Linguistics Graduate Students Association

Agree without Agreement: Switch-Reference in Two Panoan Languages Mark Baker and Livia Camargo Souza (Rutgers University) Overview: The Panoan languages Shipibo and Yawanawa have unusual switch-reference (SR) systems in what (we claim) is a theoretically instructive way. They make the standard morphological distinction between a “same-subject” (SS) form (-ax or –xon) and a “different subject” … Read More

Multi-valuation and the Language Level of the Agreement Hierarchy Zheng Shen (Goethe University Frankfurt)   Multi-valuation involves a probe getting multiple singular values. Nominal right node raising (1) and TP right node raising (2) have been argued to involve multi-valued Ns and Ts respectively.   (1) This tall and that short student(*s) are a couple. (multi-valued Ns) … Read More

Unconditionals and free choice Anna Szabolcsi (NYU) The seminal analysis of unconditionals in Rawlins 2013 is founded on the insight that the issue raised by the unconditional adjunct is orthogonal to the issue of the main clause. Rawlins furthermore notes, "Since orthogonality is a generalization of a distribution effect, more classical free choice effects ...  … Read More

A presentation by Kevin McMullin on Learning phonotactic restrictions on multiple tiers.

Many phonological processes apply across large amounts of intervening material, including, e.g., vowel harmony, consonant harmony, and long-distance patterns of dissimilation. These phenomena have long posed a challenge for phonologists, and have served as motivation for incorporating tiers or projections into various theoretical frameworks. In this talk, I will argue that when treating long-distance dependencies … Read More