{"id":2826,"global_id":"sites.rutgers.edu\/lgsa?id=2826","global_id_lineage":["sites.rutgers.edu\/lgsa?id=2826"],"author":"1519","status":"publish","date":"2023-03-16 23:09:05","date_utc":"2023-03-16 23:09:05","modified":"2023-04-16 23:14:03","modified_utc":"2023-04-16 23:14:03","url":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/lgsa\/event\/colloquium-rodrigo-ranero\/","rest_url":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/lgsa\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/events\/2826","title":"Colloquium: Rodrigo Ranero","description":"

Speaker:<\/strong> Rodrigo Ranero<\/a> (UCLA)<\/p>\n

Title:<\/strong> A new perspective on the syntax of silence: The view from Mayan<\/p>\n

Abstract:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ellipsis 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\u2014the identity condition<\/em> underpinning ellipsis. In a nutshell: Is syntactic, semantic, or some sort of hybrid identity required?<\/p>\n

Data 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:<\/p>\n

(1) Every night, Bianca lip syncs<\/strong>. Trixie taught her how <to lip sync<\/strong><\/span>>.<\/p>\n

Of equal interest, there are other cases where there is a mismatch but the result is ill-formed. Voice mismatches in sluicing\u2014clausal ellipsis with a wh<\/em>-remnant\u2014are a prominent example:<\/p>\n

(2) *Bianca was crowned<\/strong>, but we can\u2019t remember who <crowned her<\/strong><\/span>>.<\/p>\n

Any 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.<\/p>\n

In this talk I will argue for a new approach to the identity condition. I propose that the condition incorporates a syntactic component, but strict<\/em> 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<\/em>:<\/p>\n

(3) Proposal: syntactic identity in ellipsis<\/em>
\nThe antecedent and material properly contained in the ellipsis site must be featurally nondistinct.<\/p>\n

In support of (3), we will discuss evidence from Kaqchikel, a Mayan language of Guatemala that possesses a rich voice system (Garc\u00eda Matzar & Rodr\u00edguez Guaj\u00e1n 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\u2014a voice that is specific to several Mayan languages\u2014 can mismatch with active and passive voices. To exemplify, a well-formed Agent-Focus-active mismatch is shown below:<\/p>\n

(4) Xaxe ri ma Pedro x-\u00d8-loq\u2019-o ri kotz\u2019i\u2019j.Aw-etam-an ankuchi
\nonly DET CLF Pedro COM-ABS3S-buy-AGENT.F DET flowers ERG2S-know-PERF where<\/p>\n

<x-\u00d8-u-l\u00f6q\u2019 wi>?
\n\u2018Only Pedro bought the flowers. Do you know where?\u2019<\/p>\n

I 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).<\/p>","excerpt":"","slug":"colloquium-rodrigo-ranero","image":false,"all_day":false,"start_date":"2023-02-03 15:00:00","start_date_details":{"year":"2023","month":"02","day":"03","hour":"15","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"end_date":"2023-02-03 16:30:00","end_date_details":{"year":"2023","month":"02","day":"03","hour":"16","minutes":"30","seconds":"00"},"utc_start_date":"2023-02-03 15:00:00","utc_start_date_details":{"year":"2023","month":"02","day":"03","hour":"15","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"utc_end_date":"2023-02-03 16:30:00","utc_end_date_details":{"year":"2023","month":"02","day":"03","hour":"16","minutes":"30","seconds":"00"},"timezone":"UTC+0","timezone_abbr":"UTC+0","cost":"","cost_details":{"currency_symbol":"","currency_code":"","currency_position":"prefix","values":[]},"website":"","show_map":true,"show_map_link":true,"hide_from_listings":false,"sticky":false,"featured":false,"categories":[],"tags":[],"venue":[],"organizer":[],"json_ld":{"@context":"http:\/\/schema.org","@type":"Event","name":"Colloquium: Rodrigo Ranero","description":"<p>Speaker: Rodrigo Ranero (UCLA) Title: A new perspective on the syntax of silence: The view from Mayan Abstract: Ellipsis is structure and meaning without form. In the case of spoken … <a href="https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/lgsa\/event\/colloquium-rodrigo-ranero\/" class="">Read More<\/a><\/p>\\n","url":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/lgsa\/event\/colloquium-rodrigo-ranero\/","eventAttendanceMode":"https:\/\/schema.org\/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","eventStatus":"https:\/\/schema.org\/EventScheduled","startDate":"2023-02-03T15:00:00+00:00","endDate":"2023-02-03T16:30:00+00:00","performer":"Organization"}}