Speaker: Johanna Alstott (MIT)
Title: On “very”-intensified superlatives
Time: Wednesday, September 11th, 1pm - 2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: Existing literature treats “very” as a prototypical modifier of gradable adjectives (Wheeler 1972; Klein 1980; von Stechow 1984; Kennedy & McNally 2005, a.o.). Focusing on cases like “Sarah is very tall,” these accounts propose that “very” is a standard-booster: while “Al is tall” is true iff Al’s height meets the contextual standard, “Al is very tall” is true iff he meets a higher standard. This talk concerns a previously unanalyzed use of “very”: namely, the productive occurrence of “very” with superlatives (“the very best applicant,” “the very most important day of my life”). On the basis of data with plural superlatives, I propose that “very” in superlative DPs is the same as the “very” we see with positive forms. After arguing for this unified analysis, I show that past theories of “very” and “-est” cannot generate “very X-est.” To fix things, I give a new theory of “very” built on (a) a new theory of comparison classes; (b) Fitzgibbons et al.’s (2008) claim that “-est,” like the positive morpheme “pos,” invokes a standard-degree. The upshot is that “pos” and “-est” not only similarly invoke a standard but have a modifier in common.
Issue of Monday, September 9th, 2024
LF Reading Group 9/11 - Johanna Alstott (MIT)
LingLunch 9/12 - Adam Przepiorkowski (University of Warsaw, Polish Academy of Sciences, MIT)
Speaker: Adam Przepiorkowski (University of Warsaw, Polish Academy of Sciences, MIT)
Title: Towards a Minimalist Theory of Coordination
Time: Thursday, September 12th, 12:30pm - 2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: To say that linguists do not agree on the syntactic structure of coordination is to say very little. Are phrases such as Lisa and Bart endocentric or exocentric? If they are endocentric, are they headed by one of the conjuncts (e.g., Lisa), or by the conjunction (e.g., and)? If they are headed by the conjunction (Conj), is their category ConjP? Or is it perhaps the case that the conjunction takes over some of the features of – “agrees with” – one of the conjuncts, so that Lisa and Bart is effectively an NP rather than a ConjP? Each of these options is implemented in a number of linguistic analyses.
Existing accounts often ignore – or try to explain away – coordination of unlikes: unlike categories (e.g., Bart is a rascal and proud of it), unlike cases (in languages such as Polish), and unlike grammatical functions (e.g., What and when to eat to stay healthy?). In this talk, I’ll argue that direct coordination of unlikes is real and that it provides arguments for the essentially exocentric nature of coordination. I’ll also recall arguments for the flat structure of n-ary coordinations, such as Lisa, Bart, and Maggie. Taken together, these aspects of coordination provide evidence for the existence of a general – not just binary – SetMerge operation in language. I’ll offer some initial thoughts on the nature of this operation, to be more fully developed during my stay at MIT in the coming months.
Speaker: Adam Przepiorkowski (University of Warsaw, Polish Academy of Sciences, MIT)
Title: Towards a Minimalist Theory of Coordination
Time: Thursday, September 12th, 12:30pm - 2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: To say that linguists do not agree on the syntactic structure of coordination is to say very little. Are phrases such as Lisa and Bart endocentric or exocentric? If they are endocentric, are they headed by one of the conjuncts (e.g., Lisa), or by the conjunction (e.g., and)? If they are headed by the conjunction (Conj), is their category ConjP? Or is it perhaps the case that the conjunction takes over some of the features of – “agrees with” – one of the conjuncts, so that Lisa and Bart is effectively an NP rather than a ConjP? Each of these options is implemented in a number of linguistic analyses.
Existing accounts often ignore – or try to explain away – coordination of unlikes: unlike categories (e.g., Bart is a rascal and proud of it), unlike cases (in languages such as Polish), and unlike grammatical functions (e.g., What and when to eat to stay healthy?). In this talk, I’ll argue that direct coordination of unlikes is real and that it provides arguments for the essentially exocentric nature of coordination. I’ll also recall arguments for the flat structure of n-ary coordinations, such as Lisa, Bart, and Maggie. Taken together, these aspects of coordination provide evidence for the existence of a general – not just binary – SetMerge operation in language. I’ll offer some initial thoughts on the nature of this operation, to be more fully developed during my stay at MIT in the coming months.
Syntax Square 9/10 - Christopher Legerme (MIT)
Speaker: Christopher Legerme (MIT)
Title: Complementizers and Verb Fronting with Doubling in Haitian Creole
Time: Tuesday, September 10th, 1pm - 2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: For this Syntax Square, we will investigate the syntax of Haitian Creole and the interaction of the ki/ke complementizer alternation (1) with Verb Fronting with Doubling constructions (VFD, Glaude and Zribi-Hertz, 2012) (2). HC shows the following subject-object asymmetry where the form of the complementizer varies according to whether the subject or object undergoes wh-movement (Koopman, 1982; Law, 1995).
1.a. Kiyès ki te wè Mari?
who COMP PST see Mari
“Who saw Mari?”
b. *Kiyès ki Mari te wè?
who COMP Mari PST see
“Who did Mari see?”
c. *Kiyès ( ke ) te wè Mari?
who COMP PST see Mari
“Who saw Mari?”
d. Kiyès ( ke ) Mari te wè?
who COMP Mari PST see
“Who did Mari see?”
Takahashi and Gračanin-Yuksek (2008) (henceforth TGY) argue that the realization of ki depends on whether C can agree with a single nominal (DP) goal for both its unvalued features. Let us call this the SPLIT-AGREE analysis. TGY’s approach has been popularly adopted in much recent work (Baptista and Obata, 2015; Obata et al., 2015; Sugimoto and Pires, 2022). Therefore, in VFD constructions the prediction is that ke should surface because C must agree with two different syntactic objects, namely, with the verb for wh-features and the subject for phi-features. Indeed, VFD constructions generally obligatorily lead to the object-extraction form of the complementizer ke (which is optionally null) (2).
2.a (Se) kontan ✗ki / ✓ke / ✓Ø Bouki kontan
FOC happy COMP Bouki happy
“It is that Bouki is HAPPY (e.g., not SAD).”
b. (Se) kouri ✗ki / ✓ke / ✓Ø Bouki kouri
FOC run COMP Bouki run
“It is that Bouki RUNS (e.g., not WALKS).”
However, I will show that, for certain unaccusative predicate constructions that are compatible with an otherwise precluded EPP violation in the language (i.e., verbs where the subject may be null or absent), the appearance of the complementizer ki can be triggered with the extraction of non-nominal constituents, contrary to the expected pattern of complementizer distribution in the language. For example, this happens in cases where verbs like rete “to remain” or manke “to lack” occur in the VFD construction (3) (the example below is simplified here for space).
3.a Se rete/manke ki rete/manke Malis san goud nan kont la
FOC remain COMP remain Malis 100 gourde in account the
“It is that Malis has 100 gourdes REMAINING/LACKING in his account.” (literally, it is that there is remaining Malis 100 gourdes)
(3) is incompatible with the SPLIT-AGREE analysis of TGY because of our expectations from (2). Clearly, argument structure is important for the form of the complementizer chosen by the grammar and it is important that our theory of HC be flexible enough to derive the data in (3). I argue in favor of an empirically superior alternative analysis of the complementizer alternation facts based on the antilocality approach that bans movement in the narrow syntax when it results in the dependency of two positions that are too close to each other (Grohmann, 2003; Erlewine, 2020, 2018). Challenges for this alternative proposal are discussed.
Speaker: Christopher Legerme (MIT)
Title: Complementizers and Verb Fronting with Doubling in Haitian Creole
Time: Tuesday, September 10th, 1pm - 2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: For this Syntax Square, we will investigate the syntax of Haitian Creole and the interaction of the ki/ke complementizer alternation (1) with Verb Fronting with Doubling constructions (VFD, Glaude and Zribi-Hertz, 2012) (2). HC shows the following subject-object asymmetry where the form of the complementizer varies according to whether the subject or object undergoes wh-movement (Koopman, 1982; Law, 1995).
Summer round-up
As we ease into the new academic year, here’s what some of us got up to this summer:
- May 21: Asherov, Fox and Katzir in Linguistics and Philosophy
Alumnus and current postdoctoral associate Daniel Asherov (PhD ‘23) as well as current linguistics section head Danny Fox and Roni Katzir (PhD ‘08) have a new paper published in the journal Linguistics and Philosophy. The paper’s title is “Strengthening, exhaustification, and rational inference” and is available on open access here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10988-023-09406-0. Congratulations to the authors!
- May 28-30: Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT 34) was hosted by the Linguistics department at the University of Rochester. MIT Linguistics was well-represented by current students and recent alums:
- Ruoan Wang: Tiered honorification in Eastern Indo-Aryan: [HON]-less, and also presuppositionless
- Yurika Aonuki: Comparatives and differential measure phrases without -er in Gitksan
- Enrico Flor: Coarse modality with Italian magari
- Tamari Berulava (incoming PhD student) and Clemens Mayr: Bare plurals in articleless languages as weak definites
- Vincent Rouillard (PhD, 2023; MIT post-doc 2023/24): A note on any and simplification
- Tatiana Bondarenko (PhD, 2022): Javanese veridicality mismatches: Q-to-P reduction amid uniformity
- Itai Bassi (PhD, 2021): Pathological questions, focus, and unacceptable ellipsis
- Filipe Hisao Kobayashi (PhD, 2023), Enrico Flor (dissertating student): Quantification Uncovered
- Andreea Nicolae, Aron Hirsch (PhD, 2017), Anamaria Falaus: Exceptives under negation: Strengthening the case for p-Exh
- May 28 & 29: David Pesetsky @ the Romanian Academy of Sciences
At the beginning of the summer, David Pesetsky gave two talks at the Romanian Academy of Sciences. On May 28, he gave a talk on the topic “Is there an LLM challenge for Linguistics?” to the Academy itself, and the next day he participated in a celebratory conference honoring the 75th anniversary of the Institute of Linguistics of the Academy, with a talk on “Dissimilation: Shrinker of Clauses”.
- May 31: A number of recent PhDs received their diplomas and ceremonial hoods at MIT’s graduate commencement ceremony in May. Renewed congratulations to Christopher Yang, Daniel Asherov, Fulang Chen, Boer Fu, Vincent Rouillard, Cora Lesure, Peter Grishin, and Filipe de Salles Kobayashi!
- June 4—6: The 27th International Symposium on Malay and Indonesian Linguistics (ISMIL 27) was organised by the National University of Singapore. Current students Omri Doron, Keely New, and Ruoan Wang gave presentations on their recent and ongoing field work on Jakarta Indonesian. The conference was co-organised by alum Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine (PhD, 2014). Almost as important as the conference was the delightful local cuisine, as pictured.
- June 27 & 28: Workshop on Speech Act Related Operators at ZAS, Berlin
This workshop, organized by Clemens Mayr and Tue Trinh (PhD ‘11), featured contributions by Kai von Fintel, Sabine Iatridou, Danny Fox, Shigeru Miyagawa, Omri Doron, Jad Wehbe, Keny Chatain (PhD ‘21), Uli Sauerland (PhD ‘98), Marie-Christine Meyer (PhD ‘13), Roni Katzir (‘08), and Luka Crnič (PhD ‘11).
- July 4: Fox & Katzir in Theoretical Linguistics
A new paper on LLMs and linguistic cognition was published by our colleague Danny Fox and alum Roni Katzir (PhD ‘08) in the journal Theoretical Linguistics. The paper is entitled “Large Language Models and theoretical linguistics” and discusses the validity of LLMs as theories of human linguistic cognition. You can access the paper here: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/tl-2024-2005/html. Congratulations to Danny and Roni!
- July 13-26: CreteLing
The 6th Crete Summer School of Linguistics took place in Rethymnon at the University of Crete campus. MIT’s Sabine Iatridou was a co-director and an organizing committee member. Sabine also co-taught a class on Polydefiniteness during Week 1 of the school. MIT Linguistics was also well-represented by a number of faculty and alumni who (co-)taught courses as well as graduate students who TAed for classes.
- Adam Albright taught a course entitled Exceptions
- Athulya Aravind co-taught a course entitled Language Acquisition: Developmental Issues in Semantics
- Ora Matushansky (PhD’02) co-taught a course entitled Realizational Morphology and Pieces of Inflection
- Kai von Fintel co-taught a course entitled Enough! The Linguistics of Sufficiency
- Paul Kiparsky (PhD ‘65) co-taught a class entitled Language Change
- David Pesetsky co-taught a class on Ellipsis with Kyle Johnson (PhD ‘86)
- Shigeru Miyagawa co-taught a class on The Morpho-Syntax and Semantics of the Altaic Languages
- Ezer Rasin (PhD ‘18 and current visiting professor) & Donca Steriade taught a class on Phonological Opacity and Grammar Architecture
- Six current MIT Linguistics graduate students were TAs for classes during the school: Adéle Mortier, Bergül Soykan, Johanna Alstott, Bingzi Yu, James Cooper Roberts, and Hani Na’eem
- August 10—19: Passamaquoddy field trip
The MIT Passamaquoddy group went on a field trip to Maine from August 10-19. They worked with native speaker informants in Sipayik, Motahkomikuk, and Indian Township. Among said informants was MITILI alumnus Roger Paul. Below are some pictures.
- Michel DeGraff reports steady progress this summer on the English version of a book manuscript for MIT Press, now under review, with the working title: “Our Own Language: Linguistics and Education for Decolonization, Liberation and Nation-building in Haiti and Beyond”. Work on the Kreyòl version will start in the fall once the reviews are in. Michel also forwarded links to various articles and presentations of his, including a talk at the Collège de France (6/7/2024) and an Inside Higher Ed piece (6/13/2024).
As we ease into the new academic year, here’s what some of us got up to this summer:
- May 21: Asherov, Fox and Katzir in Linguistics and Philosophy
Alumnus and current postdoctoral associate Daniel Asherov (PhD ‘23) as well as current linguistics section head Danny Fox and Roni Katzir (PhD ‘08) have a new paper published in the journal Linguistics and Philosophy. The paper’s title is “Strengthening, exhaustification, and rational inference” and is available on open access here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10988-023-09406-0. Congratulations to the authors! - May 28-30: Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT 34) was hosted by the Linguistics department at the University of Rochester. MIT Linguistics was well-represented by current students and recent alums:
- Ruoan Wang: Tiered honorification in Eastern Indo-Aryan: [HON]-less, and also presuppositionless
- Yurika Aonuki: Comparatives and differential measure phrases without -er in Gitksan
- Enrico Flor: Coarse modality with Italian magari
- Tamari Berulava (incoming PhD student) and Clemens Mayr: Bare plurals in articleless languages as weak definites
- Vincent Rouillard (PhD, 2023; MIT post-doc 2023/24): A note on any and simplification
- Tatiana Bondarenko (PhD, 2022): Javanese veridicality mismatches: Q-to-P reduction amid uniformity
- Itai Bassi (PhD, 2021): Pathological questions, focus, and unacceptable ellipsis
- Filipe Hisao Kobayashi (PhD, 2023), Enrico Flor (dissertating student): Quantification Uncovered
- Andreea Nicolae, Aron Hirsch (PhD, 2017), Anamaria Falaus: Exceptives under negation: Strengthening the case for p-Exh
- May 28 & 29: David Pesetsky @ the Romanian Academy of Sciences
At the beginning of the summer, David Pesetsky gave two talks at the Romanian Academy of Sciences. On May 28, he gave a talk on the topic “Is there an LLM challenge for Linguistics?” to the Academy itself, and the next day he participated in a celebratory conference honoring the 75th anniversary of the Institute of Linguistics of the Academy, with a talk on “Dissimilation: Shrinker of Clauses”. - May 31: A number of recent PhDs received their diplomas and ceremonial hoods at MIT’s graduate commencement ceremony in May. Renewed congratulations to Christopher Yang, Daniel Asherov, Fulang Chen, Boer Fu, Vincent Rouillard, Cora Lesure, Peter Grishin, and Filipe de Salles Kobayashi!
- June 4—6: The 27th International Symposium on Malay and Indonesian Linguistics (ISMIL 27) was organised by the National University of Singapore. Current students Omri Doron, Keely New, and Ruoan Wang gave presentations on their recent and ongoing field work on Jakarta Indonesian. The conference was co-organised by alum Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine (PhD, 2014). Almost as important as the conference was the delightful local cuisine, as pictured.
- June 27 & 28: Workshop on Speech Act Related Operators at ZAS, Berlin
This workshop, organized by Clemens Mayr and Tue Trinh (PhD ‘11), featured contributions by Kai von Fintel, Sabine Iatridou, Danny Fox, Shigeru Miyagawa, Omri Doron, Jad Wehbe, Keny Chatain (PhD ‘21), Uli Sauerland (PhD ‘98), Marie-Christine Meyer (PhD ‘13), Roni Katzir (‘08), and Luka Crnič (PhD ‘11). - July 4: Fox & Katzir in Theoretical Linguistics
A new paper on LLMs and linguistic cognition was published by our colleague Danny Fox and alum Roni Katzir (PhD ‘08) in the journal Theoretical Linguistics. The paper is entitled “Large Language Models and theoretical linguistics” and discusses the validity of LLMs as theories of human linguistic cognition. You can access the paper here: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/tl-2024-2005/html. Congratulations to Danny and Roni! - July 13-26: CreteLing
The 6th Crete Summer School of Linguistics took place in Rethymnon at the University of Crete campus. MIT’s Sabine Iatridou was a co-director and an organizing committee member. Sabine also co-taught a class on Polydefiniteness during Week 1 of the school. MIT Linguistics was also well-represented by a number of faculty and alumni who (co-)taught courses as well as graduate students who TAed for classes.
- Adam Albright taught a course entitled Exceptions
- Athulya Aravind co-taught a course entitled Language Acquisition: Developmental Issues in Semantics
- Ora Matushansky (PhD’02) co-taught a course entitled Realizational Morphology and Pieces of Inflection
- Kai von Fintel co-taught a course entitled Enough! The Linguistics of Sufficiency
- Paul Kiparsky (PhD ‘65) co-taught a class entitled Language Change
- David Pesetsky co-taught a class on Ellipsis with Kyle Johnson (PhD ‘86)
- Shigeru Miyagawa co-taught a class on The Morpho-Syntax and Semantics of the Altaic Languages
- Ezer Rasin (PhD ‘18 and current visiting professor) & Donca Steriade taught a class on Phonological Opacity and Grammar Architecture
- Six current MIT Linguistics graduate students were TAs for classes during the school: Adéle Mortier, Bergül Soykan, Johanna Alstott, Bingzi Yu, James Cooper Roberts, and Hani Na’eem - August 10—19: Passamaquoddy field trip
The MIT Passamaquoddy group went on a field trip to Maine from August 10-19. They worked with native speaker informants in Sipayik, Motahkomikuk, and Indian Township. Among said informants was MITILI alumnus Roger Paul. Below are some pictures.
- Michel DeGraff reports steady progress this summer on the English version of a book manuscript for MIT Press, now under review, with the working title: “Our Own Language: Linguistics and Education for Decolonization, Liberation and Nation-building in Haiti and Beyond”. Work on the Kreyòl version will start in the fall once the reviews are in. Michel also forwarded links to various articles and presentations of his, including a talk at the Collège de France (6/7/2024) and an Inside Higher Ed piece (6/13/2024).
Dóra Takács defends!
On June 18, Dóra successfully defended her dissertation entitled “Constraints on vowel-zero alternations in Hungarian”! Congratulations, Dóra!!
Here’s the abstract:
I analyze a large set of Hungarian nominal and verbal stems whose last vowel alternates with zero in certain contexts (Vago (1980), Siptár & Törkenczy (2000)): e.g. bokor, bokr- ok. I argue that the mechanism underlying these alternations is syncope, departing in this from earlier work (Vago (1980), Abondolo (1988), J. Jensen & Stong-Jensen (1988, 1989), Törkenczy (1995), Abrusán (2005)) which assumes epenthesis or metathesis.
My research focuses on which stems fall into this closed group of vowel-zero alternating stems. I show that there is an interaction between phonological processes that repair phono- tactically illicit consonant clusters – like voicing assimilation, gemination, affrication – and vowel-zero alternations. I present a proposal that correctly predicts that these phonological processes block vowel-zero alternations.
The grammar that generates this result includes a ranking schema where the constraint triggering syncope (referred to below as Syncope) is outranked not only by the Markedness constraints that define illicit CC-clusters in Hungarian but also by the faithfulness constraints that are normally violated in the repair of such clusters. The general ranking I will argue for is:
(1) Markedness (*CC for various CCs) » Faithfulness to Cs » Syncope » Max V
I also present results from a wug experiment, which confirms that Hungarian speakers are aware of the systematic restrictions my analysis characterizes.
The broad significance of the work is to document a large-scale conspiracy (Kisseberth (1970)) whereby permissible CC clusters emerge in at least two ways: through direct action of repair processes (assimilation or merger of two Cs into one) and through blockage of the syncope process that could yield the inputs to such repairs.
On June 18, Dóra successfully defended her dissertation entitled “Constraints on vowel-zero alternations in Hungarian”! Congratulations, Dóra!!
Here’s the abstract:
I analyze a large set of Hungarian nominal and verbal stems whose last vowel alternates with zero in certain contexts (Vago (1980), Siptár & Törkenczy (2000)): e.g. bokor, bokr- ok. I argue that the mechanism underlying these alternations is syncope, departing in this from earlier work (Vago (1980), Abondolo (1988), J. Jensen & Stong-Jensen (1988, 1989), Törkenczy (1995), Abrusán (2005)) which assumes epenthesis or metathesis.
My research focuses on which stems fall into this closed group of vowel-zero alternating stems. I show that there is an interaction between phonological processes that repair phono- tactically illicit consonant clusters – like voicing assimilation, gemination, affrication – and vowel-zero alternations. I present a proposal that correctly predicts that these phonological processes block vowel-zero alternations.
The grammar that generates this result includes a ranking schema where the constraint triggering syncope (referred to below as Syncope) is outranked not only by the Markedness constraints that define illicit CC-clusters in Hungarian but also by the faithfulness constraints that are normally violated in the repair of such clusters. The general ranking I will argue for is:
(1) Markedness (*CC for various CCs) » Faithfulness to Cs » Syncope » Max V
I also present results from a wug experiment, which confirms that Hungarian speakers are aware of the systematic restrictions my analysis characterizes.
The broad significance of the work is to document a large-scale conspiracy (Kisseberth (1970)) whereby permissible CC clusters emerge in at least two ways: through direct action of repair processes (assimilation or merger of two Cs into one) and through blockage of the syncope process that could yield the inputs to such repairs.
DeGraff organizes series
Michel DeGraff has organized the following series with funding from MindHandHeart and the Women & Gender Studies program:
Seminar for MIT Community on Language & Linguistics in Decolonization & Liberation Struggles in Haiti, Palestine & Israel
Fall 2024, Wednesdays noon–2pm, Room E51-095
This seminar is an invitation to sociolinguistics & postcolonial linguistics with case studies from Haiti Palestine & Israel. We will examine the exclusion vs. inclusion of certain languages & their speakers in avenues where knowledge & power are created & transmitted. Additionally, we will explore the use of language & linguistics in propaganda in the context of conflicts where words, definitions, phrases, syntactic patterns, etc., are enlisted to political ends to the detriment of academic freedom, freedom of speech, mutual understanding, empathy, peace, community building, social justice, etc.
Objectives:
- Analyze the use of language & linguistics as tools for either hegemony and conflictual propaganda vs. mutual understanding, justice and a #BetterWorld.
- Explore linguistic analyses & education policies as potential contributions to the foundations for peace, community-building & universal respect of human rights worldwide.
Current list of guest speakers:
Jean Casimir (Université d’État d’Haïti)
Sally McConnell-Ginet (Cornell University)
David Beaver (University of Texas, Austin)
Camelia Suleiman (Michigan State University)
Joseph Levine (UMass Amherst)
Samira Alayan (The Seymour Fox School of Education, Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Nurit Peled-Elhanan (formerly at Hebrew University)
Holly M. Jackson (University of California, Berkeley)
Yonatan Mendel (Ben Gurion University of the Negev)
Chana Morgenstern (University of Cambridge)
Vivien Sansour (Palestine Heirloom Seed Library)
For more information and scheduling details, please contact Michel DeGraff at degraff@MIT.EDU
Michel DeGraff has organized the following series with funding from MindHandHeart and the Women & Gender Studies program:
Seminar for MIT Community on Language & Linguistics in Decolonization & Liberation Struggles in Haiti, Palestine & Israel
Fall 2024, Wednesdays noon–2pm, Room E51-095
This seminar is an invitation to sociolinguistics & postcolonial linguistics with case studies from Haiti Palestine & Israel. We will examine the exclusion vs. inclusion of certain languages & their speakers in avenues where knowledge & power are created & transmitted. Additionally, we will explore the use of language & linguistics in propaganda in the context of conflicts where words, definitions, phrases, syntactic patterns, etc., are enlisted to political ends to the detriment of academic freedom, freedom of speech, mutual understanding, empathy, peace, community building, social justice, etc.
Objectives:
- Analyze the use of language & linguistics as tools for either hegemony and conflictual propaganda vs. mutual understanding, justice and a #BetterWorld.
- Explore linguistic analyses & education policies as potential contributions to the foundations for peace, community-building & universal respect of human rights worldwide.
Current list of guest speakers:
Jean Casimir (Université d’État d’Haïti)
Sally McConnell-Ginet (Cornell University)
David Beaver (University of Texas, Austin)
Camelia Suleiman (Michigan State University)
Joseph Levine (UMass Amherst)
Samira Alayan (The Seymour Fox School of Education, Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Nurit Peled-Elhanan (formerly at Hebrew University)
Holly M. Jackson (University of California, Berkeley)
Yonatan Mendel (Ben Gurion University of the Negev)
Chana Morgenstern (University of Cambridge)
Vivien Sansour (Palestine Heirloom Seed Library)
For more information and scheduling details, please contact Michel DeGraff at degraff@MIT.EDU