BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Linguistics Graduate Students Association - ECPv6.7.0//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-CALNAME:Linguistics Graduate Students Association
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Linguistics Graduate Students Association
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:UTC
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:UTC
DTSTART:20200101T000000
END:STANDARD
TZID:America/New_York
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20210314T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20211107T060000
END:STANDARD
TZID:America/New_York
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20200308T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20201101T060000
END:STANDARD
TZID:America/Halifax
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0300
TZNAME:ADT
DTSTART:20200308T060000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0300
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:AST
DTSTART:20201101T050000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20230421T150000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20230421T163000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20230416T230238Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230416T230238Z
UID:2820-1682089200-1682094600@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium: Brian Dillon
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Prof. Brian Dillon (UMass Amherst) \nTitle: Principle B: The view from comprehension and production \nAbstract: \nExperimental research has shown that the grammatical constraints reflected in (e.g.) the Binding Theory guide real-time pronoun interpretation\, albeit perhaps in a defeasible fashion. Evidence for this conclusion comes from a range of experimental evidence that comprehenders selectively activate grammatically accessible antecedents when processing pronouns and anaphors. But what are the mechanisms by which comprehenders arrive at these grammatically constrained interpretations? And what is the relationship that these mechanisms bear to offline grammatical knowledge and language production?  \nIn this talk I will explore these questions by investigating the nature of the constraints that prevent an object pronoun from coreferring with its local subject in sentences such as “John likes him.” I will present studies from our lab that probe the source of these ‘Principle B effects’ in comprehension and production. In a series of visual world eye-tracking experiments in English\, we show that comprehenders incrementally predict disjoint reference between the subject and the object before having any bottom-up evidence of the morphological form the object will take. This finding is consistent with the view that transitive predicates canonically implicate distinct entities for the subject and object roles. In another series of comprehension and production studies in English\, we further explore the claim that this constraint can be lifted in discourse contexts where the meaning of a locally coreferent pronoun can be distinguished from the meaning of a locally coreferent reflexive (e.g. Evans\, 1980\, et seq.). We find only a limited sensitivity to discourse context. Instead\, comprehenders and producers systematically avoid coreference between a pronoun and its local subject\, even in supportive discourse environments. Overall\, our studies lend support to theories of Principle B effects that emphasize the markedness of local coreference as a key driver of Principle B effects; In contrast\, we see only limited support for theories that emphasize distinctiveness of meaning in context.
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/colloquium-brian-dillon/
LOCATION:18 Seminary Place\, Room 108
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20230224T150000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20230224T163000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20230316T231945Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230416T232118Z
UID:2835-1677250800-1677256200@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium: Kenyon Branan
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Kenyon Branan (Universität Göttingen) \nTitle: Syntax-phonology interactions and the Left Edge Ban \nAbstract: \nSyntax is commonly supposed to be autonomous\, in the sense that it operates independent of considerations of other modules of the grammar\, such as the phonology or the semantics. In this talk I develop an argument against the autonomy hypothesis: the syntax\, in some cases\, must make reference to phonological considerations in determining whether or not a syntactic operation\, such as movement\, should take place. The argument consists of two main parts: identifying a plausible restriction on phonological form that might motivate movement\, and then demonstrating that syntactic movement does indeed take place to satisfy the restriction in question.  \nTowards the first goal\, I discuss the Final-over-Final Condition (Sheehan\, Biberauer\, Roberts and Holmberg 2017)\, a purportedly universal ban on certain recursive syntactic complementation structures. I discuss case studies from Finnish\, Georgian\, and Uyghur-Mandarin code-switching that suggest\, minimally\, that the FOFC should be thought of as a requirement that holds at PF. I further suggest that the FOFC be assimilated to a more general restriction on prosodic structure\, termed the Left Edge Ban\, discussed in extensive detail in Branan (under contract). This ban\, crucially\, may be satisfied by moving elements in the offending configuration to other postions in the clause.  \nTowards the second goal\, I provide a reasonably detailed discussion of a process of negation-triggered object preposing in Skou [Skou; Papua/Papua New Guinea]. While the language is generally SOV\, and displays fairly inflexible word order\, the arguments of a small class of verbs in the language must appear in a post-verbal position. However\, in the context of a post-verbal negation particle\, the aforementioned post-verbal arguments are obligatorily preposed. Noting that the presence of these post-verbal arguments between the verb and negation would lead to a violation of the Left Edge Ban\, I suggest that movement is motivated to avoid violating this ban. I first show that a number of syntactic processes distinguish pre-verbal and post-verbal objects\, and that arguments preposed under negation take on all relevant properties of pre-verbal objects\, suggesting this movement takes place in the syntax. I further show that this process of object preposing fails to target a singular identifiable position in the clause\, suggesting that preposing is not triggered by a syntactic feature located on a particular head (see also Kučerová 2007\, Richards 2021 for arguments of this form). The most straightforward account\, then\, is one where movement takes place directly to create a well-formed phonological representation. \nThis suggests that we need a grammatical architecture where the syntax is allowed access to at least some phonological information\, which comes into conflict with the autonomy hypothesis.
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/colloquium-kenyon-branan/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20230217T150000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20230217T163000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20230316T231740Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230416T231908Z
UID:2832-1676646000-1676651400@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium: Justin Royer
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Justin Royer (UC Berkeley) \nTitle: Binding and anti-cataphora in Mayan \nAbstract: \nThe Binding Conditions are widely held to reflect a universal property of human language (e.g.\, Reinhart 1983; Grimshaw & Rosen 1990; Grodzinsky & Reinhart 1993; Reuland 2010\, 2011). Yet\, some Mayan languages seem to consistently violate them\, casting doubt on a universal approach (e.g.\, Craig 1977; Hoekstra 1989; Aissen 2000). In this talk\, I argue that what appear to be binding violations are\, in fact\, not\, and Mayan languages do indeed support Binding Theory. Crucially\, the Mayan languages that show apparent binding violations (like Chuj\, but not Ch’ol) are also those that exhibit syntactic ergativity. Embracing the ‘standard approach’ to syntactic ergativity (Campana 1992; Bittner & Hale 1996; Coon et al. 2014; Deal 2016)\, I argue that objects undergo systematic inversion with the subject in such languages. This alters structural relations between the object and the subject\, explaining the surprising binding patterns. I also show that linear precedence plays a fundamental role in regulating the distribution of coreferential nominals across Mayan\, which I argue is due to a general ban on cataphora for ‘free’ pronouns. The data are thus not only consistent with Binding Theory\, but provide further evidence in favor of a deep typological parameter within the Mayan language family.
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/colloquium-justin-royer/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20230210T150000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20230210T163000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20230316T231511Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230416T231627Z
UID:2828-1676041200-1676046600@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium: Maria Kouneli
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Maria Kouneli (University of Leipzig) \nTitle: Upwards-oriented complementizer agreement: The view from Kipsigis \nAbstract: \nA number of African languages display upwards-oriented complementizer agreement\, where the complementizer agrees in phi-features with the matrix subject (e.g.\, Diercks 2013\, Carstens 2016\, Letsholo & Safir 2019\, Baker 2022). This pattern raises some non-trivial questions about the directionality and locality of Agree. In this talk\, I provide an investigation of complementizer agreement in Kipsigis (Nilotic; Kenya)\, the only documented case of the phenomenon in the Nilo-Saharan family. Based on data from original fieldwork\, I argue that what was previously described as an agreeing ‘say’-based complementizer in the language (Diercks & Rao 2019\, Diercks et al. 2020) is the lexical verb ‘say’\, and what looks like C-Agree is in fact agreement between this verb and its locally introduced (often covert) subject. The analysis highlights that ‘say’-based complementizers might be of category V\, and not C\, in some languages (Koopman 1984\, Major 2021\, among others)\, which in turn means that some cases of upwards-oriented “complementizer” agreement may instantiate standard verbal agreement instead. Genuine cases of complementizer agreement have probably evolved from a Kipsigis-type system; Indirect Agree accounts of the phenomenon\, where C agrees with a local silent noun phrase and not directly with the matrix subject (Diercks 2013\, Baker 2022) provide a more natural explanation for this diachronic path.
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/colloquium-maria-kouneli/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20230203T150000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20230203T163000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20230316T230905Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230416T231403Z
UID:2826-1675436400-1675441800@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium: Rodrigo Ranero
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Rodrigo Ranero (UCLA) \nTitle: A new perspective on the syntax of silence: The view from Mayan \nAbstract: \nEllipsis is structure and meaning without form. In the case of spoken languages\, it is silence that requires a linguistic antecedent. An unresolved question concerns the precise nature of the relationship that must hold between the silence and its antecedent—the identity condition underpinning ellipsis. In a nutshell: Is syntactic\, semantic\, or some sort of hybrid identity required? \nData that serve to address this question involve cases where there is a mismatch between the silence and the antecedent\, yet the result is nevertheless well-formed: \n(1) Every night\, Bianca lip syncs. Trixie taught her how <to lip sync>. \nOf equal interest\, there are other cases where there is a mismatch but the result is ill-formed. Voice mismatches in sluicing—clausal ellipsis with a wh-remnant—are a prominent example: \n(2) *Bianca was crowned\, but we can’t remember who <crowned her>. \nAny explanatory approach to the identity condition must derive this asymmetry within individual languages like English\, as well as any variation we might find cross-linguistically. \nIn this talk I will argue for a new approach to the identity condition. I propose that the condition incorporates a syntactic component\, but strict identity is not required (contra a long tradition; see recently Merchant 2013\, Rudin 2019). Rather\, the identity condition requires that the ellipsis site and the antecedent be non-distinct: \n(3) Proposal: syntactic identity in ellipsis\nThe antecedent and material properly contained in the ellipsis site must be featurally nondistinct. \nIn support of (3)\, we will discuss evidence from Kaqchikel\, a Mayan language of Guatemala that possesses a rich voice system (García Matzar & Rodríguez Guaján 1997). In contrast to languages of the English kind\, a subset of voice mismatches is well-formed in Kaqchikel sluicing. In particular\, the Agent Focus voice—a voice that is specific to several Mayan languages— can mismatch with active and passive voices. To exemplify\, a well-formed Agent-Focus-active mismatch is shown below: \n(4) Xaxe ri ma Pedro x-Ø-loq’-o ri kotz’i’j.Aw-etam-an ankuchi\nonly DET CLF Pedro COM-ABS3S-buy-AGENT.F DET flowers ERG2S-know-PERF where \n<x-Ø-u-löq’ wi>?\n‘Only Pedro bought the flowers. Do you know where?’ \nI will argue that my novel identity condition derives the well-formed status of these hitherto undiscussed data and examples like (1)\, and it also derives the ill-formed status of examples like (2). The proposal thus brings us closer to understanding one universal component of the condition regulating the availability of ellipsis. In closing\, I discuss the long-term prospects of a collaborative research program focusing on silent expressions in Mayan\, a novel empirical domain in an otherwise well-described language family (Aissen et al. 2017).
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/colloquium-rodrigo-ranero/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20230127T150000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20230127T163000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20230316T230503Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230416T230701Z
UID:2824-1674831600-1674837000@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium: Ksenia Ershova
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Ksenia Ershova (MIT) \nTitle: The nuanced typology of syntactic ergativity: Insights from parasitic gaps in Samoan and West Circassian \nAbstract: \nSyntactic ergativity is broadly defined as the sensitivity of syntactic rules to the distinction between subjects of transitive verbs (= ergative) on the one hand and objects of transitive verbs and subjects of intransitive verbs (= absolutive) on the other hand. The most commonly discussed syntactic ergativity effect – the inaccessibility of the ergative agent for wh-movement – is widely associated with high absolutive syntax\, wherein the absolutive case-marked nominal moves to a position above the ergative agent and intervenes for ergative extraction. While deriving the ban on ergative movement from a single parameter (all high absolutive languages disallow ergative extraction)\, these accounts rely on stipulations that are not extendable beyond the small set of languages they aim to describe. In this talk\, I present an alternative account of the interaction between high absolutive syntax and ergative extraction which\, while creating a broader predictive space for how high absolutive languages are expected to behave\, utilizes a minimal syntactic toolkit that is widely applicable outside of the realm of ergativity: ergative extraction is blocked if the absolutive argument moves to the outer specifier of the same maximal projection which hosts the ergative agent. The account relies on basic notions of structural domains and locality and correctly predicts a more nuanced typology of syntactically ergative languages: some languages display high absolutive syntax\, but do not block ergative extraction\, while in others\, absolutive raising creates an intervention effect. I support the analysis with evidence from an unusual diagnostic – parasitic gaps – in two syntactically ergative languages: Samoan and West Circassian.
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/colloquium-ksenia-ershova/
LOCATION:18 Seminary Place\, Room 108
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20221216T150000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20221216T163000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20221206T193659Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20221206T194044Z
UID:2767-1671202800-1671208200@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium: Laura McPherson
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Prof. Laura McPherson (Dartmouth College) \nTitle: Spoken rhythms and drummed speech: Bidirectional iconicity at the crossroads of language and music \nAbstract: \nLanguage and music share many of the same raw ingredients\, including pitch\, rhythm\, prosodic grouping\, and timbre. This talk focuses on an underexplored aspect of the language-music connection: the iconic representation of one modality using the other\, through onomatopoeia (music encoded as speech) and musical surrogate languages (speech encoded as music). In particular\, I focus on drums to probe the bidirectional nature of this iconicity\, what differences exist in the two directions of encoding\, and what this tells us about the language and music faculties. All languages are capable of encoding percussive sounds through onomatopoeia\, but certain linguistic and musical traditions possess an extensive vocabulary of lexicalized onomatopoeia\, the most notable example being the system of bols in the North Indian tabla drumming tradition (Patel & Iversen 2003). Aspects of Hindi phonetics in the choice of syllables produce a close acoustic match to the sounds of the drums\, while the pitch and rhythm of the performer’s voice allows for a fairly faithful reproduction of the drum patterns. \nMusical surrogate systems\, referred to colloquially as “talking drums”\, turn this iconicity on its head by using the sounds of drums to capture speech. However\, we find an interesting difference in the linguistic categories involved in this bidirectional mapping: onomatopoeia rely most heavily on linguistic timbre (i.e. segmental contrasts)\, whereas drummed speech is typically based on prosodic features (tone\, rhythm). This is unsurprising for drums whose timbre remains relatively fixed while the pitch varies\, such as tension drums or slit log drums. More surprising are drums capable of producing a wide range of timbres\, yet whose use as a surrogate continues to rely more heavily on prosody rather than linguistic timbre\, such as the Yorùbá bàtá (Villepastour 2016). \nIn this talk\, I illustrate these complex systems of spoken drums and drummed speech and argue that differences in encoding medium (timbre\, pitch\, rhythm) arise from two related sources: 1. Linguistic timbre has far greater complexity and dexterity than drum timbre\, and 2. language is grounded in timbral contrasts\, while timbre-centered music is rare. Thus\, musical surrogate languages are still fundamentally music\, and emulating prosodic aspects of speech constrains the number of contrasts the drums must reproduce\, which may enhance its perceived iconicity as well as decipherability.
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/colloquium-laura-mcpherson/
LOCATION:18 Seminary Place\, Room 108
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20221111T150000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20221111T163000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20221103T225449Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20221206T194128Z
UID:2737-1668178800-1668184200@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium: Aaron White
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Aaron White (University of Rochester) \nTitle: Semantic Category Induction \n\n \nAbstract: \n\n\n\n\nOur ability to use language to convey arbitrarily complex information about the world’s possible past\, present\, and future configurations is undergirded by systematic relationships between linguistic expressions and conceptual categories. Understanding these relationships is not only a core part of understanding what it means to know and be able to use a language; it potentially provides a window onto the nature of higher cognition in humans more generally.\n\nIn this talk\, I report on research investigating these systematic relationships in the domain of predicates that combine with subordinate clauses (broadly construed)–e.g. think (that Bo left)\, see (Bo leave)\, want (Bo to leave)\, hope (to leave)\, love (that Bo left)\, manage (to leave)\, and start (leaving). Such predicates constitute a useful case study both because their distributional signatures are highly complex and because these distributional signatures show intricate correlations with these predicates’ inferential properties–suggesting that very fine-grained aspects of the concepts associated with these predicates may be formally expressed.\n\nI approach this investigation by developing computational models for discovering representations that can simultaneously explain these predicates’ distributional characteristics and inferential affordances–i.e. by inducing semantic categories that optimally predict predicates’ distributional signatures. In the first part of the talk\, I focus on models aimed at uncovering which kinds of lexically triggered inference patterns are (un)attested across clause-embedding verbs in English. To carry out this investigation\, I use three inference judgment datasets collected under the auspices of the MegaAttitude Project: MegaVeridicality\, MegaNegRaising\, and MegaIntensionality\, which capture a variety of theoretically important inference types across a wide swath of the English clause-embedding lexicon.\n\nIn the second part of the talk\, I describe ongoing efforts to assess these explanatory power of these categories across typologically diverse languages. I focus in particular on a case study relating the induced semantic categories described in the first part of the talk to Mandarin predicates’ distributional signatures. I first describe a new dataset aimed at capturing these distributional characteristics for a wide swath of clause-embedding predicates in Mandarin. I then use this dataset in conjunction with the English datasets described in the first part of the talk to induce a mapping from English distributional characteristics to Mandarin distributional characteristics. I use this mapping to derive a set of predictions about how semantic categories are expressed in both English and Mandarin. I conclude with a discussion of the implications of these predictions.
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/colloquium-talk-aaron-white/
LOCATION:18 Seminary Place\, Room 108
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20220930T150000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20220930T163000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20220920T165320Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220920T165320Z
UID:2695-1664550000-1664555400@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium: Luke Adamson
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Luke Adamson (Rutgers)\n \nTitle: A noun’s gender is locally determined: Evidence from gender and possession\n \nAbstract: \n\nWhat determines a noun’s grammatical gender? Often this question is posed in terms of how gender is ‘assigned’\, with one answer being that a noun’s gender can depend on semantic criteria (e.g. animacy\, sociocultural gender)\, nominalizing morphology\, arbitrary lexical requirements\, and possibly phonological criteria (Corbett 1991\, Kramer 2020\, a.o.). However\, the conceptualization of gender features as having a syntactic locus\, such as on a nominalizing head n (Kramer 2015\, Adamson and Šereikaite 2019\, a.o.)\, raises the possibility that we can define a domain of gender determination structurally. Previous work has demonstrated that covariation between number and gender is possible\, where a noun’s gender appears to covary with number values\, specifically when number is ‘low’\, correlating with irregular morphology and/or semantics (Acquaviva 2008\, Kramer 2016\, a.o.)\, though not when number is ‘high’. \n\n\n\nI propose that the number pattern should be subsumed under a more general hypothesis: gender determination of the noun is local\, confined to an nP constituent low within the nominal. In this talk\, I provide evidence in favor of this hypothesis from the interaction between gender and possessors\, which like number features\, have also been characterized by a ‘low’ vs. ‘high’ dichotomy\, with low possessors being inalienable and high possessors being alienable (Myler 2016 and references therein). Building on previous observations from the descriptive literature\, I show that inalienable possessors are implicated in gender alternations in several unrelated languages\, including Teop (Austronesian\, Oceanic)\, Jarawara (Arawan)\, Yanyuwa (Pama-Nyungan)\, and Coastal Marind (Anim). Alienable possessors are not implicated in any such alternations.\n\nThis work has several important implications which I discuss in the talk\, as the hypothesis is restrictive in a way that rules out conceivable interactions: i) it rules out interactions between gender determination and features higher in the nominal domain\, such as definiteness and case; and ii) it rules out putative cases of long-distance gender valuation\, such as nominal predicate agreement with a subject (pace Kučerova et al 2021). The hypothesis fits into a more general pattern of domain-restricted feature interaction; for example\, ‘low’ vs. ‘high’ distinctions have also been claimed to be relevant for ergative case splits (Legate 2017).\n\n\n\n\nMeeting Information \nThis event will be held in person in room 108 at the Linguistics Building.
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/colloquium-luke-adamson/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20220429T150000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20220429T150000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20220419T232233Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220419T232233Z
UID:2490-1651244400-1651244400@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium: Yohei Oseki
DESCRIPTION:Building machines that process natural language like human\nYohei Oseki \n  \nAbstract:\nDespite the close alliance in the 1980s\, theoretical linguistics (a branch of cognitive science) and natural language processing (a branch of artificial intelligence) have traditionally been divorced\, especially since the recent advent of deep learning. Theoretical linguistics proposed computational theories to represent linguistic competence through symbolic formal grammars\, whereas natural language processing developed algorithmic models to approximate linguistic performance through artificial neural networks without symbolic structures. However\, given that those computational and algorithmic perspectives are not mutually exclusive\, one promising approach to model complex information processing systems like natural language would be to reverse-engineer human language processing. In this talk\, we review computational models of language processing with special focus on syntactic and morphological processing\, where symbolic formal grammars and artificial neural networks are constructed and evaluated against human language processing via information-theoretic complexity metrics. The results converge on the conclusion that symbolic structures and neural networks must be integrated towards “human-like” language processing\, suggesting that theoretical linguistics and natural language processing should be married again in order to build machines that process natural language like humans.
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/colloquium-yohei-oseki/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20220401T150000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20220401T170000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20220324T155452Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220324T155452Z
UID:2484-1648825200-1648832400@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium: Amir Anvari
DESCRIPTION:A theory of oddness \nAmir Anvari \n  \nAbstract: \nWe will rehearse a host of puzzles that have been uncovered in the literature on oddness pertaining particularly\, but not exclusively\, to disjunction (Singh 2008\, Katzir & Singh 2014\, Mayr & Romoli 2016\, Mandelkern & Romoli 2018\, Marty & Romoli 2021 and references therein). The ambition is to provide a unified analysis for all these cases\, as well as a few novel generalizations. We begin with the classical insight\, as formulated by Katzir & Singh (2015)\, that “a good assertion is one that constitutes a good answer to a good question”. We aim at a procedural approach where the question that an assertion is understood to address is not a semantic or contextual given but rather is computed on the fly on the basis of the background assumptions\, the logical structure of the sentence asserted and as well as its formal simplifications (Katzir 2007\, Fox & Katzir 2011). Specifically\, we explore the idea that “good questions” are subsets of the formal alternatives of asserted sentences that satisfy certain conditions to be specified. If no such constellation of alternatives exists\, the sentence fails to address a good question and is deemed unacceptable. We apply this idea to the puzzles mentioned with decent\, but not completely satisfactory\, results. \n  \nMeeting Information \nThis event will be hosted over Zoom. For a link\, please contact the organizers:\nIndira Das (indira.das [at] rutgers.edu)\nTatevik Yolyan (tatevik.yolyan [at] rutgers.edu)\nJiaxing Yu (jiaxing.j.yu [at] rutgers.edu)
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/colloquium-amir-anvari/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20220325T150000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20220325T170000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20220318T181246Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220318T181246Z
UID:2477-1648220400-1648227600@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium: Asia Pietraszko
DESCRIPTION:Syntactic structure building: lessons from periphrasis\nAsia Pietraszko \n  \nAbstract: \nTraditional approaches to verbal periphrasis (compound tenses) treat the auxiliary verbs be and have as lexical items that enter syntactic derivation like any other lexical item\, i.e. via the operation Merge. An alternative view that has received much attention in recent years is that auxiliary verbs are not base-generated but rather Inserted in a previously built structure (i.a. Bach 1967; Embick 2000; Arregi 2000; Cowper 2010; Bjorkman 2011; Arregi and Klecha 2015). Evidence for the Insertion approach to periphrasis constitutes an argument for a separate structure-building operation\, Insertion. I argue in this talk that a theory with just one structure-building operation\, Merge\, can be maintained. A distinct operation is not necessary to account for the last-resort nature of periphrasis that motivated the Insertion approach. The proposed Cyclic Selection account (Pietraszko 2017\, 2020) is shown to be both empirically adequate and well-grounded in current syntactic theory: the merge of auxiliary verbs is the Merge-counterpart of cyclic Agree (Béjar and Rezac 2009) and the external-Merge-counterpart of long head movement (i.a. Koopman 1984\, Lema and Rivero 1990\, Vicente 2007). \n  \nMeeting Information \nThis event will be hosted over Zoom. For a link\, please contact the organizers:\nIndira Das (indira.das [at] rutgers.edu)\nTatevik Yolyan (tatevik.yolyan [at] rutgers.edu)\nJiaxing Yu (jiaxing.j.yu [at] rutgers.edu)
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/colloquium-asia-pietraszko/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20211203T150000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20211203T170000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20211129T210709Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20211129T210709Z
UID:2393-1638543600-1638550800@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium: Kristine M. Yu
DESCRIPTION:Building prosodic trees \nKristine M. Yu \nAbstract:\nComputational perspectives from string grammars have richly informed our understanding of phonological patterns in natural language in the past decade. However\, a prevailing theoretical assumption of phonologists since the 1980s has been that phonological patterns and processes are computed on trees built with prosodic constituents such as syllables\, feet\, and prosodic words. Moreover\, multiple dependencies in prosodic structures\, such as multiple association of a tone to a higher-level prosodic node in addition to a tone bearing unit such as a mora or syllable\, have been broadly assumed in intonational phonology without much comment. We revisit these concepts and show that multiple bottom up tree transducers provide a natural representation for multiple tonal association as well as multiple dependencies in prosodic structures in general\, including prosodically-conditioned segmental allophony. \n  \nMeeting Information \nThis event will be hosted over Zoom. For a link\, please contact the organizers:\nIndira Das (indira.das [at] rutgers.edu)\nTatevik Yolyan (tatevik.yolyan [at] rutgers.edu)\nJiaxing Yu (jiaxing.j.yu [at] rutgers.edu)
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/colloquium-kristine-m-yu/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20211119T150000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20211119T163000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20211105T201032Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20211105T201032Z
UID:2384-1637334000-1637339400@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium: Claire Halpert
DESCRIPTION:Revisiting nominal licensing in Zulu\nClaire Halpert \n  \nAbstract: \nThe questions of whether and how nominals are syntactically licensed in Bantu languages have been a matter of recent active debate (e.g. Diercks 2012; Halpert 2015\, 2019; van der Wal 2015; Sheehan and van der Wal 2018; Carstens and Mletshe 2016; Pietraszko 2020). While a number of languages and phenomena throughout the Bantu family seem to lack evidence of the typical ‘signature’ of case-licensing (Diercks 2012)\, others show more straightforward case patterns (van der Wal 2015). Sheehan and van der Wal (2018) suggest the term Vergnaud Licensing to refer to nominals’ requirements for particular syntactic configurations and show that Bantu languages show differing behavior on a variety of Vergnaud Licensing metrics. In my own work\, I’ve argued that the Bantu language Zulu has structural case effects that are largely obscured (1) by the prevalence extremely local case licensers (along the lines of lexical case assigners in Baker 2015) and (2) the location of structural case-assigning heads low in the clause. In particular\, I argued that all nominals marked with the so-called augment morpheme were locally licensed and did not require low structural case. In this talk\, I will complicate this view by investigating some environments that show hallmarks of structural case alternations/Vergnaud licensing\, even for augmented nominals: passives (Halpert and Zeller 2016\, Halpert to appear)\, uncontrolled infinitives (Halpert to appear) and possession. In passives and infinitives\, external arguments become optional and are morphologically marked when they appear. I demonstrate that these marked overt external arguments are in fact structurally licensed in Spec\,vP. In possessor raising\, a morphologically marked postnominal possessor alternates with an unmarked prenominal possessor that can be targeted by A- and A-bar processes in the main clause.  I propose that in all of these environments\, a morphologically overt\, acategorial Linker head is involved in licensing (cf. Baker and Collins 2006\, Schneider-Zioga 2015\, Pietraszko 2019).  The requirement of this type of special licensing exactly in environments analogous to case-deprived environments in more familiar case-licensing languages in turn suggests that external arguments are structurally licensed the active\, finite environments–even with the augment. As we look closely at more environments in a Bantu language like Zulu\, the picture of nominal distribution and licensing becomes richer and more complex. \n  \n  \nMeeting Information \nThis event will be hosted over Zoom. For a link\, please contact the organizers:\nIndira Das (indira.das [at] rutgers.edu)\nTatevik Yolyan (tatevik.yolyan [at] rutgers.edu)\nJiaxing Yu (jiaxing.j.yu [at] rutgers.edu)
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/colloquium-claire-halpert/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20211015T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20211015T160000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20210927T181545Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20211012T210737Z
UID:2325-1634306400-1634313600@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium: Lisa S. Pearl
DESCRIPTION:How children are and aren’t like adults when interpreting pronouns: A computational cognitive modeling investigation\nLisa S. Pearl \n  \nAbstract: \nInterpreting pronouns in context is a complex linguistic task\, especially when cues to a pronoun’s intended interpretation conflict. Children have to learn to interpret pronouns like adults do\, and computational cognitive modeling can help identify what potentially needs to change for them to do so. Here\, I present a case study of pronoun interpretation in Mexican Spanish\, using computational cognitive modeling to capture observed differences between children and adults interpreting pronouns in context in a picture-selection task. Modeling results suggest that children are likely either always deploying inaccurate representations of their input\, or selectively deploying accurate representations\, but not selectively deploying inaccurate representations. In contrast\, adults are likely always deploying inaccurate representations. So\, this would mean that becoming adult-like doesn’t mean becoming accurate; rather\, to become adult-like\, children would need to learn how to be inaccurate in the right ways for potentially both representation and deployment of pronoun information. \n  \nMeeting Information \nThis event will be hosted over Zoom. For a link\, please contact the organizers:\nIndira Das (indira.das [at] rutgers.edu)\nTatevik Yolyan (tatevik.yolyan [at] rutgers.edu)\nJiaxing Yu (jiaxing.j.yu [at] rutgers.edu)
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/colloquium-lisa-s-pearl/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20210416T150000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20210416T163000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20210415T135506Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210415T135506Z
UID:2100-1618585200-1618590600@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Danny Fox Colloquium
DESCRIPTION:Trivalent Strong Exhaustivity – towards a uniform semantics for question embedding\nDanny Fox\, MIT \nAbstract\nIn this talk I will go over well-known arguments that there are three different interpretive schemas associated with question embedding (weak-exhaustivity\, strong-exhaustivity and intermediate-exhaustivity)\, where each embedding predicate selects for the appropriate schema. Despite these arguments I will propose a uniform semantics based on the assumption that the answer to a question is a trivalent proposition (the denotation of a cleft). The answer will be “strongly exhaustive” but presuppositional\, hence Trivalent Strong Exhaustivity. Different results will follow for the different embedding contexts based on independent differences in presupposition projection. If there will be time\, I will also explain how the approach might account for restrictions on question embedding\, veridicality and maximality effects. \nBased on a recent paper – Pointwise Exhaustification and the Semantics of Question Embedding
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/danny-fox-colloquium/
LOCATION:Online; Please contact the organizers for a link
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20210326T150000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20210326T170000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20210517T143941Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210517T143941Z
UID:2147-1616770800-1616778000@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Rising declaratives and the semantics-pragmatics interface
DESCRIPTION:Rising declaratives provide a challenging test case for theories of the semantics-pragmatics interface that aim to explain why the main clause types are canonically linked to certain discourse functions. For example\, declaratives are canonically used to assert\, and thus usually commit the speaker to their propositional content and signal the goal of updating the common ground with it. Some argue that declaratives are designated for assertions by an illocutionary force operator or an extra-grammatical convention of use (e.g. Searle 1969\, Gunlogson 2003\, and Lauer 2013\, among others)\, while others propose that their assertoric function is derivable from their propositional denotation (e.g. Portner 2004\, 2018 and Farkas & Roelofsen 2017\, among others).\n\n\nHowever\, produce a declarative with the rising intonation typically used in a polar question in English\, and it now seems to be used to ask a question\, albeit one with a special pragmatic requirement that there be some contextual bias in favor of the proposition denoted by the clause. Any attempt to explain why clause types have the pragmatic effects they do will need to have some explanation for this exception to the rule.\n\nIn this talk\, I aim to show that the empirical situation is even more complicated than is typically assumed\, and that dealing with this complication teaches us something new about the semantics-pragmatics interface. The complication is that\, while rising declaratives are frequently used to ask questions\, they can also be used to make assertions much like falling declaratives\, and there is reason to believe that these disparate uses deserve a unified account. Articulating a unified account reveals that much of the illocutionary force of utterances must be pragmatically derived. In particular\, intonation cannot directly signal whether or not the speaker is committed to the content of the declarative clause (pace Gunlogson 2003\, Truckenbrodt 2012\, Farkas & Roelofsen 2017\, Jeong 2018\, and Rudin 2018\, among others). Commitment needs to be worked out from the semantic content\, the intonational contribution\, and the context of utterance. I flesh out how.
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/rising-declaratives-and-the-semantics-pragmatics-interface/
LOCATION:Online; Please contact the organizers for a link
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20210305T150000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20210305T170000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20210517T145827Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210517T145827Z
UID:2150-1614956400-1614963600@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Deconstructing Relativization -- the case of Georgian `rom' relatives
DESCRIPTION:(joint work with Léa Nash\, Paris 8/CNRS) \nThe typological literature on relativization talks about correlatives\, externally headed relatives and internally headed relatives as distinct relativization strategies. We discuss the case of Georgian\, a language which we argue has all three\, and show how it builds these up from essentially the same ingredients. We add to the typology of correlative constructions showing that Georgian correlatives consist of a left peripheral internally headed relative clause as opposed to better studied correlative constructions which involve a free relative construction. One question we ask is what the difference between free relatives and internally headed relatives is. We note that Georgian internally headed relatives contrast with free relatives in Hindi-Urdu and English in not having structural definiteness. This difference\, we show\, has an impact on the kinds of correlatives found in the two languages.
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/deconstructing-relativization-the-case-of-georgian-rom-relatives/
LOCATION:Online; Please contact the organizers for a link
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20210205T150000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20210205T163000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20210127T202543Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210127T202543Z
UID:1958-1612537200-1612542600@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Edward Flemming Colloquium
DESCRIPTION:A Generative Phonetic Analysis of the timing of L- Phrase Accents in English \nEdward Flemming (Department of Linguistics and Philosophy\, MIT) \nAbstract: \nThe narrow goal of this research is to develop an analysis of the timing of the English low phrase accent (L-) in H*L-L% and H*L-H% melodies. This is challenging because L- is generally realized as an ‘elbow’ in the F0 trajectory – i.e. a point of inflection rather than a local maximum or minimum – and it is notoriously difficult to locate F0 elbows precisely. I argue that the proper approach to locating tonal targets involves an ‘analysis-by-synthesis’ approach: Given an explicit model of the mapping from tonal targets to F0 trajectories\, we can infer the location of targets by fitting that model to observed F0 contours. So a broader goal is the development of a framework for grammars of tonal phonetics. The proposed model analyzes F0 trajectories as the response of a dynamical system to a control signal that consists of a sequence of step functions connected by linear ramps. Tone realization then involves selecting the control signal that yields the F0 trajectory that best satisfies constraints on the realization of tone targets. \nThis model is used to infer the location of L- and to analyze its distribution. Previous analyses have proposed either that L- occurs at a fixed interval after H*\, or that it aligns to a landmark\, such as the end of the accented word or the next stressed syllable. The results do not support any of these hypotheses: L- does not occur at a fixed interval after H*\, instead it tends to occur earlier when the interval between H* and the first stressed syllable in the following word is shorter (e.g. ‘álien anníhilator’ vs. ‘mínimally manéuverable’)\, but L- also does not align to that stressed syllable\, or any other landmark. This pattern of realization is analyzed as a compromise between two constraints\, one enforcing a target duration for the fall from H* to L-\, and a second\, weaker constraint requiring the fall to be completed before the next stressed syllable\, to avoid misinterpretation of L- as an L* pitch accent associated with that syllable (cf. Barnes et al 2010). \n  \n 
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/edward-flemming-colloquium/
LOCATION:Online; Please contact the organizers for a link
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20201204T133000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20201204T150000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20201130T175921Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201130T175921Z
UID:1808-1607088600-1607094000@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium: Janet Pierrehumbert
DESCRIPTION:Capturing semantic and social factors in morphological derivation. \nJanet B. Pierrehumbert (Department of Engineering Science\, University of Oxford) \nAbstract \nIn morphology\, the factors predicting the productivity of inflectional patterns have been intensively studied. Both type frequency and phonological similarity are known to play important roles. Quantitative models have thus focussed on how these two factors interact. However\, all of this work assumes that the syntax dictates the speaker’s choice from amongst a small and clearcut number of inflectional categories. \nFor derivational morphology\, this assumption is not valid. Derivational morphology is not obligatory\, and it covers a much greater range of meanings than inflectional morphology\, The selection amongst meanings is driven by the speaker’s communicative goals\, which are affected both by the meaning they wish to express\, and the social context in which they wish to express it. For this reason\, modelling the creation and interpretation of novel derived word forms is a far more challenging problem. Some linguists have viewed the problem as completely intractable. \nIn this talk\, I will review some experimental and computational studies that tackle this challenge. I will describe some experimental results indicating that semantic and social factors are continuously active in processing novel forms. Then I will turn to some recent studies on quantifying these factors to predict the creation of new derived forms in Reddit\, a social media platform. As I will show\, tools from statistical natural language processing allow us to make surprising successful predictions about the production of forms such as “unnicknameable”\, “trumpistan”\, and “minecraftesque”.
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/colloquium-janet-pierrehumbert/
LOCATION:Online; Please contact the organizers for a link
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20201120T160000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20201120T183000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20201116T175902Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201116T175902Z
UID:1790-1605888000-1605897000@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium: Stefan Keine
DESCRIPTION:Crossover asymmetries  \nStefan Keine (joint work w/ Rajesh Bhatt) \nAbstract: \nWe investigate and analyze a crossover asymmetry in Hindi scrambling: such scrambling is not subject to (secondary) weak crossover but at the same time shows clear (secondary) strong crossover effects. This asymmetry provides empirical evidence that the two types of crossover should be analytically decoupled from each other\, and it sheds light on factors that condition weak and strong crossover. We pursue the view that a movement type’s crossover profile is not arbitrary but instead correlates with independently motivated properties of this movement type. Our investigation finds evidence that weak crossover is conditioned by the landing site of movement\, while strong crossover is determined by properties of the launching site. More specifically\, we propose that weak crossover follows from a syntactic restriction on the placement of Büring’s 2004 β-operator\, which is required for pronominal binding from the landing site. Strong crossover\, on the other hand\, is determined by the amount of structure present in the launching site\, which can itself be derived from Wholesale Late Merger and nominal licensing along the lines suggested by Takahashi & Hulsey 2009. In addition to contributing to our understanding of crossover phenomena\, our argument also has implications for the A/A’-nature of scrambling (e.g.\, Webelhuth 1989\, Mahajan 1990) and movement-type asymmetries more generally.
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/colloquium-stefan-keine/
LOCATION:Online; Please contact the organizers for a link
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20201030T111500
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20201030T130000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20201116T175357Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201116T175357Z
UID:1787-1604056500-1604062800@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium: Gillian Ramchand
DESCRIPTION:Verbal Symbols and Generalized Demonstrations \nGillian Ramchand \n  \nAbstract: \nIn this talk I develop a new theory of the ingredients of semantic composition for the verb phrase\, building on recent work  (Ramchand 2018). I show that the central properties of the approach proposed there make possible a new rapprochement between the theoretical analyses of verbal meaning across the visual and auditory modalities.  The innovation of the new theory is that it partitions the verbal extended projection into a lower symbolic zone and a higher instantiational (situational) zone mediated by the demonstrative act (cf. Davidson 2015\, Henderson 2017).  First I will lay out the system\, and then I will give examples of how it can be used in a formal account of the role of iconicity across modalities. The main feature of the new approach is that it de-exoticizes the ideophone and the iconic symbol\, making it the clue and model for all verbal symbolizing.  Finally\, I show how the reification of the demonstration event gives  a new perspective on indexical content and indexical shift and its typology across languages. 
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/colloquium-gillian-ramchand/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20200410T100000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20200410T120000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20200302T014958Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200302T015004Z
UID:1467-1586512800-1586520000@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Output-driven Phonology (mini-course series III)
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/output-driven-phonology-mini-course-series-i-2/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20200403T100000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20200403T120000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20200302T014911Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200302T015110Z
UID:1465-1585908000-1585915200@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Output-driven Phonology (mini-course series II)
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/output-driven-phonology-mini-course-series-ii/
LOCATION:18 Seminary Place\, Room 108
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20200327T100000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20200327T120000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20200302T014823Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200302T015314Z
UID:1463-1585303200-1585310400@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Output-driven Phonology (mini-course series I)
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/output-driven-phonology-mini-course-series-i/
LOCATION:18 Seminary Place\, Room 108
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20200306T150000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20200306T170000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20200220T130524Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200220T130524Z
UID:1448-1583506800-1583514000@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Jon Ander Mendia Colloquium
DESCRIPTION:Structuring ignorance \nCertain constructions in natural language are tied to an inference that the speaker cannot be more informative; they give rise to what is often referred to as ‘ignorance inferences’. For instance\, the sentences in (1) convey that the speaker doesn’t know who/how many people came to the party. \n1) a. Liz or Sue came to the party.\nb. At least five people came to the party. \nIt is generally agreed that such ignorance inferences are a form of Gricean conversational implicature\, arising as the product of listeners reasoning about a set of relevant alternatives that the speaker chose not to utter. In this talk\, I focus on the modifier ‘at least’ as a case study and show that the precise nature of ignorance inferences depends directly on the structural relations among the alternatives themselves\, i.e. whether they are totally or partially ordered. In fact\, I show that the ordering among alternatives is the only factor that the implicature calculation procedure is sensitive to. The implications are broad: if this reliance on structure can be generalized to other forms of conversational implicature\, then issues surrounding the role of logical vs. contextual entailment in implicature calculation no longer arise (cf. Hirschberg 1985\, Magri 2011).
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/jon-ander-mendia-colloquium/
LOCATION:18 Seminary Place\, Room 108
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20200306T100000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20200306T120000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20200220T130135Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200220T130240Z
UID:1444-1583488800-1583496000@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Jon Ander Mendia Seminar
DESCRIPTION:Genericity and Grammar \nGeneric statements such as those in (1) express non-accidental\, fundamental characteristics of some type of individuals and/or situations. \n1) a. Birds fly.\nb. Liz smokes after dinner.\nc. This machine crushes oranges. \nSuch generic statements are cross-linguistically ubiquitous\, tend to be morphosyntactically simple\, and provide essential means to express the ways in which we view and reason about the world. In spite of this\, core questions about their semantics remain unanswered to date: (i) What are the truth-conditions of generic statements (if any)? (ii) What are the criteria that single out all and only generic statements? (iii) Can we provide a unified semantics for all generic statements\, and should we do so? \nThe main goal of this seminar will be to understand these challenges and provide preliminary answers to some of these foundational questions. We will start by examining the rich empirical landscape of generic statements so as to gain an understanding of why exactly their correct truth-conditional characterization has proven so elusive. Then\, we will look into two major semantic theories of generics: genericity as kind-predication and genericity as quantification with a vague unselective quantifier GEN. We will finish with a brief discussion of the cognitive footprint of generic statements\, and how notional distinctions such as inductive vs. regulative/dispositional generalizations may be linguistically relevant.
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/jon-ander-mendia-seminar/
LOCATION:18 Seminary Place\, Room 108
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20200221T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20200221T170000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20200212T134132Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200212T134132Z
UID:1432-1582297200-1582304400@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Virginia Dawson Colloquium
DESCRIPTION:Paths to exceptional wide scope: Choice functions in Tiwa \nChoice functions have been invoked in the analysis of indefinites and disjunction in order to explain their ability to take wide scope from within islands\, and to explain cross-linguistic variation in whether a given indefinite can or must take wide scope (Reinhart 1997\, Kratzer 1998\, Matthewson 1999\, Winter 2002\, a.o.). In the last two decades\, however\, data have been raised that prove problematic for a choice functional analysis of (most) English wide scope indefinites and disjunction (Chierchia 2001\, Schwarz 2001\, Charlow 2014): the analysis over-generates in downward-entailing environments when there is a bound pronoun in the indefinite restrictor or the individual disjuncts. These data have led to new theories of exceptional scope that avoid this over-generation problem. In this talk\, I revisit the benefits of a choice functional analysis for obligatory wide scope indefinites and disjunction in Tiwa (Tibeto-Burman; India). I show that a choice functional analysis does not over-generate wide scope readings for these elements in downward-entailing environments\, but makes exactly the right predictions. These findings suggest that exceptional wide scope is not derived via a single mechanism in all cases\, but that there are multiple distinct routes available to languages. I conclude with some preliminary typological generalizations.
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/virginia-dawson-colloquium/
LOCATION:18 Seminary Place\, Room 108
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20200221T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20200221T120000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20200212T133943Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200212T133943Z
UID:1430-1582279200-1582286400@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Virginia Dawson Seminar
DESCRIPTION:What do imperatives mean? \nWe will examine some of the major questions surrounding the semantics of imperatives\, exploring in particular the division of labor between semantics and pragmatics\, connections to modality\, and the kinds of empirical evidence that have been central to competing analyses.
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/virginia-dawson-seminar/
LOCATION:18 Seminary Place\, Room 108
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20200214T150000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20200214T170000
DTSTAMP:20260427T032413
CREATED:20200131T181805Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200131T181805Z
UID:1405-1581692400-1581699600@sites.rutgers.edu
SUMMARY:Dorothy Ahn Colloquium
DESCRIPTION:A competition mechanism for anaphoric expressions\n\nThis talk explores a competition-based analysis of anaphoric expressions\, which refer to familiar entities. I propose a unified semantic account\, where all anaphoric expressions such as pronouns and definite descriptions share an underlying semantic structure and differ only in the amount of restrictions they carry. The complexity of the restrictions results in an information based competition\, where a quantity-based economy principle chooses the simplest form possible in the given context\, avoiding redundant information. I motivate this theory from an investigation of languages that freely allow bare nouns as arguments\, where the anaphoric ability of the bare noun seems to depend on the availability of morphologically simplex pronouns. I show that the competition mechanism allows for a unified account for a number of independently observed cross-linguistic phenomena and enables a more precise and predictive semantic typology of languages.
URL:https://sites.rutgers.edu/lgsa/event/dorothy-ahn-colloquium/
LOCATION:18 Seminary Place\, Room 108
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR