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
The fusion between some constituents in the eastern Dan sentences Bleu Gildas Gondo (Rutgers University) The present work aims to carry out an analytical reflection on the process of the fusion between some constituents in the eastern Dan sentences. In fact, the fusion in Dan sentences which happens between subject and complement and verbs and complement … Read More
This is a meeting to discuss binding reconstruction within semantic theory. The primary reading is Chris Barker's paper "Evaluation order, crossover, and reconstruction".
Resisting prosodic ambiguity: the case of reduced relative clauses in Rutooro Lauren Clemens & Lee Bickmore (University at Albany) Rutooro is a Bantu language of Uganda that lacks lexical tone. Instead, prominence in Rutooro is marked with a High tone (H) on the penultimate syllable of the phonological phrase (φ-phrase). Like many languages in the … Read More
In this meeting we'll discuss Richards' (2004) article The syntax of conjunct and independent orders in Wampanoag.
In this meeting, we will continue the discussion on learning started last semester. The relevant reading for the meeting is Clark and Eyraud (2007) on learning substitutable languages, which can learn non-regular languages that can model some aspects of syntactic structure. All are welcome!