s 2019 argument that the effects reported by Becker and Gouskova are “lexical”).
Colloquium - Karthik Durvasula (Michigan State University)
Speaker: Karthik Durvasula (Michigan State University)
Title: “On deriving different types of incomplete neutralisation”
When: Friday, November 14th, 3:30-5pm
Where: 32-141
Abstract:
Research over the last few decades has consistently questioned the sufficiency of abstract/discrete phonological representations based on putative misalignments between predictions from such representations and observed experimental results. Here, I’ll first suggest that many of the arguments ride on misunderstandings of the original claims from generative phonology, and that the typical evidence furnished is consistent with those claims. I’ll then narrow in on the phenomenon of incomplete neutralisation and show again that it is consistent with the classic generative phonology view. I’ll further point out that extant accounts of the phenomenon do not achieve important desiderata and typically do not provide an explanation for either the phenomenon itself, or why there are actually at least two different kinds of incomplete neutralisation that don’t stem from task confounds. Finally, I present new experimental data and our explanation that the phenomenon is an outcome of planning using abstract/discrete phonological knowledge.
LF Reading Group 11/12 - Paul Meisenbichler (MIT)
Speaker: Paul Meisenbichler (MIT)
Title: Reference to individuals across worlds and constraints on de re phenomena
Time: Wednesday, November 12th, 1pm - 2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: In this LFRG, I want to lead a (mostly informal) discussion on the role that counterpart theory (CT, see Lewis 1986) should play in our approaches to de re/de dicto phenomena. The central tenet of CT is the ontological assumption that individuals exist in only one world. In CT, reference across worlds must therefore be established in an indirect way (i.e. as a relation between an individual in one world and its counterparts in other worlds). In some of the recent literature, it has been suggested that blocking (direct) transworld reference could help us understand some well-known constraints on transparent/opaque readings (e.g. Percus (2013), Sauerland (2014), Cable (2018)). I want to explore these proposals and discuss whether adopting a counterpart ontology is a move worth pursuing.
MIT @ GLiP 2025 in Warsaw
A much-missed visitor from the 2024-2025 academic year, Adam Przepiórkowski, organized this year’s meeting of Generative Linguistics in Poland (GLiP), with MIT alums and faculty as invited speakers. Susi Wurmbrand (University of Salzburg) spoke on “Syntax as a function: A Redundancy and Deficiency approach to Grammar within linguistic behavior”; Jonathan Bobaljik (Harvard) spoke about “Old and new objects: Word order and structure in Itelmen”; and David Pesetsky (MIT) gave a talk entitled “Generalized Dependent Case: Towards a maximally sparse theory of passive”.
Adam’s own talk, a joint presentation with colleague Sebastian Zawada, was entitled “Slavic case is not boring: Agreement in Polish copular clauses” (an elegant reply to a side-remark in a famous paper of Jonathan’s that suggested Slavic case might be). David and his fellow alums report that the event, hosted by the Institute of Computer Science at the Polish Academy of Sciences (IPI PAN), was full of interesting papers, and was truly excellent meeting from every perspective.
(photo credit: Adam Przepiórkowski)
LSA Award for alum Kučerová
We were delighted to learn that our illustrious alum Ivona Kučerová (PhD 2007) is the recipient of the 2026 C.L. Baker award from the Linguistic Society of America. To quote from the LSA’s announcement: “The C.L. Baker Award recognizes excellence in research in the area of syntactic theory on the part of a mid-career scholar. [Kučerová’s] research program explores two of the foundational hypotheses in generative syntax: that syntax is autonomous & syntax is derivational.” Congratulations, Ivona!!
Ivona’s website: https://hmcwordpress.humanities.mcmaster.ca/humpages/kucerov/