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Quantifying the creole continuum: A sociophonetic approach to variation and change in Hawaiʻi Creole vowels
Dr. James Grama (3/18)
Date: March 18
The creole continuum (DeCamp 1971) is a model that accounts for variation in many creole contexts, whereby speakers (and linguistic features) vary along a continuum bounded between two polar lects: a more creole-like lect, structurally dissimilar from the main lexifier (the basilect) and one that shares more in common with the main lexifier (the acrolect). Over time, these creoles are predicted to undergo decreolization (cf. Bickerton 1980), wherein basilectal features are gradually replaced diachronically with those from the acrolect, bringing the creole structurally closer to its main lexifier. While this model has been foundational in circumscribing variation in many creole varieties (see, e.g., Patrick 1999), it is very rarely represented as analytically continuous, nor is it typically applied to phonological or phonetic based variation.
In this talk, I discuss my attempts to quantify and operationalize the creole continuum in a study of vowel change in Hawaiʻi Creole—an English lexified creole spoken by some 700,000 people in Hawaiʻi. While linguistic documentation of the language began in earnest in the 1960s and 70s (cf. Reinecke 1969; Bickerton & Odo 1976) and persisted through to the 2000s (e.g., Sakoda & Siegel 2003), no work has yet investigated change in the vocalic system, despite attestations that the language is both decreolizing (Bickerton 1980; Odo 1971; inter alia) and highly variable (cf. Sakoda & Siegel 2008). To begin to circumscribe this variability, I analyze seven Hawaiʻi Creole vowels that are reported to vary along the creole continuum, using two corpora of speakers whose birthdates span approximately 90 years. The creole continuum is operationalized using a Density Measure (e.g., Van Hofewegen & Wolfram 2010), where higher instances of morpho-syntactic features are taken as evidence of more basilectal speech. This metric is then used as a predictor of vowel variation. I argue that while decreolization is a fitting way to describe some of the changes to the vowel system, it insufficiently captures others. Instead, the data suggests a model where Hawaiʻi Creole exists as a variety in its own right separate from a direct relationship with English, and that decreolization is only one available avenue in a larger spectrum of possible directions of language change.
Dr. James Grama (3/18)
Date: March 18
The creole continuum (DeCamp 1971) is a model that accounts for variation in many creole contexts, whereby speakers (and linguistic features) vary along a continuum bounded between two polar lects: a more creole-like lect, structurally dissimilar from the main lexifier (the basilect) and one that shares more in common with the main lexifier (the acrolect). Over time, these creoles are predicted to undergo decreolization (cf. Bickerton 1980), wherein basilectal features are gradually replaced diachronically with those from the acrolect, bringing the creole structurally closer to its main lexifier. While this model has been foundational in circumscribing variation in many creole varieties (see, e.g., Patrick 1999), it is very rarely represented as analytically continuous, nor is it typically applied to phonological or phonetic based variation.
In this talk, I discuss my attempts to quantify and operationalize the creole continuum in a study of vowel change in Hawaiʻi Creole—an English lexified creole spoken by some 700,000 people in Hawaiʻi. While linguistic documentation of the language began in earnest in the 1960s and 70s (cf. Reinecke 1969; Bickerton & Odo 1976) and persisted through to the 2000s (e.g., Sakoda & Siegel 2003), no work has yet investigated change in the vocalic system, despite attestations that the language is both decreolizing (Bickerton 1980; Odo 1971; inter alia) and highly variable (cf. Sakoda & Siegel 2008). To begin to circumscribe this variability, I analyze seven Hawaiʻi Creole vowels that are reported to vary along the creole continuum, using two corpora of speakers whose birthdates span approximately 90 years. The creole continuum is operationalized using a Density Measure (e.g., Van Hofewegen & Wolfram 2010), where higher instances of morpho-syntactic features are taken as evidence of more basilectal speech. This metric is then used as a predictor of vowel variation. I argue that while decreolization is a fitting way to describe some of the changes to the vowel system, it insufficiently captures others. Instead, the data suggests a model where Hawaiʻi Creole exists as a variety in its own right separate from a direct relationship with English, and that decreolization is only one available avenue in a larger spectrum of possible directions of language change.
What are phonotactic constraints good for?
Dr. Kyle Gorman (3/3)
Date: March 3
Phonotactic constraints are key elements of many phonotactic theories. In Optimality Theory and related theories, for instance, these constraints are separate theoretical objects from the phonological processes they trigger. Some phonologists often go even further, positing the existence of phonotactic constraints which do not trigger any phonological processes in the given language, but whose existence can be inferred from distributional analysis, lexical statistics, phonotactic gaps, wordlikeness judgments of nonce words, and so on. I argue that phonotactic constraints so inferred are dubious, both theoretically and empirically, and the theory of phonotactics should instead focus on whatever generalizations are "good for" generating the input-output mappings phonological grammars are responsible for.
Dr. Kyle Gorman (3/3)
Date: March 3
Phonotactic constraints are key elements of many phonotactic theories. In Optimality Theory and related theories, for instance, these constraints are separate theoretical objects from the phonological processes they trigger. Some phonologists often go even further, positing the existence of phonotactic constraints which do not trigger any phonological processes in the given language, but whose existence can be inferred from distributional analysis, lexical statistics, phonotactic gaps, wordlikeness judgments of nonce words, and so on. I argue that phonotactic constraints so inferred are dubious, both theoretically and empirically, and the theory of phonotactics should instead focus on whatever generalizations are "good for" generating the input-output mappings phonological grammars are responsible for.
Representing events in language and cognition
Dr. Anna Papafragou (2/10)
Date: Feb 10
A standard assumption within psycholinguistics is that the act of speaking begins with the preverbal, conceptual apprehension of an event or state of affairs that the speaker intends to talk about. Nevertheless, the way conceptual representations are formed prior to speaking is not well understood. In this talk I present results from a long-standing, interdisciplinary research program that addresses the nature of conceptual representations, their interface with linguistic semantics and pragmatics, and their role during language production in both children and adults. Focusing on the domain of events, I show that both the representational units of event cognition and the way they combine reveal sensitivity to abstract underlying structure that is often homologous to the structure of events in language. This abstract event structure can predict otherwise unexplained similarities in the way children and adults across language communities apprehend and process events in non-linguistic tasks.
Dr. Anna Papafragou (2/10)
Date: Feb 10
A standard assumption within psycholinguistics is that the act of speaking begins with the preverbal, conceptual apprehension of an event or state of affairs that the speaker intends to talk about. Nevertheless, the way conceptual representations are formed prior to speaking is not well understood. In this talk I present results from a long-standing, interdisciplinary research program that addresses the nature of conceptual representations, their interface with linguistic semantics and pragmatics, and their role during language production in both children and adults. Focusing on the domain of events, I show that both the representational units of event cognition and the way they combine reveal sensitivity to abstract underlying structure that is often homologous to the structure of events in language. This abstract event structure can predict otherwise unexplained similarities in the way children and adults across language communities apprehend and process events in non-linguistic tasks.
On the (non-)transparency of infixes that surface at a morpheme juncture
Dr. Laura Kalin (2/3)
Date: Feb 3
Infixation is characterized by the intrusion of one morphological element inside of another. Canonical examples of infixation involve an intramorphemic position for the infix, in particular, with the infix appearing inside of a root, e.g., k<ni>akri ‘act of crying’, from root kakri ‘cry’ with the nominalizing infix -ni- (Leti; Blevins 1999). Since infixes are positioned relative to a phonological “pivot” (e.g., Yu 2007), and since infixes should in principle be able to combine with complex (multimorphemic) stems, it stands to reason that an infix could sometimes, incidentally, appear inside of an affix or even at a morpheme juncture, intermorphemically; and indeed, both possibilities are attested. In this talk, I ask: When an infix (incidentally) appears between two morphemes in its stem, does the infix disrupt relations at/across that morpheme juncture that we otherwise expect to be strictly local? I investigate the (non-)transparency of 9 infixes (from 8 languages; 7 language families) that can appear at a morpheme juncture. I find that these infixes disrupt limited types of phonological interactions, but never interrupt semantic, syntactic, or morphological interactions/relationships. These findings, in concert with other recent typological findings about infixes (Kalin 2021), provide strong novel support for a model of the morphology-syntax interface where realization (including exponent choice and infixation) is serial and proceeds from the bottom up.
Dr. Laura Kalin (2/3)
Date: Feb 3
Infixation is characterized by the intrusion of one morphological element inside of another. Canonical examples of infixation involve an intramorphemic position for the infix, in particular, with the infix appearing inside of a root, e.g., k<ni>akri ‘act of crying’, from root kakri ‘cry’ with the nominalizing infix -ni- (Leti; Blevins 1999). Since infixes are positioned relative to a phonological “pivot” (e.g., Yu 2007), and since infixes should in principle be able to combine with complex (multimorphemic) stems, it stands to reason that an infix could sometimes, incidentally, appear inside of an affix or even at a morpheme juncture, intermorphemically; and indeed, both possibilities are attested. In this talk, I ask: When an infix (incidentally) appears between two morphemes in its stem, does the infix disrupt relations at/across that morpheme juncture that we otherwise expect to be strictly local? I investigate the (non-)transparency of 9 infixes (from 8 languages; 7 language families) that can appear at a morpheme juncture. I find that these infixes disrupt limited types of phonological interactions, but never interrupt semantic, syntactic, or morphological interactions/relationships. These findings, in concert with other recent typological findings about infixes (Kalin 2021), provide strong novel support for a model of the morphology-syntax interface where realization (including exponent choice and infixation) is serial and proceeds from the bottom up.
Representation and the range of possible (morpho)phonology
Maxime Papillon (University of Concordia) (1/27)
Date: Jan 27
Raimy (2000) proposed to handle reduplication as loops in the phonological representation where precedence is relaxed to allow arbitrary multiprecedence. I extend this proposal to show that with the notion of precedence defined by Raimy, a multitude of phenomena can be captured by exploiting the new geometrical configurations between feature bundles allows, suggesting a unified theory of possible (morpho)phonology limited solely by the representation. I will discuss the way PROP handles vowel harmony, allomorphy, and their interactions with reduplication.
Maxime Papillon (University of Concordia) (1/27)
Date: Jan 27
Raimy (2000) proposed to handle reduplication as loops in the phonological representation where precedence is relaxed to allow arbitrary multiprecedence. I extend this proposal to show that with the notion of precedence defined by Raimy, a multitude of phenomena can be captured by exploiting the new geometrical configurations between feature bundles allows, suggesting a unified theory of possible (morpho)phonology limited solely by the representation. I will discuss the way PROP handles vowel harmony, allomorphy, and their interactions with reduplication.
Presupposition Projection, Linear Order, and the Truth Conditions of Connectives
Florian Schwarz (University of Pennsylvania) (12/2)
Date: Dec 2
The role of linear order for presupposition projection is a long-standing matter of theoretical controversy and empirical confusion. On the one hand, there’s a natural association of the `left-to-right’ unfolding of the linguistic signal and the gradual update of the contexts relative to which subsequent expressions are interpreted. On the other hand, connectives seem to display varying behavior in terms of whether later material can affect presuppositions of earlier expressions. In particular, conjunction has often been taken to be asymmetric with regards to projection, only allowing `left-to-right’ filtering (e.g., with the first conjunct supporting a presupposition in the second conjunct), whereas disjunction seems to also allow the reverse `right-to-left’ filtering (as in Partee’s `bathroom sentences’). But the validity of these generalizations has been challenged, too, e.g., by arguing that the apparent asymmetry of conjunction is due to certain confounds, or by appealing to other theoretical mechanisms, such as local accommodation, to explain away `right-to-left’ filtering with disjunction. The resolution of these issues is of central importance for theories of presupposition projection, as they bear on the key question of whether or not a general account of the role of linear order for projection, e.g., along the lines of Schlenker (2009), can be maintained, or whether order effects with regards to projection need to be able to vary across connectives. I present a series of experimental investigations of projection from both conjunction and disjunction. The results show that projection from conjunction is genuinely asymmetric (i.e., limited to left-to-right filtering), and that projection from disjunction is genuinely symmetric (also allowing right-to-left filtering). This challenges a general account of projection like Schlenker’s Local Context approach, which predicts uniform effects of linear order on projection. In the final part of the talk, I present a sketch of an account, currently being developed by Alexandros Kalomoiros, that aims to maintain the generality and explanatory appeal of Schlenker’s approach, but allows for variation in the role of linear order for different connectives based on their truth-conditional profile.
Florian Schwarz (University of Pennsylvania) (12/2)
Date: Dec 2
The role of linear order for presupposition projection is a long-standing matter of theoretical controversy and empirical confusion. On the one hand, there’s a natural association of the `left-to-right’ unfolding of the linguistic signal and the gradual update of the contexts relative to which subsequent expressions are interpreted. On the other hand, connectives seem to display varying behavior in terms of whether later material can affect presuppositions of earlier expressions. In particular, conjunction has often been taken to be asymmetric with regards to projection, only allowing `left-to-right’ filtering (e.g., with the first conjunct supporting a presupposition in the second conjunct), whereas disjunction seems to also allow the reverse `right-to-left’ filtering (as in Partee’s `bathroom sentences’). But the validity of these generalizations has been challenged, too, e.g., by arguing that the apparent asymmetry of conjunction is due to certain confounds, or by appealing to other theoretical mechanisms, such as local accommodation, to explain away `right-to-left’ filtering with disjunction. The resolution of these issues is of central importance for theories of presupposition projection, as they bear on the key question of whether or not a general account of the role of linear order for projection, e.g., along the lines of Schlenker (2009), can be maintained, or whether order effects with regards to projection need to be able to vary across connectives. I present a series of experimental investigations of projection from both conjunction and disjunction. The results show that projection from conjunction is genuinely asymmetric (i.e., limited to left-to-right filtering), and that projection from disjunction is genuinely symmetric (also allowing right-to-left filtering). This challenges a general account of projection like Schlenker’s Local Context approach, which predicts uniform effects of linear order on projection. In the final part of the talk, I present a sketch of an account, currently being developed by Alexandros Kalomoiros, that aims to maintain the generality and explanatory appeal of Schlenker’s approach, but allows for variation in the role of linear order for different connectives based on their truth-conditional profile.
Inference, Alternatives, and Meaning in Language Acquisition
David Barner (UCSD) (11/18)
Date: Nov 18
Though children begin to use abstract quantificational expressions early in acquisition, studies in both linguistics and psychology have documented surprising failures. Early accounts, beginning with Piaget, ascribed these failures to children's still burgeoning semantic and conceptual representations, arguing that children acquire ever more powerful logical resources as they develop and acquire language. But more recent accounts, drawing on a Gricean divide between semantics and pragmatics, have argued that certain of these failures might not reflect semantic incompetence, but instead changes in children's pragmatic reasoning abilities. In this talk, I investigate this question, and argue that neither pragmatic incompetence nor conceptual/semantic change can explain children's behaviors, and that instead children's judgments stem from difficulties with "access to alternatives". I explore this idea in three different ways, focusing first on how children derive exact meanings for numerals, then on how they narrow the reference of NPs to whole objects (rather than their parts), and finally on how access to alternatives impacts logical expressions, including quantifiers and connectives like "or".
David Barner (UCSD) (11/18)
Date: Nov 18
Though children begin to use abstract quantificational expressions early in acquisition, studies in both linguistics and psychology have documented surprising failures. Early accounts, beginning with Piaget, ascribed these failures to children's still burgeoning semantic and conceptual representations, arguing that children acquire ever more powerful logical resources as they develop and acquire language. But more recent accounts, drawing on a Gricean divide between semantics and pragmatics, have argued that certain of these failures might not reflect semantic incompetence, but instead changes in children's pragmatic reasoning abilities. In this talk, I investigate this question, and argue that neither pragmatic incompetence nor conceptual/semantic change can explain children's behaviors, and that instead children's judgments stem from difficulties with "access to alternatives". I explore this idea in three different ways, focusing first on how children derive exact meanings for numerals, then on how they narrow the reference of NPs to whole objects (rather than their parts), and finally on how access to alternatives impacts logical expressions, including quantifiers and connectives like "or".
Learning Derivationally Opaque Patterns in the Gestural Harmony Model
Caitlin Smith (Johns Hopkins University) [Joint work with Charlie O'Hara (University of Michigan)] (11/11)
Date: Nov 11
In this talk, we examine the learnability of two apparently derivationally opaque vowel harmony patterns: attested chain-shifting height harmony and unattested saltatory height harmony. We analyze these patterns within the Gestural Harmony Model (Smith 2018) and introduce a learning algorithm for setting the gestural parameters that generate these harmony patterns. Results of the learning model indicate a learning bias in favor of the attested chain-shifting pattern and against the unattested saltation pattern, providing a potential explanation for the differences in attestation between these two derivationally opaque patterns. Furthermore, we show that feature-based learning models of these patterns show no such learning bias and provide no account of the typological asymmetry between chain-shifting and saltatory height harmony.
Caitlin Smith (Johns Hopkins University) [Joint work with Charlie O'Hara (University of Michigan)] (11/11)
Date: Nov 11
In this talk, we examine the learnability of two apparently derivationally opaque vowel harmony patterns: attested chain-shifting height harmony and unattested saltatory height harmony. We analyze these patterns within the Gestural Harmony Model (Smith 2018) and introduce a learning algorithm for setting the gestural parameters that generate these harmony patterns. Results of the learning model indicate a learning bias in favor of the attested chain-shifting pattern and against the unattested saltation pattern, providing a potential explanation for the differences in attestation between these two derivationally opaque patterns. Furthermore, we show that feature-based learning models of these patterns show no such learning bias and provide no account of the typological asymmetry between chain-shifting and saltatory height harmony.
Toward an Alternative(s) Syntax: Projecting and Operating over Syntactic Alternatives
Micheal Wagner (McGill University) (10/14)
Date: Oct 14
Many grammatical phenomena have been analyzed based on the assumption that constituents can introduce semantic alternatives, and that these alternatives can project by point-wise semantic composition, following Hamblin's 1973 analysis of questions. This talk presents arguments that linguistic expressions can also introduce syntactic alternatives, that these alternatives can "project" in a point-wise fashion to create larger linguistic expressions, and that grammar can operate over sets of linguistic expressions. This syntactic view of alternatives is compatible with Katzir's 2007 independent arguments that alternatives are, at least sometimes, structural. The evidence comes from data involving prosodic focus, association with focus, disjunction, and coordination.
Micheal Wagner (McGill University) (10/14)
Date: Oct 14
Many grammatical phenomena have been analyzed based on the assumption that constituents can introduce semantic alternatives, and that these alternatives can project by point-wise semantic composition, following Hamblin's 1973 analysis of questions. This talk presents arguments that linguistic expressions can also introduce syntactic alternatives, that these alternatives can "project" in a point-wise fashion to create larger linguistic expressions, and that grammar can operate over sets of linguistic expressions. This syntactic view of alternatives is compatible with Katzir's 2007 independent arguments that alternatives are, at least sometimes, structural. The evidence comes from data involving prosodic focus, association with focus, disjunction, and coordination.
Towards a Computational Linking Theory for Minimalism
Aniello De Santo, (University of Utah) (9/30)
Date: Sept 30
An important problem at the intersection between theoretical linguistics and psycholinguistics is whether the fine-grained structural analyses posited by syntactitians have any relevance to the cognitive processes underlying language processing (Bresnan 1978). In this talk, I overview a line of research recasting such question in a computational framework, specifying a transparent (i.e., interpretable) linking hypothesis between grammatical structure and processing complexity.
Specifically, I present work exploring how a top-down parser for Minimalist grammars (Stabler, 1996; MGs) can explain well-known contrasts in off-line sentence processing in terms of subtle structural differences. This model is especially suited to probe the relation between syntactic and processing complexity, as it specifies: 1) a formalized theory of syntax in the form of a rich grammar formalism; 2) a sound and complete parser; 3) a linking theory between syntactic assumptions and processing behavior, in the form of metrics measuring memory usage.
As illustrative examples, I discuss how the model is able to account for a variety of off-line processing asymmetries cross-linguistically, how these results allow us to evaluate the predictions made by distinct analyses of syntactic phenomena, and how this puts us in the position to address broader questions about the nature of syntactic representations.
By investigating the MG model’s performance across a growing array of processing phenomena, this project aims to add support to the psychological plausibility of fine-grained grammatical knowledge contributing to processing cost.
It thus highlights the MG parsing model as a valuable, empirically grounded, theoretically insightful reframing of the Derivational Theory of Complexity (Miller and Chomsky, 1963).
Aniello De Santo, (University of Utah) (9/30)
Date: Sept 30
An important problem at the intersection between theoretical linguistics and psycholinguistics is whether the fine-grained structural analyses posited by syntactitians have any relevance to the cognitive processes underlying language processing (Bresnan 1978). In this talk, I overview a line of research recasting such question in a computational framework, specifying a transparent (i.e., interpretable) linking hypothesis between grammatical structure and processing complexity.
Specifically, I present work exploring how a top-down parser for Minimalist grammars (Stabler, 1996; MGs) can explain well-known contrasts in off-line sentence processing in terms of subtle structural differences. This model is especially suited to probe the relation between syntactic and processing complexity, as it specifies: 1) a formalized theory of syntax in the form of a rich grammar formalism; 2) a sound and complete parser; 3) a linking theory between syntactic assumptions and processing behavior, in the form of metrics measuring memory usage.
As illustrative examples, I discuss how the model is able to account for a variety of off-line processing asymmetries cross-linguistically, how these results allow us to evaluate the predictions made by distinct analyses of syntactic phenomena, and how this puts us in the position to address broader questions about the nature of syntactic representations.
By investigating the MG model’s performance across a growing array of processing phenomena, this project aims to add support to the psychological plausibility of fine-grained grammatical knowledge contributing to processing cost.
It thus highlights the MG parsing model as a valuable, empirically grounded, theoretically insightful reframing of the Derivational Theory of Complexity (Miller and Chomsky, 1963).
Navigating a discourse context as a budding conversationalist: The case of nominal reference
Kristen Syrett (Rutgers University - New Brunswick) (9/16)
Date: Sept 16
As adults, most of the time, we seamlessly negotiate meaning in our exchanges with other speakers by recruiting knowledge at multiple levels—the meaning entailed by words, our prior conceptual or semantic knowledge, common ground between speaker and hearer, knowledge about who is delivering the utterances, and so on. But much of this knowledge takes years to acquire. So how do children arrive at interpretations in an unfolding conversation, given their nascent understanding of all of these moving parts of a discourse context? In this talk, I will share results from a set of studies with preschoolers designed to assess how children rapidly assign meaning associated with familiar and novel nouns and their referents.
In one instance, children demonstrate developing appreciation of a speaker’s intentions when identifying an object referred to with a known noun. In a second, children leverage the animacy constraints of a cooccurring lexical expression in a speaker’s utterance to narrow down the referent of a novel noun. In a third, children demonstrate sensitivity to a speaker’s group status as indicated by their accent when deducing the name of a novel object, and later seem to allow this speaker-specific information to be overridden by the valence of a judge-dependent predicate when assessing the property of a concealed referent.
Taken together, these results demonstrate an exciting interplay of semantic, pragmatic, conceptual, and social knowledge that allows children to navigate their way through the discourse context as budding conversationalists.
Kristen Syrett (Rutgers University - New Brunswick) (9/16)
Date: Sept 16
As adults, most of the time, we seamlessly negotiate meaning in our exchanges with other speakers by recruiting knowledge at multiple levels—the meaning entailed by words, our prior conceptual or semantic knowledge, common ground between speaker and hearer, knowledge about who is delivering the utterances, and so on. But much of this knowledge takes years to acquire. So how do children arrive at interpretations in an unfolding conversation, given their nascent understanding of all of these moving parts of a discourse context? In this talk, I will share results from a set of studies with preschoolers designed to assess how children rapidly assign meaning associated with familiar and novel nouns and their referents.
In one instance, children demonstrate developing appreciation of a speaker’s intentions when identifying an object referred to with a known noun. In a second, children leverage the animacy constraints of a cooccurring lexical expression in a speaker’s utterance to narrow down the referent of a novel noun. In a third, children demonstrate sensitivity to a speaker’s group status as indicated by their accent when deducing the name of a novel object, and later seem to allow this speaker-specific information to be overridden by the valence of a judge-dependent predicate when assessing the property of a concealed referent.
Taken together, these results demonstrate an exciting interplay of semantic, pragmatic, conceptual, and social knowledge that allows children to navigate their way through the discourse context as budding conversationalists.
Fall 2021 - Spring 2022 Michigan State University Linguistics Colloquium Series Schedule
Here are the colloquium speakers and corresponding schedule for Fall 2021 - Spring 2022:
(all talks will be held remotely over Zoom. meeting link: https://msu.zoom.us/j/91929271197, meeting ID: 919 2927 1197 , passcode: MSU)
FALL SEMESTER 2021
9/16 Kristen Syrett (Rutgers University)
9/30 Aniello De Santo (University of Utah)
10/14 Michael Wagner (McGill University)
11/11 Caitlin Smith (Johns Hopkins University)
11/18 David Barner (University of California San Diego)
12/2 Florian Schwarz (University of Pennsylvania)
SPRING SEMESTER 2022
1/27 Maxime Papillon (University of Concordia)
2/3 Laura Kalin (Princeton University)
2/10 Anna Papafragou (University of Pennsylvania)
3/3 Kyle Gorman (City University of New York)
3/18 James Grama (University of Duisburg-Essen)
Here are the colloquium speakers and corresponding schedule for Fall 2021 - Spring 2022:
(all talks will be held remotely over Zoom. meeting link: https://msu.zoom.us/j/91929271197, meeting ID: 919 2927 1197 , passcode: MSU)
FALL SEMESTER 2021
9/16 Kristen Syrett (Rutgers University)
9/30 Aniello De Santo (University of Utah)
10/14 Michael Wagner (McGill University)
11/11 Caitlin Smith (Johns Hopkins University)
11/18 David Barner (University of California San Diego)
12/2 Florian Schwarz (University of Pennsylvania)
SPRING SEMESTER 2022
1/27 Maxime Papillon (University of Concordia)
2/3 Laura Kalin (Princeton University)
2/10 Anna Papafragou (University of Pennsylvania)
3/3 Kyle Gorman (City University of New York)
3/18 James Grama (University of Duisburg-Essen)
Exclusive Interpretations of Disjunction in Japanese-speaking Children
Andreea Cristina Nicolae (Leibniz-Center of General Linguistics, Berlin) (4/1)
Date: April 1st
Children’s interpretation of disjunction is a hotly debated topic in the literature on first language acquisition. The issues range from scope differences and the polarity of disjunction in adult versus child language, to the switch from logical to pragmatic interpretations for disjunction in positive contexts and where along the spectrum children fall. In this talk I will present the results of two experiments which contribute to the debate of how children interpret disjunction in positive contexts. I will focus specifically on their ability to derive an exclusive interpretation and discuss what may or may not be contributing to their varying ability to derive such inferences.
Andreea Cristina Nicolae (Leibniz-Center of General Linguistics, Berlin) (4/1)
Date: April 1st
Children’s interpretation of disjunction is a hotly debated topic in the literature on first language acquisition. The issues range from scope differences and the polarity of disjunction in adult versus child language, to the switch from logical to pragmatic interpretations for disjunction in positive contexts and where along the spectrum children fall. In this talk I will present the results of two experiments which contribute to the debate of how children interpret disjunction in positive contexts. I will focus specifically on their ability to derive an exclusive interpretation and discuss what may or may not be contributing to their varying ability to derive such inferences.
Becoming part of the Speech Community: Incrementation between Childhood and Adolescence
Sophie Holmes-Elliott (Queen Mary, University of London) (3/5)
Date: March 5th
In order to become integrated members of their speech communities, young speakers face a number of sociolinguistic challenges. One task is that they must tune their use of variable forms in line with sociolinguistic rules of the broader speech community. At the same time, they must also identify which variables are in a state of ongoing change and become the leaders. Children must therefore conform to some norms by becoming adept at adult-like patterns of style shifting, whilst overstepping others by developing into the leaders of change. In other words, children must learn and obey the rules, but also break them. Over the course of this development, children undergo 'vernacular reorganisation’ (Labov, 2001) where they move away from the parent-oriented models of early childhood, shift towards the peer-oriented models of adolescence, and finally settle on their relatively stable adult systems.
In this talk I present an examination of vernacular reorganisation as it plays out in real time. The data come from Hastings, a coastal town in southeast England part of the larger Southern British English (SBE) dialect region. The sample consists of 13 speakers, and targets a key phase in development – childhood to adolescence. The speakers were initially interviewed aged 9-11, and then again 4 years later, aged 13-15. A further corpus in the form of an age stratified adult corpus of speech from the same community forms a baseline for comparison.
In order to investigate how young speakers cope with the various, potentially competing, sociolinguistic demands, I present analyses across four different features:
1. GOOSE-fronting: a socially unmarked change in progress
2. TH-fronting: a rapidly shifting stigmatised change in progress
3. T-glottaling: a steadily shifting stigmatised change in progress
4. /s/-realisation: a stable but gendered variable feature
Comparison of these features across real and apparent time reveals how patterns observable in the wider community affect the ease at which young speakers calibrate their variable use. Moreover, how the ease of this calibration affects when, and to what extent, the developing speakers innovate within their own systems. Observing vernacular reorganisation from the perspective of both real and apparent time sheds light on the mechanism of change, while comparison across multiple features types affords a glimpse into the ‘why’ of vernacular reorganisation: what motivates young speakers to shift in the ways that they do?
Sophie Holmes-Elliott (Queen Mary, University of London) (3/5)
Date: March 5th
In order to become integrated members of their speech communities, young speakers face a number of sociolinguistic challenges. One task is that they must tune their use of variable forms in line with sociolinguistic rules of the broader speech community. At the same time, they must also identify which variables are in a state of ongoing change and become the leaders. Children must therefore conform to some norms by becoming adept at adult-like patterns of style shifting, whilst overstepping others by developing into the leaders of change. In other words, children must learn and obey the rules, but also break them. Over the course of this development, children undergo 'vernacular reorganisation’ (Labov, 2001) where they move away from the parent-oriented models of early childhood, shift towards the peer-oriented models of adolescence, and finally settle on their relatively stable adult systems.
In this talk I present an examination of vernacular reorganisation as it plays out in real time. The data come from Hastings, a coastal town in southeast England part of the larger Southern British English (SBE) dialect region. The sample consists of 13 speakers, and targets a key phase in development – childhood to adolescence. The speakers were initially interviewed aged 9-11, and then again 4 years later, aged 13-15. A further corpus in the form of an age stratified adult corpus of speech from the same community forms a baseline for comparison.
In order to investigate how young speakers cope with the various, potentially competing, sociolinguistic demands, I present analyses across four different features:
1. GOOSE-fronting: a socially unmarked change in progress
2. TH-fronting: a rapidly shifting stigmatised change in progress
3. T-glottaling: a steadily shifting stigmatised change in progress
4. /s/-realisation: a stable but gendered variable feature
Comparison of these features across real and apparent time reveals how patterns observable in the wider community affect the ease at which young speakers calibrate their variable use. Moreover, how the ease of this calibration affects when, and to what extent, the developing speakers innovate within their own systems. Observing vernacular reorganisation from the perspective of both real and apparent time sheds light on the mechanism of change, while comparison across multiple features types affords a glimpse into the ‘why’ of vernacular reorganisation: what motivates young speakers to shift in the ways that they do?
Prolegomena to a theory of X-marking
Sabine Latridou (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (11/12)
Date: November 12th
The morphological marking that distinguishes conditionals that are called “counterfactual” or “subjunctive” from those that are not called that does not always signal counterfactuality, nor is it consistently “subjunctive”. It is often found in other modal constructions, such as in the expression of unattainable desires and in weak necessity modality. We propose to call it “X-marking”. In this paper, we lay out desiderata for a successful theory of X-marking and make an initial informal proposal. Much remains to be done.
Sabine Latridou (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (11/12)
Date: November 12th
The morphological marking that distinguishes conditionals that are called “counterfactual” or “subjunctive” from those that are not called that does not always signal counterfactuality, nor is it consistently “subjunctive”. It is often found in other modal constructions, such as in the expression of unattainable desires and in weak necessity modality. We propose to call it “X-marking”. In this paper, we lay out desiderata for a successful theory of X-marking and make an initial informal proposal. Much remains to be done.
What makes Agreement different from Binding?
Alan Ke (Michigan State University) (3/12)
Date: March 12th
This study investigates the representational and processing similarities and differences between subject-verb agreement and reflexive binding, drawing insights from syntactic and semantic theories as well as computational theories of sentence processing. This study is empirically motivated by the sentence processing differences between agreement and binding that have been stably observed in previous studies but have not yet received a satisfying explanation. The goal of this study is to provide a theoretical explanation of the processing differences, based on syntactic and semantic analyses it develops.
Alan Ke (Michigan State University) (3/12)
Date: March 12th
This study investigates the representational and processing similarities and differences between subject-verb agreement and reflexive binding, drawing insights from syntactic and semantic theories as well as computational theories of sentence processing. This study is empirically motivated by the sentence processing differences between agreement and binding that have been stably observed in previous studies but have not yet received a satisfying explanation. The goal of this study is to provide a theoretical explanation of the processing differences, based on syntactic and semantic analyses it develops.
Lexical Propensities in Phonology: Corpus and Experimental Evidence, Grammar, and Learning
Jesse Zymet (University of California: Berkeley) (1/30)
Date: January 30th
Traditional theories of phonological variation propose that morphemes be encoded with descriptors such as [+/- Rule X], to capture which of them participate in a variable process. More recent theories predict that individual morphemes can have lexical propensities: idiosyncratic, gradient rates at which they participate in a process—e.g., [0.7 Rule X]. In this talk, I argue that such propensities exist, and that a binary distinction is not rich enough to characterize participation in variable processes. Corpus investigations into Slovenian palatalization and French liaison reveal that individual morphemes pattern across an entire propensity spectrum. Furthermore, nonce probe investigations administered to Slovenian and French speakers suggests that they internalize these morpheme-specific propensities.
A spate of experimental research has uncovered language learners’ ability to acquire the idiosyncratic behavior of individual attested words while frequency matching to statistical generalizations across the lexicon (e.g., how regularly a variable process applies overall across eligible words). How can we model the learning of lexical propensities together with a frequency-matching grammar? A recent approach based in Maximum Entropy Harmonic Grammar (MaxEnt) makes use of general constraints that putatively capture statistical generalizations across the lexicon, as well as lexical constraints governing the behavior of individual words. With a series of learning simulations, I show that the approach fails to learn statistical generalizations across the lexicon: lexical constraints are so powerful that the learner comes to acquire the behavior of each attested form using only these constraints, at which point the general constraint is rendered superfluous and ineffective. A generality bias is therefore attributed to learners, whereby they privilege general constraints over lexical ones. It is argued that MaxEnt—essentially a canonical logistic regression model—fails to represent this property, and that it be replaced with the hierarchical (i.e., mixed-effects) logistic regression model (Hierarchical MaxEnt), which is shown to succeed in learning both a frequency-matching grammar and lexical propensities, by encoding general constraints as fixed effects and lexical constraints as a random effect. The learner treats the grammar and lexicon differently, in that vocabulary effects are subordinated to broad, grammatical effects in the learning process.
Jesse Zymet (University of California: Berkeley) (1/30)
Date: January 30th
Traditional theories of phonological variation propose that morphemes be encoded with descriptors such as [+/- Rule X], to capture which of them participate in a variable process. More recent theories predict that individual morphemes can have lexical propensities: idiosyncratic, gradient rates at which they participate in a process—e.g., [0.7 Rule X]. In this talk, I argue that such propensities exist, and that a binary distinction is not rich enough to characterize participation in variable processes. Corpus investigations into Slovenian palatalization and French liaison reveal that individual morphemes pattern across an entire propensity spectrum. Furthermore, nonce probe investigations administered to Slovenian and French speakers suggests that they internalize these morpheme-specific propensities.
A spate of experimental research has uncovered language learners’ ability to acquire the idiosyncratic behavior of individual attested words while frequency matching to statistical generalizations across the lexicon (e.g., how regularly a variable process applies overall across eligible words). How can we model the learning of lexical propensities together with a frequency-matching grammar? A recent approach based in Maximum Entropy Harmonic Grammar (MaxEnt) makes use of general constraints that putatively capture statistical generalizations across the lexicon, as well as lexical constraints governing the behavior of individual words. With a series of learning simulations, I show that the approach fails to learn statistical generalizations across the lexicon: lexical constraints are so powerful that the learner comes to acquire the behavior of each attested form using only these constraints, at which point the general constraint is rendered superfluous and ineffective. A generality bias is therefore attributed to learners, whereby they privilege general constraints over lexical ones. It is argued that MaxEnt—essentially a canonical logistic regression model—fails to represent this property, and that it be replaced with the hierarchical (i.e., mixed-effects) logistic regression model (Hierarchical MaxEnt), which is shown to succeed in learning both a frequency-matching grammar and lexical propensities, by encoding general constraints as fixed effects and lexical constraints as a random effect. The learner treats the grammar and lexicon differently, in that vocabulary effects are subordinated to broad, grammatical effects in the learning process.
What do we count? A view from Brazilian Indigenous Languages
Suzi Lima (University of Toronto) (1/16)
Date: January 16th
In classical theories of countability, the minimal elements in the extension of count nouns are atoms, and the material parts of these atoms are not themselves part of the extension of the nouns (cf. Link 1983, Chierchia 1998, 2010 among many others). According to these theories, grammatical atomicity (what counts as an atom for purposes of counting in language) is strongly associated with natural atomicity (what constitutes as an individual of the kind described by a noun). Against this view, Rothstein (2010) argues that natural atomicity is neither required nor necessary for grammatical counting. Rothstein (2010) argues that atoms can be contextually defined. That is, count nouns like fence, wall and bouquet denote “different sets of atoms depending on the context of interpretation”. For example, what counts as a wall-atom in a particular context (the four wall-sides of a castle that we can consider as ‘a wall’) might not count as a wall-atom in a different context (the north wall of a castle, which we can also name as ‘a wall’). Empirical facts across languages provide ample evidence that discrete individuals are not necessarily countable (see object mass nouns such as furniture in English) and that nouns that denote substances are not necessarily uncountable (cf. Mathieu 2012, Lima 2014 among many others). Such evidence suggests a dissociation between natural and semantic atomicity. Given this debate, the question we intend to address in this talk is: how much does the conceptual content of a noun and natural atomicity influence how units of individuation are specified? Are units of individuation grammaticalized in the semantics of the nouns? Or are units of individuation contextually/pragmatically specified?
Suzi Lima (University of Toronto) (1/16)
Date: January 16th
In classical theories of countability, the minimal elements in the extension of count nouns are atoms, and the material parts of these atoms are not themselves part of the extension of the nouns (cf. Link 1983, Chierchia 1998, 2010 among many others). According to these theories, grammatical atomicity (what counts as an atom for purposes of counting in language) is strongly associated with natural atomicity (what constitutes as an individual of the kind described by a noun). Against this view, Rothstein (2010) argues that natural atomicity is neither required nor necessary for grammatical counting. Rothstein (2010) argues that atoms can be contextually defined. That is, count nouns like fence, wall and bouquet denote “different sets of atoms depending on the context of interpretation”. For example, what counts as a wall-atom in a particular context (the four wall-sides of a castle that we can consider as ‘a wall’) might not count as a wall-atom in a different context (the north wall of a castle, which we can also name as ‘a wall’). Empirical facts across languages provide ample evidence that discrete individuals are not necessarily countable (see object mass nouns such as furniture in English) and that nouns that denote substances are not necessarily uncountable (cf. Mathieu 2012, Lima 2014 among many others). Such evidence suggests a dissociation between natural and semantic atomicity. Given this debate, the question we intend to address in this talk is: how much does the conceptual content of a noun and natural atomicity influence how units of individuation are specified? Are units of individuation grammaticalized in the semantics of the nouns? Or are units of individuation contextually/pragmatically specified?
A Comparative Study of Syllable Counts in English and Chinese
San Duanmu (University of Michigan) (11/7)
Date: November 7th
It is often reported that English has many times more syllables than Chinese. However, previous statements were often based on estimates, which vary widely. For example, Jespersen (1930) states that English has at least 158,000 syllables; Kindaichi (1985) states that English has more than 80,000 syllables; Pan (1997) states that English has around 10,000 syllables; Barker (2009) states that English has 15,831 syllables; Pellegrino et al. (2011) states that English has 7,931 syllables; and Shi (2019) states that English has between 3,000 and 40,000 syllables. I show that differences among previous estimates result from different interpretations of what a syllable is and how syllable boundaries should be placed. Uncertainties are found in Chinese as well, in regard to the number of unstressed syllables and the number of ‘er-suffixed’ syllables. I illustrate several ways of counting syllables, using the CELEX word-form lexicon, and argue that, to exclude the influence of affixes at word edges, and to avoid excessive over-prediction, the structure of the English syllable ought to be based on non-edge positions. In this perspective, the maximal syllable size is the same in English and Chinese, and the number of syllables in English is less than twice the number of syllables in Chinese. In addition, among monosyllabic words, English has fewer syllables than Chinese. Implications for syllable theory and for cross-language comparison will be discussed as well.
San Duanmu (University of Michigan) (11/7)
Date: November 7th
It is often reported that English has many times more syllables than Chinese. However, previous statements were often based on estimates, which vary widely. For example, Jespersen (1930) states that English has at least 158,000 syllables; Kindaichi (1985) states that English has more than 80,000 syllables; Pan (1997) states that English has around 10,000 syllables; Barker (2009) states that English has 15,831 syllables; Pellegrino et al. (2011) states that English has 7,931 syllables; and Shi (2019) states that English has between 3,000 and 40,000 syllables. I show that differences among previous estimates result from different interpretations of what a syllable is and how syllable boundaries should be placed. Uncertainties are found in Chinese as well, in regard to the number of unstressed syllables and the number of ‘er-suffixed’ syllables. I illustrate several ways of counting syllables, using the CELEX word-form lexicon, and argue that, to exclude the influence of affixes at word edges, and to avoid excessive over-prediction, the structure of the English syllable ought to be based on non-edge positions. In this perspective, the maximal syllable size is the same in English and Chinese, and the number of syllables in English is less than twice the number of syllables in Chinese. In addition, among monosyllabic words, English has fewer syllables than Chinese. Implications for syllable theory and for cross-language comparison will be discussed as well.
Sustained Anterior Negatives and the Parsing Consequences of Syntactic Movement
Jon Sprouse (University of Connecticut) (10/17)
Date: October 17th
A number of ERP studies have observed sustained anterior negativities (SANs) during the processing of syntactic dependencies: King and Kutas 1995 first observed them for object relative clauses in English, Fiebach et al. 2002 and Phillips et al. 2005 observed them for wh-dependencies in German and English respectively, and Yano et al. 2018 recently observed them for object scrambling in Japanese. In this talk, I will report the results of three new experiments designed to explore the functional interpretation of SANs. My ultimate goal is to determine to what extent SANs may be indexing a predictable processing consequence of syntactic movement, as part of the broader push in the field to link syntactic and sentence processing theories, and perhaps bring sentence processing measures to bear on questions in syntactic theory. But the first step is to explore a wider range of dependency types to narrow down the space of possible hypotheses for the functional interpretation of SANs.
I will first lay out a number of potential theories of the SAN, incorporating the insights about working memory and predictive processing revealed by the previous studies mentioned above. I will then present results testing a number of dependency types in English that could potentially distinguish these theories: matrix and embedded wh-movement, backward binding, backward sluicing, subject raising, and how-come questions. The results are mixed. Some of the results suggest that SANs may be specific to A'-dependencies, and insensitive to disruptions in predictive processing, which bodes well for incorporating SANs into theories of syntax and sentence processing. However, other results raise mysteries for the functional interpretation of SANs (similar to the mysteries uncovered by Phillips et al. and Yano et al.). My hope is that these results will foster discussions both about future directions for SAN research, and about the larger enterprises of linking syntactic and sentence processing theories, and leveraging sentence processing measures for use in syntactic theory.
Jon Sprouse (University of Connecticut) (10/17)
Date: October 17th
A number of ERP studies have observed sustained anterior negativities (SANs) during the processing of syntactic dependencies: King and Kutas 1995 first observed them for object relative clauses in English, Fiebach et al. 2002 and Phillips et al. 2005 observed them for wh-dependencies in German and English respectively, and Yano et al. 2018 recently observed them for object scrambling in Japanese. In this talk, I will report the results of three new experiments designed to explore the functional interpretation of SANs. My ultimate goal is to determine to what extent SANs may be indexing a predictable processing consequence of syntactic movement, as part of the broader push in the field to link syntactic and sentence processing theories, and perhaps bring sentence processing measures to bear on questions in syntactic theory. But the first step is to explore a wider range of dependency types to narrow down the space of possible hypotheses for the functional interpretation of SANs.
I will first lay out a number of potential theories of the SAN, incorporating the insights about working memory and predictive processing revealed by the previous studies mentioned above. I will then present results testing a number of dependency types in English that could potentially distinguish these theories: matrix and embedded wh-movement, backward binding, backward sluicing, subject raising, and how-come questions. The results are mixed. Some of the results suggest that SANs may be specific to A'-dependencies, and insensitive to disruptions in predictive processing, which bodes well for incorporating SANs into theories of syntax and sentence processing. However, other results raise mysteries for the functional interpretation of SANs (similar to the mysteries uncovered by Phillips et al. and Yano et al.). My hope is that these results will foster discussions both about future directions for SAN research, and about the larger enterprises of linking syntactic and sentence processing theories, and leveraging sentence processing measures for use in syntactic theory.
English Syllabification, Schwa Syncope and Foot Structure
Stuart Davis (Indiana University) (9/12)
Date: September 12th
English schwa syncope (Zwicky 1972, Hooper 1978, Kenstowicz 1994, Bybee 2001, Polgardi 2015) deletes schwa between word-internal consonants. The structural observation is that schwa syncope is likely to occur if the resulting consonant cluster has rising sonority (1) but not if the resulting cluster has falling (or level) sonority (2) (where target schwa is underlined).
(1) chocolate opera family happening javelin Deborah
(2) pelican felony monitor canopy parody melody
Hooper (1978) emphasizes the structural conditions noting that even high frequency words will disfavor schwa syncope if the structural conditions are not right. Thus, melody strongly disfavors schwa syncope since the resulting cluster after syncope has falling sonority.
English schwa syncope can be contrasted with the y-hypocoristic formation which favors intervocalic falling sonority clusters over rising ones as can be seen in the comparison of Barbara-Barby/Martin-Marty with Gabriella-Gabby (not Gabry)/Patricia-Patty (not Patry). Thus, we observe that from an output (product) perspective, English schwa syncope and English y-hypocoristics are contradictory. This talk will offer an explanation for this difference with a focus on schwa syncope, given that the resulting output of schwa syncope is typologically unusual in favoring rising sonority clusters in a situation of syllable contact. If English schwa syncope were to have the reverse pattern, in which syncope were favored by the items in (2) rather than in (1), then the explanation would be straightforward: there would be an emergence of the umarked effect with respect to falling sonority over a syllable boundary. One issue that comes up is the location of the syllable boundary in (1) after schwa syncope has applied. Hooper (1978) states that the initial consonant of the resulting clusters in (1) is ambisyllabic (e.g. [ap.ra] or [a.pra] for opera). Under a different conception of English schwa syncope developed in this talk, schwa syncope is viewed as a problem of foot structure reduction: Schwa syncope reduces a dactylic foot into a preferred trochaic one. We will maintain that the preferred trochee in Present Day English has unclear (or ambiguous) syllabification within the foot and that this functionally helps to enhance the foot-initial boundary.
Stuart Davis (Indiana University) (9/12)
Date: September 12th
English schwa syncope (Zwicky 1972, Hooper 1978, Kenstowicz 1994, Bybee 2001, Polgardi 2015) deletes schwa between word-internal consonants. The structural observation is that schwa syncope is likely to occur if the resulting consonant cluster has rising sonority (1) but not if the resulting cluster has falling (or level) sonority (2) (where target schwa is underlined).
(1) chocolate opera family happening javelin Deborah
(2) pelican felony monitor canopy parody melody
Hooper (1978) emphasizes the structural conditions noting that even high frequency words will disfavor schwa syncope if the structural conditions are not right. Thus, melody strongly disfavors schwa syncope since the resulting cluster after syncope has falling sonority.
English schwa syncope can be contrasted with the y-hypocoristic formation which favors intervocalic falling sonority clusters over rising ones as can be seen in the comparison of Barbara-Barby/Martin-Marty with Gabriella-Gabby (not Gabry)/Patricia-Patty (not Patry). Thus, we observe that from an output (product) perspective, English schwa syncope and English y-hypocoristics are contradictory. This talk will offer an explanation for this difference with a focus on schwa syncope, given that the resulting output of schwa syncope is typologically unusual in favoring rising sonority clusters in a situation of syllable contact. If English schwa syncope were to have the reverse pattern, in which syncope were favored by the items in (2) rather than in (1), then the explanation would be straightforward: there would be an emergence of the umarked effect with respect to falling sonority over a syllable boundary. One issue that comes up is the location of the syllable boundary in (1) after schwa syncope has applied. Hooper (1978) states that the initial consonant of the resulting clusters in (1) is ambisyllabic (e.g. [ap.ra] or [a.pra] for opera). Under a different conception of English schwa syncope developed in this talk, schwa syncope is viewed as a problem of foot structure reduction: Schwa syncope reduces a dactylic foot into a preferred trochaic one. We will maintain that the preferred trochee in Present Day English has unclear (or ambiguous) syllabification within the foot and that this functionally helps to enhance the foot-initial boundary.
Fall 2020 - Spring 2021 Michigan State University Linguistics Colloquium Series Schedule
Here are the colloquium speakers and corresponding schedule for Fall 2020 - Spring 2021:
FALL SEMESTER 2020
11/12 Sabine Iatridou (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
SPRING SEMESTER 2021
4/21 Andreea Cristina Nicolae (Leibniz-Center of General Linguistics, Berlin)
Here are the colloquium speakers and corresponding schedule for Fall 2020 - Spring 2021:
FALL SEMESTER 2020
11/12 Sabine Iatridou (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
SPRING SEMESTER 2021
4/21 Andreea Cristina Nicolae (Leibniz-Center of General Linguistics, Berlin)
Fall 2019 - Spring 2020 Michigan State University Linguistics Colloquium Series Schedule
Here are the colloquium speakers and corresponding schedule for Fall 2019 - Spring 2020:
FALL SEMESTER 2019
9/12 Stuart Davis (Indiana University)
10/17 Jon Sprouse (University of Connecticut)
11/7 San Duanmu (University of Michigan)
SPRING SEMESTER 2020
1/16 Suzi Lima (University of Toronto)
1/30 Jesse Zymet (University of California, Berkeley)
3/12 Alan Ke (Michigan State University)
3/26 Peter Staroverov (Wayne State University)
4/09 Sandra C Deshors (Michigan State University)
Here are the colloquium speakers and corresponding schedule for Fall 2019 - Spring 2020:
FALL SEMESTER 2019
9/12 Stuart Davis (Indiana University)
10/17 Jon Sprouse (University of Connecticut)
11/7 San Duanmu (University of Michigan)
SPRING SEMESTER 2020
1/16 Suzi Lima (University of Toronto)
1/30 Jesse Zymet (University of California, Berkeley)
3/12 Alan Ke (Michigan State University)
3/26 Peter Staroverov (Wayne State University)
4/09 Sandra C Deshors (Michigan State University)
Spring 2019 Michigan State University Linguistics Colloquium Series Schedule
All talks will take place on Thursdays at 4:30pm in B-342 Wells Hall, unless otherwise noted. All talks will begin with a coffee reception at 4PM and will be followed by a 6:30PM dinner.
To be announced - Jon Sprouse - University of Connecticut
February 21 - Heather Newell - University of Quebec Montreal
April 11 - Roger Schwarzschild - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
We look forward to seeing you there!
All talks will take place on Thursdays at 4:30pm in B-342 Wells Hall, unless otherwise noted. All talks will begin with a coffee reception at 4PM and will be followed by a 6:30PM dinner.
To be announced - Jon Sprouse - University of Connecticut
February 21 - Heather Newell - University of Quebec Montreal
April 11 - Roger Schwarzschild - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
We look forward to seeing you there!
Bracketing Paradoxes …and what they tell us about how to construct a theory of (morpho)phonology
Heather Newell (University of Quebec Montreal) (2/21)
Date: February 21th
This talk has as its central concern the proposition in Marantz (1987) that Bracketing Paradoxes have deep implications for the (in)correctness of certain proposals within the domain(s) of generative (morpho)phonology. Where this account of Bracketing Paradoxes differs from every previous account is in the absence of an appeal to ad-hoc tools to eliminate the paradoxical derivations. I explore the repercussions of cyclic syntax and phonological spell-out for the nature of phonological boundaries and underlying phonological representations. I argue that within a fully modular phonological computational system we can account for the domains of phonological operations without appealing to representational tools such as the Prosodic Hierarchy. The necessary conclusion arising from this analysis is that problematic derivations like Bracketing Paradoxes signal important flaws in our theoretical proposals.
Heather Newell (University of Quebec Montreal) (2/21)
Date: February 21th
This talk has as its central concern the proposition in Marantz (1987) that Bracketing Paradoxes have deep implications for the (in)correctness of certain proposals within the domain(s) of generative (morpho)phonology. Where this account of Bracketing Paradoxes differs from every previous account is in the absence of an appeal to ad-hoc tools to eliminate the paradoxical derivations. I explore the repercussions of cyclic syntax and phonological spell-out for the nature of phonological boundaries and underlying phonological representations. I argue that within a fully modular phonological computational system we can account for the domains of phonological operations without appealing to representational tools such as the Prosodic Hierarchy. The necessary conclusion arising from this analysis is that problematic derivations like Bracketing Paradoxes signal important flaws in our theoretical proposals.
Professor Jon Sprouse’s colloquium talk is postponed
Due to the extreme cold weather we are expecting over the next few days, we are postponing Professor Jon Sprouse’s colloquium talk that was planned for this Thursday (1/31). We are currently working on rescheduling a date for later in the spring semester. An official announcement about the new date will be made in the near future.
Due to the extreme cold weather we are expecting over the next few days, we are postponing Professor Jon Sprouse’s colloquium talk that was planned for this Thursday (1/31). We are currently working on rescheduling a date for later in the spring semester. An official announcement about the new date will be made in the near future.
Title: Sustained Anterior Negativities and Syntactic Movement
Jon Sprouse (University of Connecticut)
Date: To be announced
The narrow goal of this talk is to determine to what extent the ERP effects known as Sustained Anterior Negativity (SANs) might be driven by a sentence processing consequence of syntactic movement. The broader goal is to use this as a case study in the prospects (and challenges) for using sentence processing data to inform syntactic analyses. I will first lay out three possible functional interpretation of SANs that are compatible with previous work, crucially including one that is predicated upon embedding an MG inside of a left-corner parser. I will then discuss a number of new ERP studies designed to gather evidence that may be potentially dispositive of these theories. I will then attempt to use SANs to diagnose the presence (or absence) of movement for two constructions that have generated some debate within the syntax literature about the presence of syntactic movement: subject raising, and how-come questions. Finally, since this is work in progress, I will also point out some lingering questions about the functional interpretation of the SAN that will require additional work. The results thus far leave me optimistic that in some cases sentence processing effects can be used to adjudicate among syntactic analyses; but the details reinforce Stabler's (1991) warnings that (i) pursuing this kind of work requires fully specifying both the syntactic and sentence processing theories, and (ii) even with fully specified theories, unique predictions may be few-and-far between.
Jon Sprouse (University of Connecticut)
Date: To be announced
The narrow goal of this talk is to determine to what extent the ERP effects known as Sustained Anterior Negativity (SANs) might be driven by a sentence processing consequence of syntactic movement. The broader goal is to use this as a case study in the prospects (and challenges) for using sentence processing data to inform syntactic analyses. I will first lay out three possible functional interpretation of SANs that are compatible with previous work, crucially including one that is predicated upon embedding an MG inside of a left-corner parser. I will then discuss a number of new ERP studies designed to gather evidence that may be potentially dispositive of these theories. I will then attempt to use SANs to diagnose the presence (or absence) of movement for two constructions that have generated some debate within the syntax literature about the presence of syntactic movement: subject raising, and how-come questions. Finally, since this is work in progress, I will also point out some lingering questions about the functional interpretation of the SAN that will require additional work. The results thus far leave me optimistic that in some cases sentence processing effects can be used to adjudicate among syntactic analyses; but the details reinforce Stabler's (1991) warnings that (i) pursuing this kind of work requires fully specifying both the syntactic and sentence processing theories, and (ii) even with fully specified theories, unique predictions may be few-and-far between.
Fall 2018 Michigan State University Linguistics Colloquium Series Schedule
All talks will take place on Thursdays at 4:30pm in B-342 Wells Hall, unless otherwise noted. All talks will begin with a coffee reception at 4PM and will be followed by a 6:30PM dinner.
October 11th: Derek Denis (University of Toronto)
November 29th: Rebecca Roeder (University of North Carolina at Charlotte)
We look forward to seeing you there!
All talks will take place on Thursdays at 4:30pm in B-342 Wells Hall, unless otherwise noted. All talks will begin with a coffee reception at 4PM and will be followed by a 6:30PM dinner.
October 11th: Derek Denis (University of Toronto)
November 29th: Rebecca Roeder (University of North Carolina at Charlotte)
We look forward to seeing you there!
Title: The role of PLAM in the low back merger: Theory and evidence
Rebecca Roeder (University of North Carolina at Charlotte) (11/29)
Date: November 29th
While the low back merger is attested as a widespread phenomenon across North American varieties of English (e.g., Labov et al. 2005), little previous work has examined it as a change in progress. Among the studies that have investigated the genesis of the merger (e.g., Bigham 2010, Durian 2012, Boberg 2017), focus has been on the LOT/THOUGHT merger, with little emphasis on PALM as a vowel implicated in the process, likely because PALM is now merged with LOT in most North American varieties of English, despite historically merging with BATH and START in Standard British English (Boberg 2010: 128). The current study addresses this research gap by examining the low back merger as a change in progress in the English of Victoria, British Columbia, where PALM is found to be realized as a separate vowel than LOT among some older speakers. Findings are based on automated measurements of wordlist data archived in the Synchronic Corpus of Victoria English (D’Arcy 2015) from 28 speakers, all born between 1913 and 1941. The acoustic positions of PALM/LOT/THOUGHT relative to TRAP are also considered.
Qualitative findings demonstrate that, for both men and women, some speakers display fully merged vowels and some display all three vowels as distinct, while yet others display merger of LOT/THOUGHT, but not PALM. TRAP (non pre-voiced-velar, non pre-nasal) is consistently in the lower front quadrant of the vowel space. Quantitative results indicate that, at the group-level, there are no statistically significant correlations between F1/F2 of TRAP and F1/F2 of LOT, THOUGHT, or PALM that suggest retracted TRAP is connected with a backer or higher pronunciation of the three target vowels. As such, these results do not concur with the profile observed in other areas that the retraction of TRAP begins prior to the low back merger and is correlated with the position of LOT or THOUGHT (e.g., Bigham 2010, Durian 2012), although implications of pre-merger backing of TRAP for phonological theory as related to acquisition are briefly explored. Instead, the findings for PALM in Victoria support the proposal that the low back merger is not the sole phonological trigger of the CS. More specifically, evidence fits the structural model formalized by Roeder & Gardner (2013) that the catalyst of the phonetic changes described in observations of the CS is a three-way merger of the PALM, LOT and THOUGHT lexical sets, in combination with a simultaneous change in the underlying feature specifications of the TRAP vowel. This model relies on the Modified Contrastive Specification Theory (Dresher et al. 1994), the Contrastive Hierarchy Theory (Dresher 2009), and the Successive Division Algorithm (Dresher 2009). This research contributes to ongoing work on the mechanisms involved in the formation of the Third Dialect of English (Labov 1991), as well as to interdisciplinary work at the interface between sociophonetics and phonological theory.
Rebecca Roeder (University of North Carolina at Charlotte) (11/29)
Date: November 29th
While the low back merger is attested as a widespread phenomenon across North American varieties of English (e.g., Labov et al. 2005), little previous work has examined it as a change in progress. Among the studies that have investigated the genesis of the merger (e.g., Bigham 2010, Durian 2012, Boberg 2017), focus has been on the LOT/THOUGHT merger, with little emphasis on PALM as a vowel implicated in the process, likely because PALM is now merged with LOT in most North American varieties of English, despite historically merging with BATH and START in Standard British English (Boberg 2010: 128). The current study addresses this research gap by examining the low back merger as a change in progress in the English of Victoria, British Columbia, where PALM is found to be realized as a separate vowel than LOT among some older speakers. Findings are based on automated measurements of wordlist data archived in the Synchronic Corpus of Victoria English (D’Arcy 2015) from 28 speakers, all born between 1913 and 1941. The acoustic positions of PALM/LOT/THOUGHT relative to TRAP are also considered.
Qualitative findings demonstrate that, for both men and women, some speakers display fully merged vowels and some display all three vowels as distinct, while yet others display merger of LOT/THOUGHT, but not PALM. TRAP (non pre-voiced-velar, non pre-nasal) is consistently in the lower front quadrant of the vowel space. Quantitative results indicate that, at the group-level, there are no statistically significant correlations between F1/F2 of TRAP and F1/F2 of LOT, THOUGHT, or PALM that suggest retracted TRAP is connected with a backer or higher pronunciation of the three target vowels. As such, these results do not concur with the profile observed in other areas that the retraction of TRAP begins prior to the low back merger and is correlated with the position of LOT or THOUGHT (e.g., Bigham 2010, Durian 2012), although implications of pre-merger backing of TRAP for phonological theory as related to acquisition are briefly explored. Instead, the findings for PALM in Victoria support the proposal that the low back merger is not the sole phonological trigger of the CS. More specifically, evidence fits the structural model formalized by Roeder & Gardner (2013) that the catalyst of the phonetic changes described in observations of the CS is a three-way merger of the PALM, LOT and THOUGHT lexical sets, in combination with a simultaneous change in the underlying feature specifications of the TRAP vowel. This model relies on the Modified Contrastive Specification Theory (Dresher et al. 1994), the Contrastive Hierarchy Theory (Dresher 2009), and the Successive Division Algorithm (Dresher 2009). This research contributes to ongoing work on the mechanisms involved in the formation of the Third Dialect of English (Labov 1991), as well as to interdisciplinary work at the interface between sociophonetics and phonological theory.
Title: One way to become a confirmational (plus three other sources): Confirmational variation in Canadian English
Derek Denis (University of Toronto - Mississauga) (10/11)
Date: October 11th
One of the most stereotypical features of Canadian English is the use of the confirmational tag eh, as in (1), despite its relatively lower frequency in comparison to other pragmatic markers that serve the same function (Denis and Tagliamonte 2015). For example, right, as in (2), accounts for upwards of 75% of confirmational tags among young people in Toronto while eh occurs only 2% of the time.
(1)We bought a truck in 1923. A Ford truck eh? Model-T Ford truck.
(2)That was what my parents wanted and parents are right, right?
In this talk, I will explore the histories and sources of confirmational tags in Canadian English. The primary focus of the talk will be on the grammaticalization of right. Using variationist methods, I draw on multiple corpora of naturalistic speech representing 100+ years of apparent time, and spanning from Ontario to British Columbia. Drawing heavily on Wiltschko and Heim’s (2016) syntax of confirmationals and the assumption that grammaticalization is upward reanalysis (Roberts and Rousseau 2004), I outline the structural aspects of grammaticalization and track right’s development along this cline. I will then highlight three other confirmationals in Canadian English, each with its own history and source: eh, which was inherited into the dialect; hey, a hypercorrection; and, ahlie, a result of language contact.
Derek Denis (University of Toronto - Mississauga) (10/11)
Date: October 11th
One of the most stereotypical features of Canadian English is the use of the confirmational tag eh, as in (1), despite its relatively lower frequency in comparison to other pragmatic markers that serve the same function (Denis and Tagliamonte 2015). For example, right, as in (2), accounts for upwards of 75% of confirmational tags among young people in Toronto while eh occurs only 2% of the time.
(1)We bought a truck in 1923. A Ford truck eh? Model-T Ford truck.
(2)That was what my parents wanted and parents are right, right?
In this talk, I will explore the histories and sources of confirmational tags in Canadian English. The primary focus of the talk will be on the grammaticalization of right. Using variationist methods, I draw on multiple corpora of naturalistic speech representing 100+ years of apparent time, and spanning from Ontario to British Columbia. Drawing heavily on Wiltschko and Heim’s (2016) syntax of confirmationals and the assumption that grammaticalization is upward reanalysis (Roberts and Rousseau 2004), I outline the structural aspects of grammaticalization and track right’s development along this cline. I will then highlight three other confirmationals in Canadian English, each with its own history and source: eh, which was inherited into the dialect; hey, a hypercorrection; and, ahlie, a result of language contact.
Title: When is simplified language input...Too simple?
Courtney Venker (Michigan State University)
Date: April 26th
When talking to children with language delays, adults—including parents, teachers, and clinicians—often shorten their utterances relative to the utterances they would produce in normal adult conversation. However, there is some controversy regarding how these utterances should be simplified to best support children’s language development. Can simplified input be telegraphic (e.g., Baby eat, Ball under, See dog?)? Or should simplified utterances maintain the grammatical rules of English (e.g., My turn! More toys? Open it)? This presentation will outline the proposed advantages and disadvantages of telegraphic versus grammatical input, as well as the limited scientific evidence in this area. Three studies will be described in detail: 1) an observational study examining the association between parent telegraphic input and child language outcomes; 2) a survey study examining clinicians’ practices and perspectives regarding simplified language input; and 3) a processing study (currently under development) using eye-gaze methodology to examine differences in how young children with language delays process telegraphic versus grammatical input. The overall goal of this line of work is to use experimental studies of processing and learning to inform best clinical practices for working with children with language delays.
Courtney Venker (Michigan State University)
Date: April 26th
When talking to children with language delays, adults—including parents, teachers, and clinicians—often shorten their utterances relative to the utterances they would produce in normal adult conversation. However, there is some controversy regarding how these utterances should be simplified to best support children’s language development. Can simplified input be telegraphic (e.g., Baby eat, Ball under, See dog?)? Or should simplified utterances maintain the grammatical rules of English (e.g., My turn! More toys? Open it)? This presentation will outline the proposed advantages and disadvantages of telegraphic versus grammatical input, as well as the limited scientific evidence in this area. Three studies will be described in detail: 1) an observational study examining the association between parent telegraphic input and child language outcomes; 2) a survey study examining clinicians’ practices and perspectives regarding simplified language input; and 3) a processing study (currently under development) using eye-gaze methodology to examine differences in how young children with language delays process telegraphic versus grammatical input. The overall goal of this line of work is to use experimental studies of processing and learning to inform best clinical practices for working with children with language delays.
Title: The computational nature of phonological generalizations
Jeffrey Heinz (Stony Brook University)
Date: April 19th
I argue that evidence from typology, learnability, and psychology, point to the conclusion that certain *subregular* properties form the computational core of phonological generalizations. These subregular properties boil down to the following hypothesis. When computing the well-formedness of a phonological representation or when computing a phonological transformation from one representation to another, the only information that is needed at any point in the course of the computation is available locally. Specifically, this means all the relevant information in the representation is within a bounded neighborhood at that point in the computation. The choice of representation is key. We demonstrate these ideas with local and long-distance constraints on segmental and tonal patterns, as well as with phonological transformations including syllabification and opacity.
Jeffrey Heinz (Stony Brook University)
Date: April 19th
I argue that evidence from typology, learnability, and psychology, point to the conclusion that certain *subregular* properties form the computational core of phonological generalizations. These subregular properties boil down to the following hypothesis. When computing the well-formedness of a phonological representation or when computing a phonological transformation from one representation to another, the only information that is needed at any point in the course of the computation is available locally. Specifically, this means all the relevant information in the representation is within a bounded neighborhood at that point in the computation. The choice of representation is key. We demonstrate these ideas with local and long-distance constraints on segmental and tonal patterns, as well as with phonological transformations including syllabification and opacity.
Title: Alternative circumstances of evaluation and the ser/estar distinction in Spanish
Ashwini Deo (Ohio State University)
Date: April 5th
The Spanish copulas ser and estar have distributional and interpretational patterns that have resisted an adequate analysis. In this talk, I work towards a unified analysis that treats the two copulas as being presuppositional variants that are differentially sensitive to properties of the circumstances at which the truth of the copular sentence is evaluated. On the proposed analysis, estar presupposes that the prejacent is boundedly true at the evaluation circumstance. The prejacent’s bounded truth at a circumstance i at a given context of use c depends on two conditions:
(a) there are no-weaker alternative circumstances i′ accessible at c where the prejacent is false.
(b) i is a maximal verifying circumstance at c.
Central to the analysis is the notion of a strength ordering over alternative circumstances of evaluation — a circumstantial counterpart to the more familiar ordering over alternative propositions. Assuming that this content is conventionally associated with estar allows for an account of its distinct flavors and readings with a range of predicates. ser is shown to be associated with its own inferences that derive from its status as the presuppositionally weaker, neutral member of the pair.
Ashwini Deo (Ohio State University)
Date: April 5th
The Spanish copulas ser and estar have distributional and interpretational patterns that have resisted an adequate analysis. In this talk, I work towards a unified analysis that treats the two copulas as being presuppositional variants that are differentially sensitive to properties of the circumstances at which the truth of the copular sentence is evaluated. On the proposed analysis, estar presupposes that the prejacent is boundedly true at the evaluation circumstance. The prejacent’s bounded truth at a circumstance i at a given context of use c depends on two conditions:
(a) there are no-weaker alternative circumstances i′ accessible at c where the prejacent is false.
(b) i is a maximal verifying circumstance at c.
Central to the analysis is the notion of a strength ordering over alternative circumstances of evaluation — a circumstantial counterpart to the more familiar ordering over alternative propositions. Assuming that this content is conventionally associated with estar allows for an account of its distinct flavors and readings with a range of predicates. ser is shown to be associated with its own inferences that derive from its status as the presuppositionally weaker, neutral member of the pair.
Title: Supra-local change and social meaning: TRAP backing in the Great Plains
Mary Kohn (Kansas State University)
Date: March 22nd
Over the last fifty years many varieties of English have undergone a dramatic change in which the front lax vowels undergo retraction. This supra-regional shift, known as the California Vowel Shift (CVS) is found throughout the American West (Fridland et al. 2016, 2017), the Midwest (Durian 2012, Lusk 1974, Strelluf 2014) and even Lansing, MI (Wagner et al. 2016), to name just a few locations. While scholars have identified a wide-spread distribution for this change, little is known about the origin and timing of this spread. Further, little is known about how such wide-spread changes gain indexical meanings. This talk will first review evidence for the presence of the CVS in Kansas. Through an apparent time analysis of over fifty speakers, I demonstrate that the CVS has been present in Kansas for at least fifty years. I will then compare my findings to previous studies of the CVS to argue that the shift emerged simultaneously with similar patterns in the Southwest and West Coast. Finally, I will present evidence from a perception study to examine social meanings of the shift in Kansas.
Thirty five listeners participated in a combination of a dialect recognition tasks (Williams et al. 1999) and matched-guise tasks (Campbell-Kibler 2007). Four critical stimuli belonged to one of two matched guises, which were acoustically manipulated so that only trap F2 differed between matched guises (Villarreal 2016). Conservative guises contained fronted (higher F2) trap and shifted guises contained backed (lower F2) trap. In each trial, listeners identified speakers’ regional origin and rated speakers on 14 affective Likert scales. Results suggest that in Kansas trap backing is associated with California despite local participation in the sound shift and perhaps reflecting the enregisterment of this variable in national media. Instead of associating trap backing with local identity, as Californians do, this sound change appears to index both prestige and youth in Kansas, perhaps motivating the spread of this sound change in the region. These results illuminate how local meanings interact with and are influenced by more widespread discourses about language and social meaning at the national level, thus providing additional clues to how supra-regional variants are incorporated into local varieties.
Mary Kohn (Kansas State University)
Date: March 22nd
Over the last fifty years many varieties of English have undergone a dramatic change in which the front lax vowels undergo retraction. This supra-regional shift, known as the California Vowel Shift (CVS) is found throughout the American West (Fridland et al. 2016, 2017), the Midwest (Durian 2012, Lusk 1974, Strelluf 2014) and even Lansing, MI (Wagner et al. 2016), to name just a few locations. While scholars have identified a wide-spread distribution for this change, little is known about the origin and timing of this spread. Further, little is known about how such wide-spread changes gain indexical meanings. This talk will first review evidence for the presence of the CVS in Kansas. Through an apparent time analysis of over fifty speakers, I demonstrate that the CVS has been present in Kansas for at least fifty years. I will then compare my findings to previous studies of the CVS to argue that the shift emerged simultaneously with similar patterns in the Southwest and West Coast. Finally, I will present evidence from a perception study to examine social meanings of the shift in Kansas.
Thirty five listeners participated in a combination of a dialect recognition tasks (Williams et al. 1999) and matched-guise tasks (Campbell-Kibler 2007). Four critical stimuli belonged to one of two matched guises, which were acoustically manipulated so that only trap F2 differed between matched guises (Villarreal 2016). Conservative guises contained fronted (higher F2) trap and shifted guises contained backed (lower F2) trap. In each trial, listeners identified speakers’ regional origin and rated speakers on 14 affective Likert scales. Results suggest that in Kansas trap backing is associated with California despite local participation in the sound shift and perhaps reflecting the enregisterment of this variable in national media. Instead of associating trap backing with local identity, as Californians do, this sound change appears to index both prestige and youth in Kansas, perhaps motivating the spread of this sound change in the region. These results illuminate how local meanings interact with and are influenced by more widespread discourses about language and social meaning at the national level, thus providing additional clues to how supra-regional variants are incorporated into local varieties.
Title: Island Amelioration with Resumption is Island-Dependent: Crosslinguistic Acceptability Evidence from Arabic & English
Matthew A. Tucker (Oakland University)
Date: February 22nd
A question in both theoretical and experimental approaches to long-distance dependencies is the extent to which violations of island constraints can be ameliorated or repaired by resumptive pronouns (e.g., Which professor did you wonder who studied with him?). While early theoretical work suggested that island
violations are more acceptable in the presence of a resumptive pronoun (Kroch, 1981), recent experimental work has either struggled to find correlates of this effect (Alexopoulou & Keller, 2007) or suggested that it is highly task-dependent (Beltrama & Xiang, 2017). More recent evidence suggests that the amelioration effect exists but varies with the type of island involved (Keshev & Meltzer-Asscher, 2017).
In this talk I will add to this body of work by presenting data which demonstrates that the type of syntactic island can also modulate the extent to which resumption ameliorates island effects. I will present data from two Likert-style acceptability studies in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and pilot data from an equivalent experiment in English. All three of these experiments examine the interaction of islandhood and resumptive pronoun acceptability in four types of islands: (i) Complex Noun Phrase Constraint (CNPC) violations, (ii) wh-islands, (iii) whether-islands, and (iv) adjunct islands. The experiments systematically manipulate the length of extractions, the presence/absence of islands, and the presence/absence of a resumptive pronoun. This design, modeled after experiments reported elsewhere in the literature (Sprouse, et al., 2012) allows for a quantitative assessment of the amount of amelioration, even if
the sentence is still not well-formed overall.
The results of these experiments show that, in MSA, whether resumption ameliorates the impression of an island violation is dependent upon the interplay of at least two grammatical factors: (i) whether the moved wh-phrase is d(iscourse)-Linked and (ii) the type of island. Most crucially, the quantitative amount of amelioration is distinct in different types of islands, ranging from no amelioration (CNPC violations) to full amelioration (adjunct islands). This difference, moreover, does not always return an island-violating condition to full grammaticality in binary terms. None of these effects appeared in non-island contexts, suggesting that resumption has a last-resort character in MSA. In English, preliminary results suggest that resumption does ameliorate some island types, but uniformly decreases acceptability in both short and long-movement contexts for other types of islands. These results have implications for syntactic theory: While it is true that resumption yields a reduction in island effects, it cannot be the case that resumptives are universally required in island violation contexts, even in a grammaticalized resumption language like MSA. However, these results also suggest that work on long-distance dependencies in islands should focus on individual components of unacceptability when assessing notions of grammatical repair and violation in order to account for subtle differences in acceptability which do not rise to the level of a categorial effect on grammaticality judgments.
Matthew A. Tucker (Oakland University)
Date: February 22nd
A question in both theoretical and experimental approaches to long-distance dependencies is the extent to which violations of island constraints can be ameliorated or repaired by resumptive pronouns (e.g., Which professor did you wonder who studied with him?). While early theoretical work suggested that island
violations are more acceptable in the presence of a resumptive pronoun (Kroch, 1981), recent experimental work has either struggled to find correlates of this effect (Alexopoulou & Keller, 2007) or suggested that it is highly task-dependent (Beltrama & Xiang, 2017). More recent evidence suggests that the amelioration effect exists but varies with the type of island involved (Keshev & Meltzer-Asscher, 2017).
In this talk I will add to this body of work by presenting data which demonstrates that the type of syntactic island can also modulate the extent to which resumption ameliorates island effects. I will present data from two Likert-style acceptability studies in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and pilot data from an equivalent experiment in English. All three of these experiments examine the interaction of islandhood and resumptive pronoun acceptability in four types of islands: (i) Complex Noun Phrase Constraint (CNPC) violations, (ii) wh-islands, (iii) whether-islands, and (iv) adjunct islands. The experiments systematically manipulate the length of extractions, the presence/absence of islands, and the presence/absence of a resumptive pronoun. This design, modeled after experiments reported elsewhere in the literature (Sprouse, et al., 2012) allows for a quantitative assessment of the amount of amelioration, even if
the sentence is still not well-formed overall.
The results of these experiments show that, in MSA, whether resumption ameliorates the impression of an island violation is dependent upon the interplay of at least two grammatical factors: (i) whether the moved wh-phrase is d(iscourse)-Linked and (ii) the type of island. Most crucially, the quantitative amount of amelioration is distinct in different types of islands, ranging from no amelioration (CNPC violations) to full amelioration (adjunct islands). This difference, moreover, does not always return an island-violating condition to full grammaticality in binary terms. None of these effects appeared in non-island contexts, suggesting that resumption has a last-resort character in MSA. In English, preliminary results suggest that resumption does ameliorate some island types, but uniformly decreases acceptability in both short and long-movement contexts for other types of islands. These results have implications for syntactic theory: While it is true that resumption yields a reduction in island effects, it cannot be the case that resumptives are universally required in island violation contexts, even in a grammaticalized resumption language like MSA. However, these results also suggest that work on long-distance dependencies in islands should focus on individual components of unacceptability when assessing notions of grammatical repair and violation in order to account for subtle differences in acceptability which do not rise to the level of a categorial effect on grammaticality judgments.
Title: Linking brain signals with grammar using neuro-computational models
Jon Brennan (University of Michigan)
Date: February 1st
The cognitive neuroscience of language has made only limited contact with linguistic theory, in part because the relationship between grammatical knowledge and neural signals is indirect and often under-specified. This talk describes how neuro-computational models of sentence processing can be used to rigorously link theories of grammar with brain mechanisms. Such models explicitly describe the cognitive representations that are constructed during sentence comprehension, and quantify how such representations modulate measurable brain signals. The talk presents a set of such of models which parametrically vary in how grammatical knowledge constrains expectations about upcoming linguistic input and how complex phrase-structures are built incrementally. These models are tested against data that are collected while participants perform a simple and natural task: listening to an audiobook story. In two studies comparing the fit between alternative models and EEG data from adults, results show how brain data can constrain theories of syntactic representations and computations. A third study tests the same models against MEG data recorded from school-aged children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and typically-developing peers. Results are consistent with the hypothesis that grammatical prediction is equivalent between these two groups.
Jon Brennan (University of Michigan)
Date: February 1st
The cognitive neuroscience of language has made only limited contact with linguistic theory, in part because the relationship between grammatical knowledge and neural signals is indirect and often under-specified. This talk describes how neuro-computational models of sentence processing can be used to rigorously link theories of grammar with brain mechanisms. Such models explicitly describe the cognitive representations that are constructed during sentence comprehension, and quantify how such representations modulate measurable brain signals. The talk presents a set of such of models which parametrically vary in how grammatical knowledge constrains expectations about upcoming linguistic input and how complex phrase-structures are built incrementally. These models are tested against data that are collected while participants perform a simple and natural task: listening to an audiobook story. In two studies comparing the fit between alternative models and EEG data from adults, results show how brain data can constrain theories of syntactic representations and computations. A third study tests the same models against MEG data recorded from school-aged children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and typically-developing peers. Results are consistent with the hypothesis that grammatical prediction is equivalent between these two groups.
Title: Depictive Secondary Predicates and Small Clause Approaches to Argument Structure
Benjamin Bruening (University of Delaware)
Date: January 18th
Some syntactic approaches to argument structure posit *small clause* constituents to represent what they take to be the semantics of the constructions being analyzed. For example, this approach would analyze a resultative construction like "Martha hammered the metal flat" as containing a small clause [the metal flat]. In the small clause analysis, the NP "the metal" is only an argument of the result state denoted by the small clause, and its referent is not part of the causal hammering event. Depictive secondary predicates show that this analysis is incorrect, and the NP referent must be part of the verbal causing event. I show this for several constructions that have been analyzed as small clauses: resultatives, caused motion constructions, particle verb constructions, and double object constructions, among others. I also revisit arguments that have been presented in favor of small clause analyses, for instance adverbial modification, and show that they do not actually favor small clause analyses. Domains of anaphora, in contrast, converge with depictives as a reliable diagnostic for small clauses, as true small clauses always constitute opaque domains for anaphora.
Benjamin Bruening (University of Delaware)
Date: January 18th
Some syntactic approaches to argument structure posit *small clause* constituents to represent what they take to be the semantics of the constructions being analyzed. For example, this approach would analyze a resultative construction like "Martha hammered the metal flat" as containing a small clause [the metal flat]. In the small clause analysis, the NP "the metal" is only an argument of the result state denoted by the small clause, and its referent is not part of the causal hammering event. Depictive secondary predicates show that this analysis is incorrect, and the NP referent must be part of the verbal causing event. I show this for several constructions that have been analyzed as small clauses: resultatives, caused motion constructions, particle verb constructions, and double object constructions, among others. I also revisit arguments that have been presented in favor of small clause analyses, for instance adverbial modification, and show that they do not actually favor small clause analyses. Domains of anaphora, in contrast, converge with depictives as a reliable diagnostic for small clauses, as true small clauses always constitute opaque domains for anaphora.
Spring 2018 Michigan State University Linguistics Colloquium Series Schedule
All talks will take place on Thursdays at 4:30pm in B-342 Wells Hall, unless otherwise noted. All talks will begin with a coffee reception at 4PM and will be followed by a 6:30PM dinner.
January 18th: Benjamin Bruening (University of Delaware)
February 1st: Jon Brennan (University of Michigan)
February 22nd: Matthew Tucker (Oakland University)
March 22nd: Mary Kohn (Kansas State University)
April 5th: Ashwini Deo (Ohio State University)
April 19th: Jeff Heinz (Stoney Brook University) (Note: Wells Hall 243)
April 26th: Courtney Venker (Michigan State University)
We look forward to seeing you there!
All talks will take place on Thursdays at 4:30pm in B-342 Wells Hall, unless otherwise noted. All talks will begin with a coffee reception at 4PM and will be followed by a 6:30PM dinner.
January 18th: Benjamin Bruening (University of Delaware)
February 1st: Jon Brennan (University of Michigan)
February 22nd: Matthew Tucker (Oakland University)
March 22nd: Mary Kohn (Kansas State University)
April 5th: Ashwini Deo (Ohio State University)
April 19th: Jeff Heinz (Stoney Brook University) (Note: Wells Hall 243)
April 26th: Courtney Venker (Michigan State University)
We look forward to seeing you there!
Fall 2017 Michigan State University Linguistics Colloquium Series Schedule
All talks will take place on Thursdays at 4:30pm in B-342 Wells Hall, unless otherwise noted. All talks will be followed by a 6:30PM dinner.
September 28th: Will Styler (University of Michigan)
October 19th: Laurel MacKenzie (New York University)
November 16th: Eric Acton (Eastern Michigan University)
November 30th: Laura Dilley (Michigan State University)
We look forward to seeing you there!
All talks will take place on Thursdays at 4:30pm in B-342 Wells Hall, unless otherwise noted. All talks will be followed by a 6:30PM dinner.
September 28th: Will Styler (University of Michigan)
October 19th: Laurel MacKenzie (New York University)
November 16th: Eric Acton (Eastern Michigan University)
November 30th: Laura Dilley (Michigan State University)
We look forward to seeing you there!
Title: Speech perception as prediction: Extracting words, social cues, meaning, and structure from biological signals
Laura Dilley (Michigan State University)
Date: November 30th
There is a tremendous amount of variability in speech signals. Given this variability, how are human listeners so readily able to extract words and linguistic structures, as well as social cues, from speech? Current empirical and theoretical work views the brain as a complex prediction engine which attempts to minimize prediction error: the brain adaptively recapitulates a signal source and tries to compare it with incoming sensory information, and in minimizing the difference, arrives at an interpretation. Under this view, prediction enables the brain to extract information, including what a person is saying, what their intent is, and whether the person talking is female and/or African American. In this presentation I will discuss current research in my lab that relates to inferences drawn by listeners about words and social meanings from two sources of variability: variability in the prosody of context speech (e.g., its rhythm, pitch, and timing) and variability in formant frequencies (i.e., the dynamically-varying natural resonances of the vocal cavity). I will consider cases of both Standard American English and African American English dialects. It is argued that listeners take both short- and long-term statistics of acoustic cues in speech, including context prosody and formant frequencies, along with the social contexts in which speech signals occurred. This approach is argued to shed light on understanding how spoken language is effectively used by humans to convey communicative intent.
Laura Dilley (Michigan State University)
Date: November 30th
There is a tremendous amount of variability in speech signals. Given this variability, how are human listeners so readily able to extract words and linguistic structures, as well as social cues, from speech? Current empirical and theoretical work views the brain as a complex prediction engine which attempts to minimize prediction error: the brain adaptively recapitulates a signal source and tries to compare it with incoming sensory information, and in minimizing the difference, arrives at an interpretation. Under this view, prediction enables the brain to extract information, including what a person is saying, what their intent is, and whether the person talking is female and/or African American. In this presentation I will discuss current research in my lab that relates to inferences drawn by listeners about words and social meanings from two sources of variability: variability in the prosody of context speech (e.g., its rhythm, pitch, and timing) and variability in formant frequencies (i.e., the dynamically-varying natural resonances of the vocal cavity). I will consider cases of both Standard American English and African American English dialects. It is argued that listeners take both short- and long-term statistics of acoustic cues in speech, including context prosody and formant frequencies, along with the social contexts in which speech signals occurred. This approach is argued to shed light on understanding how spoken language is effectively used by humans to convey communicative intent.
Title: A socio-pragmatic framework for non-entailed meaning
Eric Acton (Eastern Michigan University)
Date: November 16th
Both pragmatics and the third-wave (Eckert 2012) variationist sociolinguistics have long recognized that the significance of utterances stretches far beyond their entailments (e.g. Grice 1975, Labov 1963). But despite their kindred interests—How, in all its indeterminacy, is meaning made in situated use, and what are the underlying dynamics?—the two traditions have proceeded largely in silos. In this talk, I develop a socio-pragmatic framework for non-literal meaning that builds on the insights of these traditions, while bridging and expanding their empirical reach.
Pragmatics (e.g. Grice 1975) offers the foundational insight that the full significance of an utterance depends not only upon its semantics, but also upon considering the utterance’s apparent costs and benefits vis-à-vis those of relevant alternatives. But with the exception of research on politeness (e.g. Brown & Levinson 1987), the great bulk of pragmatics research: (i) concerns inferences that involve directly enriching an utterance’s descriptive content; and (ii) operationalizes costs and benefits as morphosyntactic complexity and semantic informativity, respectively. At the same time, third-wave sociolinguistics has demonstrated that a great deal of meaning is not tied to descriptive, semantic content at all, and comes from varied sources—from the phonetic realization of a phoneme (e.g. Benor 2001 on /t/) to voice quality (e.g. Podesva 2007 on falsetto). Moreover, sociolinguistics foregrounds the wide range of social considerations that condition language use and interpretation, extending well beyond formal complexity and semantic informativity.
Marrying the insights from both traditions, I develop a framework that accounts for not only classic cases of non-entailed meaning like scalar implicature, but a wide and diverse range of phenomena besides; among them, the effect whereby using a the-plural (e.g. the Americans) to talk about a group of individuals tends to depict that group as a monolith distant from the speaker (cf. the bare plural Americans). The picture I develop here leads us to expect to find complex and varied interactions across and within multiple dimensions of meaning—social and or not, conversational or conventional, entailed or associative, and so on—and makes clear the deep interconnections between semantics, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics.
Eric Acton (Eastern Michigan University)
Date: November 16th
Both pragmatics and the third-wave (Eckert 2012) variationist sociolinguistics have long recognized that the significance of utterances stretches far beyond their entailments (e.g. Grice 1975, Labov 1963). But despite their kindred interests—How, in all its indeterminacy, is meaning made in situated use, and what are the underlying dynamics?—the two traditions have proceeded largely in silos. In this talk, I develop a socio-pragmatic framework for non-literal meaning that builds on the insights of these traditions, while bridging and expanding their empirical reach.
Pragmatics (e.g. Grice 1975) offers the foundational insight that the full significance of an utterance depends not only upon its semantics, but also upon considering the utterance’s apparent costs and benefits vis-à-vis those of relevant alternatives. But with the exception of research on politeness (e.g. Brown & Levinson 1987), the great bulk of pragmatics research: (i) concerns inferences that involve directly enriching an utterance’s descriptive content; and (ii) operationalizes costs and benefits as morphosyntactic complexity and semantic informativity, respectively. At the same time, third-wave sociolinguistics has demonstrated that a great deal of meaning is not tied to descriptive, semantic content at all, and comes from varied sources—from the phonetic realization of a phoneme (e.g. Benor 2001 on /t/) to voice quality (e.g. Podesva 2007 on falsetto). Moreover, sociolinguistics foregrounds the wide range of social considerations that condition language use and interpretation, extending well beyond formal complexity and semantic informativity.
Marrying the insights from both traditions, I develop a framework that accounts for not only classic cases of non-entailed meaning like scalar implicature, but a wide and diverse range of phenomena besides; among them, the effect whereby using a the-plural (e.g. the Americans) to talk about a group of individuals tends to depict that group as a monolith distant from the speaker (cf. the bare plural Americans). The picture I develop here leads us to expect to find complex and varied interactions across and within multiple dimensions of meaning—social and or not, conversational or conventional, entailed or associative, and so on—and makes clear the deep interconnections between semantics, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics.
Title: Language change over a very long lifespan
Laurel MacKenzie (New York University)
Date: October 19th
Recent work (Sankoff, 2004; Wagner, 2012; Sankoff and Blondeau, 2007) has demonstrated that linguistic change in later life, though not the norm, is possible. But there is still much we don't know about this phenomenon: What kind of change in later life is possible? What causes linguistic change in later life to take place? And by what grammatical mechanism does change proceed?
I address these questions through what is to my knowledge the most high-definition longitudinal study of a single speaker to date. I present data from a corpus of nature documentary narrations by Sir David Attenborough from 16 time points across a 60-year period (1956–2015). I use these recordings to carry out a study of his pronunciation of /r/, investigating the extent to which he may have participated in a community change from articulating this segment as a tap to articulating it as a retroflex approximant (Wells, 1997; Hughes et al., 2012; Cruttenden, 2014; Fabricius, 2017). I use this data to answer the following questions:
1. Is Attenborough's variation between tap and approximant stable over time? If not, does he show evidence of participating in the community change? Is this via a linear trajectory, or does it show a more complicated diachronic pattern (Rickford & Price, 2013; Stefánsdóttir & Ingason, forthcoming)?
2. Given that tapped-r may occur in two phonological environments -- word-internally (e.g. very) and in hiatus position (e.g. far away) -- do we find comparable diachronic trajectories for each environment?
3. Does any attested variation/change show effects of word frequency, as predicted by exemplar-based models of phonology (Pierrehumbert, 2001; Nycz, 2013)?
The results have implications for the nature and malleability of mental representations, and the role of individuals in language changes in progress.
Laurel MacKenzie (New York University)
Date: October 19th
Recent work (Sankoff, 2004; Wagner, 2012; Sankoff and Blondeau, 2007) has demonstrated that linguistic change in later life, though not the norm, is possible. But there is still much we don't know about this phenomenon: What kind of change in later life is possible? What causes linguistic change in later life to take place? And by what grammatical mechanism does change proceed?
I address these questions through what is to my knowledge the most high-definition longitudinal study of a single speaker to date. I present data from a corpus of nature documentary narrations by Sir David Attenborough from 16 time points across a 60-year period (1956–2015). I use these recordings to carry out a study of his pronunciation of /r/, investigating the extent to which he may have participated in a community change from articulating this segment as a tap to articulating it as a retroflex approximant (Wells, 1997; Hughes et al., 2012; Cruttenden, 2014; Fabricius, 2017). I use this data to answer the following questions:
1. Is Attenborough's variation between tap and approximant stable over time? If not, does he show evidence of participating in the community change? Is this via a linear trajectory, or does it show a more complicated diachronic pattern (Rickford & Price, 2013; Stefánsdóttir & Ingason, forthcoming)?
2. Given that tapped-r may occur in two phonological environments -- word-internally (e.g. very) and in hiatus position (e.g. far away) -- do we find comparable diachronic trajectories for each environment?
3. Does any attested variation/change show effects of word frequency, as predicted by exemplar-based models of phonology (Pierrehumbert, 2001; Nycz, 2013)?
The results have implications for the nature and malleability of mental representations, and the role of individuals in language changes in progress.
Title: Ask an Algorithm: Using Machine Learning to study Human Speech
Will Styler (University of Michigan)
Date: September 28th
Machine learning, the use of nuanced computer models to analyze and predict data, has a long history in speech recognition and natural language processing, but have largely been limited to more applied, engineering tasks. This talk will describe two more research-focused applications of machine learning in the study of speech perception and production.
For speech perception, we'll examine the difficult problem of identifying acoustic cues to a complex phonetic contrast, in this case, vowel nasality. Here, by training machine learning algorithms on acoustic measurements, we can more directly measure the informativeness of the various acoustic features to the contrast. This by-feature informativeness data was then used to create hypotheses about human cue usage, and then, to model the observed human patterns of perception, showing that these models were able to predict not only the utilized cue, but the subtle patterns of perception arising from less informative changes.
For speech production, we'll focus on data from Electromagnetic Articulography (EMA), which provides position data for the articulators with high temporal and spatial resolution, and discuss our ongoing efforts to identify and characterize pause postures (specific vocal tract configurations at prosodic boundaries, c.f. Katsika et al. 2014) in the speech of 7 speakers of American English. Here, the lip aperture trajectories of 800+ individual pauses were gold-standard annotated by a member of the research team, and then subjected to principal component analysis. These analyses were then used to train a support vector machine (SVM) classifier, which achieved a 96% classification accuracy in cross-validation tests, with a Cohen's Kappa showing machine-to-annotator agreement of 0.79, suggesting the potential for improvements in speed, consistency, and objective characterization of gestures.
These methods of modeling feature importance and classifying curves using machine learning both demonstrate concrete methods which are potentially useful and applicable to a variety of questions in phonetics, and potentially, in linguistics in general.
Will Styler (University of Michigan)
Date: September 28th
Machine learning, the use of nuanced computer models to analyze and predict data, has a long history in speech recognition and natural language processing, but have largely been limited to more applied, engineering tasks. This talk will describe two more research-focused applications of machine learning in the study of speech perception and production.
For speech perception, we'll examine the difficult problem of identifying acoustic cues to a complex phonetic contrast, in this case, vowel nasality. Here, by training machine learning algorithms on acoustic measurements, we can more directly measure the informativeness of the various acoustic features to the contrast. This by-feature informativeness data was then used to create hypotheses about human cue usage, and then, to model the observed human patterns of perception, showing that these models were able to predict not only the utilized cue, but the subtle patterns of perception arising from less informative changes.
For speech production, we'll focus on data from Electromagnetic Articulography (EMA), which provides position data for the articulators with high temporal and spatial resolution, and discuss our ongoing efforts to identify and characterize pause postures (specific vocal tract configurations at prosodic boundaries, c.f. Katsika et al. 2014) in the speech of 7 speakers of American English. Here, the lip aperture trajectories of 800+ individual pauses were gold-standard annotated by a member of the research team, and then subjected to principal component analysis. These analyses were then used to train a support vector machine (SVM) classifier, which achieved a 96% classification accuracy in cross-validation tests, with a Cohen's Kappa showing machine-to-annotator agreement of 0.79, suggesting the potential for improvements in speed, consistency, and objective characterization of gestures.
These methods of modeling feature importance and classifying curves using machine learning both demonstrate concrete methods which are potentially useful and applicable to a variety of questions in phonetics, and potentially, in linguistics in general.
MSULC and GLEEFUL 2017
Date: April 21st, 22nd, 23rd
We are delighted to announce on behalf of the q Undergraduate Association for Linguistics At Michigan State (qUALMS) board that they will be holding two conferences this weekend.
The program for MSULC (4/21) is available on the conference website, and the one for GLEEFUL (4/22-4/23) is available on its conference website.
We hope you'll join us as we recognize the work of our dedicated undergraduate linguistics students!
Date: April 21st, 22nd, 23rd
We are delighted to announce on behalf of the q Undergraduate Association for Linguistics At Michigan State (qUALMS) board that they will be holding two conferences this weekend.
The program for MSULC (4/21) is available on the conference website, and the one for GLEEFUL (4/22-4/23) is available on its conference website.
We hope you'll join us as we recognize the work of our dedicated undergraduate linguistics students!
Title: Perfection is Simple
T Daniel Steely (Eastern Michigan University)
Date: April 14th
Perfection' has been a guiding force for linguistic research within the MP for some 20 years. Thus, echoing the suggestion in Chomsky (1995) that “language is something like a perfect system,” Chomsky (2013) notes "[the MP] … begins by asking what an optimal solution would be to the conditions that must be satisfied by GPs [generative procedures] … we can contemplate a Strong Minimalist Thesis SMT holding that language is a perfect solution to these conditions…” We review the development of ‘perfection,’ considering certain changes in its conception over time. Our primary goal, however, is to carefully review the central arguments in support of this notion, focusing on the nature of explanation by simplification. A guiding theme of minimalist inquiry is that simpler is more perfect. UG is reduced to a single, simple operation (namely, Merge) which optimally satisfies 3rd factor and interface principles. We examine the achievements of this research program and its prospects for the future.
T Daniel Steely (Eastern Michigan University)
Date: April 14th
Perfection' has been a guiding force for linguistic research within the MP for some 20 years. Thus, echoing the suggestion in Chomsky (1995) that “language is something like a perfect system,” Chomsky (2013) notes "[the MP] … begins by asking what an optimal solution would be to the conditions that must be satisfied by GPs [generative procedures] … we can contemplate a Strong Minimalist Thesis SMT holding that language is a perfect solution to these conditions…” We review the development of ‘perfection,’ considering certain changes in its conception over time. Our primary goal, however, is to carefully review the central arguments in support of this notion, focusing on the nature of explanation by simplification. A guiding theme of minimalist inquiry is that simpler is more perfect. UG is reduced to a single, simple operation (namely, Merge) which optimally satisfies 3rd factor and interface principles. We examine the achievements of this research program and its prospects for the future.
LSO Job Market Panel
Date: March 30th
The LSO is happy to announce that we'll be hosting a panel discussion about what to expect when on the academic and non-academic job market. This is intended to be an informal opportunity for those planning to be on the job market to get a feel for what the process is like (applying, interviewing, etc). We've invited advanced PhD students and recent PhD graduates from our department to participate as discussants. Combined, they have lots of experience applying to and being offered positions in academia and beyond, so we we are very excited to hear their stories.
The discussion will start promptly at 4:30 in Wells Hall B342 and should last about an hour. Coffee and snacks will be provided, so feel free to show up a little early!
We look forward to seeing you all there.
Sincerely,
Your Linguistics Student Organization Officers
Date: March 30th
The LSO is happy to announce that we'll be hosting a panel discussion about what to expect when on the academic and non-academic job market. This is intended to be an informal opportunity for those planning to be on the job market to get a feel for what the process is like (applying, interviewing, etc). We've invited advanced PhD students and recent PhD graduates from our department to participate as discussants. Combined, they have lots of experience applying to and being offered positions in academia and beyond, so we we are very excited to hear their stories.
The discussion will start promptly at 4:30 in Wells Hall B342 and should last about an hour. Coffee and snacks will be provided, so feel free to show up a little early!
We look forward to seeing you all there.
Sincerely,
Your Linguistics Student Organization Officers
Title: Conceptual Underpinnings of Context Modulation in Sentence Meaning Composition
Maria Mercedes Piñango (Yale University)
Date: March 23rd
It’s been claimed that in the absence of a preposisional phrase, have sentences are said to be either ungrammatical (1-a vs. 1-b) or receive a non-locative interpretation (1-c vs. 1-d).
(1) a. *The tree has a nest.
b. [The tree]i has a nest in iti. (locative)
c. The mall has a children’s park (only non-loc. reading possible)
d. [The mall]i has a children’s park near iti. (locative)
We test the hypothesis that have lexically captures conceptual space that ranges from pure incidental proximity to inalienable possession. Accordingly, have sentences are semantically compatible with locative and non-locative (possessive) interpretations. The alleged unacceptability of sentences like (1-a) arises not from grammatical constraints but from (a) the competing salience of the possessive meaning of have, and (b) the absence of supportive context for the possible (though not frequent) locative interpretation. If this is correct then we expect speaker responses to PP-less locative have sentences to be more acceptable when supported by (local) linguistic locative context; such an effect would be rooted in the facilitation of the locative meaning retrieval during real-time comprehension.
In the talk I present results from two studies, measuring acceptability judgements and reading times respectively, that not only evaluate this hypothesis but also allow us to explore gender as an unexpected source of context sensitivity variation across speakers within the same speech-community. Finally these results allow us to discuss possible implications of “high-density” meaning lexicalization, such as that observed for English have, for the structure of the linguistic architecture that connects lexicalized meaning and so-called world knowledge and which is at play during the sentence comprehension process.
*Based on joint work with Ashwini Deo (OSU) and Muye Zhang (Yale).
Maria Mercedes Piñango (Yale University)
Date: March 23rd
It’s been claimed that in the absence of a preposisional phrase, have sentences are said to be either ungrammatical (1-a vs. 1-b) or receive a non-locative interpretation (1-c vs. 1-d).
(1) a. *The tree has a nest.
b. [The tree]i has a nest in iti. (locative)
c. The mall has a children’s park (only non-loc. reading possible)
d. [The mall]i has a children’s park near iti. (locative)
We test the hypothesis that have lexically captures conceptual space that ranges from pure incidental proximity to inalienable possession. Accordingly, have sentences are semantically compatible with locative and non-locative (possessive) interpretations. The alleged unacceptability of sentences like (1-a) arises not from grammatical constraints but from (a) the competing salience of the possessive meaning of have, and (b) the absence of supportive context for the possible (though not frequent) locative interpretation. If this is correct then we expect speaker responses to PP-less locative have sentences to be more acceptable when supported by (local) linguistic locative context; such an effect would be rooted in the facilitation of the locative meaning retrieval during real-time comprehension.
In the talk I present results from two studies, measuring acceptability judgements and reading times respectively, that not only evaluate this hypothesis but also allow us to explore gender as an unexpected source of context sensitivity variation across speakers within the same speech-community. Finally these results allow us to discuss possible implications of “high-density” meaning lexicalization, such as that observed for English have, for the structure of the linguistic architecture that connects lexicalized meaning and so-called world knowledge and which is at play during the sentence comprehension process.
*Based on joint work with Ashwini Deo (OSU) and Muye Zhang (Yale).
Title: The mysterious causee of indirect causatives
Jim Wood (Yale University)
Date: March 16th
In this talk, I examine the syntax of Icelandic indirect causatives, with the goal of understanding how they fit within the overall voice system of the language. I will show how such constructions support the view that the active/passive dichotomy is too coarse-grained, and that “active” and “passive” are not primitive notions in grammar.
Indirect causatives are causative constructions where the causee is left implicit. An example is given in (1).
(1) Ég lét byggja hús.
I.nom made.pst build.inf house.acc
‘I made (someone) build a house.’
As indicated in the translation, (1) means that I made someone build a house; the causee, however, is not expressed overtly.
Perhaps the simplest analysis would say that the causee just isn’t there, and that láta ‘let/make’ simply takes a bare VP complement, with no external argument. In fact, this very analysis has been proposed for Swedish (Taraldsen 1984; Lundin 2003), Hiaki (Harley 2013), Italian (Folli & Harley 2007), and Icelandic (Wood 2011; Wood & Sigurðsson 2014), among other languages. However, drawing first on the line of work in Alexiadou et al. (2015), I will provide evidence that there must at least be a Voice layer in the embedded event. The Voice layer accounts for:
• the acceptability of certain by-phrases naming the agent of the embedded event
• the availability of instrument phrases modifying the embedded agent
• transitivity restrictions on the embedded event
• the morphological form of the embedded verb
Given this much, we might consider analyzing the embedded Voice head as passive, as in Pitteroff’s (2014) analysis of similar constructions in German. There are reasons, though, to think that in fact, the construction is more “active” than that, with a silent, syntactically projected φP argument in the causee position, as in Legate’s (2014) analysis of “grammatical object passives”. This accounts for:
• restrictions on the availability of (the above-mentioned) agentive by-phrases
• the impossibility of A-moving the embedded object when láta ‘let/make’ is passivized
• the availability of explicitly recovering the implicit agent under sluicing
• the acceptability of indirect causatives formed with verbs that do not normally passivize
The resulting analysis fits indirect causatives into the voice system, but only if we go beyond the classic active/passive dichotomy, and treat voice alternations not as primitives, but as the products of individual, interacting components.
Jim Wood (Yale University)
Date: March 16th
In this talk, I examine the syntax of Icelandic indirect causatives, with the goal of understanding how they fit within the overall voice system of the language. I will show how such constructions support the view that the active/passive dichotomy is too coarse-grained, and that “active” and “passive” are not primitive notions in grammar.
Indirect causatives are causative constructions where the causee is left implicit. An example is given in (1).
(1) Ég lét byggja hús.
I.nom made.pst build.inf house.acc
‘I made (someone) build a house.’
As indicated in the translation, (1) means that I made someone build a house; the causee, however, is not expressed overtly.
Perhaps the simplest analysis would say that the causee just isn’t there, and that láta ‘let/make’ simply takes a bare VP complement, with no external argument. In fact, this very analysis has been proposed for Swedish (Taraldsen 1984; Lundin 2003), Hiaki (Harley 2013), Italian (Folli & Harley 2007), and Icelandic (Wood 2011; Wood & Sigurðsson 2014), among other languages. However, drawing first on the line of work in Alexiadou et al. (2015), I will provide evidence that there must at least be a Voice layer in the embedded event. The Voice layer accounts for:
• the acceptability of certain by-phrases naming the agent of the embedded event
• the availability of instrument phrases modifying the embedded agent
• transitivity restrictions on the embedded event
• the morphological form of the embedded verb
Given this much, we might consider analyzing the embedded Voice head as passive, as in Pitteroff’s (2014) analysis of similar constructions in German. There are reasons, though, to think that in fact, the construction is more “active” than that, with a silent, syntactically projected φP argument in the causee position, as in Legate’s (2014) analysis of “grammatical object passives”. This accounts for:
• restrictions on the availability of (the above-mentioned) agentive by-phrases
• the impossibility of A-moving the embedded object when láta ‘let/make’ is passivized
• the availability of explicitly recovering the implicit agent under sluicing
• the acceptability of indirect causatives formed with verbs that do not normally passivize
The resulting analysis fits indirect causatives into the voice system, but only if we go beyond the classic active/passive dichotomy, and treat voice alternations not as primitives, but as the products of individual, interacting components.
Title: Grammatical Representation and Processing in Bilinguals
Julie Boland (University of Michigan)
Date: March 2nd
A long-standing question in bilingualism is whether syntactic information is shared between the two language systems. That is, does a bilingual have two complete grammars, a single grammar with some language-specific components, or something in between, such as separate, but overlapping grammars? Although fully separate grammars have been proposed (e.g., De Bot, 1992), there is now strong evidence for at least some degree of overlap, based on structural priming during production and comprehension (e.g., Bernolet et al., 2007; Loebell & Bock, 2003; Kidd et al., 2015; Weber & Indefrey, 2009). Thus, current research attempts to determine the extent of language-independent syntactic representations. For example, language-independent syntax might be limited to those constructions that share word order in the two languages, or there might be greater overlap in grammars when the languages are more closely related (e.g., two Germanic languages). Another type of question is the degree to which purported shared syntactic representations implicate moment to moment processing during comprehension, such as predictions about upcoming words. I present two sets of experiments designed to investigate these issues. The first set uses eye-tracking to investigate syntactic predictions in Spanish-English bilinguals. The second set uses self-paced reading to examine cross-linguistic structural priming in Chinese-English bilinguals.
Julie Boland (University of Michigan)
Date: March 2nd
A long-standing question in bilingualism is whether syntactic information is shared between the two language systems. That is, does a bilingual have two complete grammars, a single grammar with some language-specific components, or something in between, such as separate, but overlapping grammars? Although fully separate grammars have been proposed (e.g., De Bot, 1992), there is now strong evidence for at least some degree of overlap, based on structural priming during production and comprehension (e.g., Bernolet et al., 2007; Loebell & Bock, 2003; Kidd et al., 2015; Weber & Indefrey, 2009). Thus, current research attempts to determine the extent of language-independent syntactic representations. For example, language-independent syntax might be limited to those constructions that share word order in the two languages, or there might be greater overlap in grammars when the languages are more closely related (e.g., two Germanic languages). Another type of question is the degree to which purported shared syntactic representations implicate moment to moment processing during comprehension, such as predictions about upcoming words. I present two sets of experiments designed to investigate these issues. The first set uses eye-tracking to investigate syntactic predictions in Spanish-English bilinguals. The second set uses self-paced reading to examine cross-linguistic structural priming in Chinese-English bilinguals.
Graduate Linguistics Expo at Michigan State 2017
Date: February 18th and 19th
The Graduate Linguistics Expo at Michigan State will occur in Wells B342 February 18th and 19th. You can find the program on the GLEAMS 2017 website: https://msu.edu/~lingorg/gleams2017/.
Date: February 18th and 19th
The Graduate Linguistics Expo at Michigan State will occur in Wells B342 February 18th and 19th. You can find the program on the GLEAMS 2017 website: https://msu.edu/~lingorg/gleams2017/.
Title: Resolving scalar uncertainty in context
Ming Xiang (University of Chicago)
Date: February 2
Gradable adjectives are known to evoke context sensitive interpretations, in particular having to do with a threshold of application: the degree of height, for example, that qualifies an object as tall can vary from one use of “tall” to another. However, the exact comprehension mechanisms that lead to such interpretation variability remain unclear. In this talk we provide experimental data to examine two dimensions of this context-sensitive interpretation process. First, we investigate the source of context sensitivity and ask the question whether different lexical semantics modulates how contextual information is recruited to determine the threshold. Drawing on results from a set of behavioral judgments and visual world eyetracking studies, we will compare the processing of absolute (e.g. “full”) and relative (e.g. “tall”) adjectives. Second, we investigate how language users dynamically adapt to contextual cues and make adjustments to their previously established thresholds. In this study, participants were exposed to a sequence of auditory statements that describe simultaneously presented visual images as having a particular adjectival property. The visual images either perfectly satisfy the adjectival property or only satisfy the property marginally (the borderline cases). Participants’ adaptation to the experimenter’s threshold is operationalized by the gradual increase, during the exposure period, of their acceptance of the borderline tokens as having the relevant property. We will discuss a number of semantic and pragmatic factors that modulate the success/failure and the rate of the adaptation behavior.
Ming Xiang (University of Chicago)
Date: February 2
Gradable adjectives are known to evoke context sensitive interpretations, in particular having to do with a threshold of application: the degree of height, for example, that qualifies an object as tall can vary from one use of “tall” to another. However, the exact comprehension mechanisms that lead to such interpretation variability remain unclear. In this talk we provide experimental data to examine two dimensions of this context-sensitive interpretation process. First, we investigate the source of context sensitivity and ask the question whether different lexical semantics modulates how contextual information is recruited to determine the threshold. Drawing on results from a set of behavioral judgments and visual world eyetracking studies, we will compare the processing of absolute (e.g. “full”) and relative (e.g. “tall”) adjectives. Second, we investigate how language users dynamically adapt to contextual cues and make adjustments to their previously established thresholds. In this study, participants were exposed to a sequence of auditory statements that describe simultaneously presented visual images as having a particular adjectival property. The visual images either perfectly satisfy the adjectival property or only satisfy the property marginally (the borderline cases). Participants’ adaptation to the experimenter’s threshold is operationalized by the gradual increase, during the exposure period, of their acceptance of the borderline tokens as having the relevant property. We will discuss a number of semantic and pragmatic factors that modulate the success/failure and the rate of the adaptation behavior.
Colloquium and Events Schedule (Spring 2017)
All colloquium talks are in B342 Wells Hall at 4:30pm unless otherwise noted.
Past Talks (2015-2016)
Title: List Answers through Higher Order Questions
Veneeta Dayal (Rutgers University)
Date: November 17
Higher order questions have been invoked in the context of local as well as long-distance list answers. This talk uses the scope marking construction to assess accounts of list answers in local contexts, and the phenomenon of trapping to evaluate accounts of long-distance list answers. Looking at this range of facts suggests that higher order questions do play a role in list answers, but not in all types of list answers.
List answers to multiple wh questions and questions with quantifiers display functionality: domain cover and one-one/many-one pairings. One proposal for capturing this functionality involves iterating the question forming operation by projecting a double C structure. This results in a family of questions. Distributing an answerhood operator over the members of this set and intersecting the result yields the right type of list (Hagstrom 1998, Fox 2012). This talk explores the possibility of extending the proposal to scope marking constructions. Two problems are noted, one having to do with the absence of the truth requirement in this construction, the other with restrictions on the type of embedding predicates allowed.
Higher order questions have also been used to explain list answers across wh islands (Dayal 1996). Such answers pose a potential problem for the phenomenon of trapped pair-lists (Ratiu 2005 and Cheng and Demirdache 2010), which disallows a matrix wh from pairing up with one embedded wh to the exclusion of its clause-mate wh. An embedded multiple wh question, interpreted as a family of questions, entering into a functional dependency with a wh expression in the matrix clause, can account for long-distance pair-list answers without running afoul of trapping. In order to account for cross-linguistic variation in long-distance list answers, a distinction between overt vs. covert scope taking is proposed.
Veneeta Dayal (Rutgers University)
Date: November 17
Higher order questions have been invoked in the context of local as well as long-distance list answers. This talk uses the scope marking construction to assess accounts of list answers in local contexts, and the phenomenon of trapping to evaluate accounts of long-distance list answers. Looking at this range of facts suggests that higher order questions do play a role in list answers, but not in all types of list answers.
List answers to multiple wh questions and questions with quantifiers display functionality: domain cover and one-one/many-one pairings. One proposal for capturing this functionality involves iterating the question forming operation by projecting a double C structure. This results in a family of questions. Distributing an answerhood operator over the members of this set and intersecting the result yields the right type of list (Hagstrom 1998, Fox 2012). This talk explores the possibility of extending the proposal to scope marking constructions. Two problems are noted, one having to do with the absence of the truth requirement in this construction, the other with restrictions on the type of embedding predicates allowed.
Higher order questions have also been used to explain list answers across wh islands (Dayal 1996). Such answers pose a potential problem for the phenomenon of trapped pair-lists (Ratiu 2005 and Cheng and Demirdache 2010), which disallows a matrix wh from pairing up with one embedded wh to the exclusion of its clause-mate wh. An embedded multiple wh question, interpreted as a family of questions, entering into a functional dependency with a wh expression in the matrix clause, can account for long-distance pair-list answers without running afoul of trapping. In order to account for cross-linguistic variation in long-distance list answers, a distinction between overt vs. covert scope taking is proposed.
Title: A Pragmatic Analysis of a Focus-Indicating Modal: That would be would
Gregory Ward (Northwestern University)
Date: October 6
In this talk (representing collaborative work), I analyze and compare two copular constructions of English, both with a demonstrative pronoun in subject position: epistemic would equatives and that-equatives (Birner, Kaplan, and Ward 2007; Hedberg 2000; Heller & Wolter 2008; Mikkelsen 2007; inter alia), as illustrated in (1)a-b, respectively:
(1) a. You can also add a little heart or star [or whatever you like] over a special city. Mine is on East Lansing - where Husband and I met and home of the finest university in the land. That would be Michigan State University! [corpus]
b. G: Who’s that up there at the podium?
c: That’s our guest speaker. [corpus]
Drawing upon a large corpus of naturally-occurring data, I show that the modal in an epistemic would equative serves to mark the focus of the utterance, thus requiring that an open proposition (in the sense of Prince 1986) be contextually salient, with the post-copular constituent serving as the instantiation of the variable of that open proposition (OP). The information structure of the epistemic would construction accounts for the humorous and/or ironic tone often associated with its use. The that-equative construction, on the other hand, is more constrained. It may also be used to instantiate an OP; however, for that-equatives, unlike epistemic would equatives, such a possibility is determined contextually rather than morpho-syntactically.
As for the interpretation of the two constructions, I present the results of a series of empirical studies that show that use of an epistemic would equative conveys a high degree of speaker commitment to the truth of the proposition expressed. Indeed, far from being a marker of tentativeness as has been claimed (Palmer 1990, Perkins 1983), our results suggest that use of epistemic would conveys an even higher degree of speaker certainty than does use of a that-equative.
Gregory Ward (Northwestern University)
Date: October 6
In this talk (representing collaborative work), I analyze and compare two copular constructions of English, both with a demonstrative pronoun in subject position: epistemic would equatives and that-equatives (Birner, Kaplan, and Ward 2007; Hedberg 2000; Heller & Wolter 2008; Mikkelsen 2007; inter alia), as illustrated in (1)a-b, respectively:
(1) a. You can also add a little heart or star [or whatever you like] over a special city. Mine is on East Lansing - where Husband and I met and home of the finest university in the land. That would be Michigan State University! [corpus]
b. G: Who’s that up there at the podium?
c: That’s our guest speaker. [corpus]
Drawing upon a large corpus of naturally-occurring data, I show that the modal in an epistemic would equative serves to mark the focus of the utterance, thus requiring that an open proposition (in the sense of Prince 1986) be contextually salient, with the post-copular constituent serving as the instantiation of the variable of that open proposition (OP). The information structure of the epistemic would construction accounts for the humorous and/or ironic tone often associated with its use. The that-equative construction, on the other hand, is more constrained. It may also be used to instantiate an OP; however, for that-equatives, unlike epistemic would equatives, such a possibility is determined contextually rather than morpho-syntactically.
As for the interpretation of the two constructions, I present the results of a series of empirical studies that show that use of an epistemic would equative conveys a high degree of speaker commitment to the truth of the proposition expressed. Indeed, far from being a marker of tentativeness as has been claimed (Palmer 1990, Perkins 1983), our results suggest that use of epistemic would conveys an even higher degree of speaker certainty than does use of a that-equative.
Title: Seems like subordination: Morphosyntactic change on two levels and its implications for evidential expressions
Marisa Brook (Michigan State University)
Date: October 6
After the verbs seem, appear, look, sound, and feel, a set of five complementizers can provide a link to a finite subordinate clause, as in (1):
(1) It seems (like/as if/as though/that/Ø) she's getting better quickly.
In colloquial Canadian English, like is both the most prevalent variant by far (López-Couso and Méndez-Naya 2012) and the incoming form, nearing the end of a change (Brook 2014).
A related, broader change is also occurring in Ontario. The entire finite subordinate structure with seem* like is beginning to take over from infinitival subordination with seem in apparent time. In other words, (2a) is now catching on at the expense of (2b).
(2a) (It/she) seems like she’s getting better quickly.
(2b) She seems to be getting better quickly
These findings raise the question of whether the second change is a result of the first. The proportion of like among these complementizers in Ontario has reached nearly 70 percent. Is the broader level of syntactic change in (2) a consequence of like having overtaken its competing complementizers?
Drawing on results from other English dialects (Tagliamonte 1996-98, 1998), I suggest that there is indeed a causal link. I propose that this is attributable to the fact that like permits optional copy-raising with seem (Rogers 1974, Horn 1981, Asudeh 2002, inter alia). That is, there are always two choices in terms of the matrix subject: an expletive, as in (3a), or a (copy-raised) noun phrase, as in (3b).
(3a) It seems like she’s getting better quickly.
(3b) She seems like she’s getting better quickly.
Acquisition studies (Rett et al. 2013; Rett and Hyams 2014) suggests that what conditions the variation between option (3a) and option (3b) is the evidential status of the subject: (3a) is unmarked when it comes to evidentiality, but (3b) unequivocally indicates direct perception of the subject NP as the information source (Rett et al. 2013; Rett and Hyams 2014).
With like as the dominant variant, there is now a one-to-one mapping between subject type and evidential value of the proposition. This was not the case before the innovative like became so ubiquitous: some of the declining complementizers block copy-raising entirely (Huddleston and Pullum 2002:962, Gisborne 2010:275), meaning that a matrix expletive would previously have been ambiguous in terms of evidential value. The declining infinitival structure in (2b) does not fit into a newly binary evidential system and has no other advantages over the finite construction. This, I argue, accounts for the loss of (2b) in Ontario English. The findings reinforce the importance of looking outside the conventional variable context (Aaron 2010) in order to inform morphosyntactic change, and raise questions for future work about when entire syntactic structures are able to act as covariants in a change.
Marisa Brook (Michigan State University)
Date: October 6
After the verbs seem, appear, look, sound, and feel, a set of five complementizers can provide a link to a finite subordinate clause, as in (1):
(1) It seems (like/as if/as though/that/Ø) she's getting better quickly.
In colloquial Canadian English, like is both the most prevalent variant by far (López-Couso and Méndez-Naya 2012) and the incoming form, nearing the end of a change (Brook 2014).
A related, broader change is also occurring in Ontario. The entire finite subordinate structure with seem* like is beginning to take over from infinitival subordination with seem in apparent time. In other words, (2a) is now catching on at the expense of (2b).
(2a) (It/she) seems like she’s getting better quickly.
(2b) She seems to be getting better quickly
These findings raise the question of whether the second change is a result of the first. The proportion of like among these complementizers in Ontario has reached nearly 70 percent. Is the broader level of syntactic change in (2) a consequence of like having overtaken its competing complementizers?
Drawing on results from other English dialects (Tagliamonte 1996-98, 1998), I suggest that there is indeed a causal link. I propose that this is attributable to the fact that like permits optional copy-raising with seem (Rogers 1974, Horn 1981, Asudeh 2002, inter alia). That is, there are always two choices in terms of the matrix subject: an expletive, as in (3a), or a (copy-raised) noun phrase, as in (3b).
(3a) It seems like she’s getting better quickly.
(3b) She seems like she’s getting better quickly.
Acquisition studies (Rett et al. 2013; Rett and Hyams 2014) suggests that what conditions the variation between option (3a) and option (3b) is the evidential status of the subject: (3a) is unmarked when it comes to evidentiality, but (3b) unequivocally indicates direct perception of the subject NP as the information source (Rett et al. 2013; Rett and Hyams 2014).
With like as the dominant variant, there is now a one-to-one mapping between subject type and evidential value of the proposition. This was not the case before the innovative like became so ubiquitous: some of the declining complementizers block copy-raising entirely (Huddleston and Pullum 2002:962, Gisborne 2010:275), meaning that a matrix expletive would previously have been ambiguous in terms of evidential value. The declining infinitival structure in (2b) does not fit into a newly binary evidential system and has no other advantages over the finite construction. This, I argue, accounts for the loss of (2b) in Ontario English. The findings reinforce the importance of looking outside the conventional variable context (Aaron 2010) in order to inform morphosyntactic change, and raise questions for future work about when entire syntactic structures are able to act as covariants in a change.
Title: The path to early comprehension of Subject-Verb agreement in French
Géraldine Legendre (Johns Hopkins University)
Date: September 22
By the age of 3 children spontaneously produce agreeing third person singular and plural verbal forms, which they reportedly don’t comprehend until the age of 5 (Johnson, de Villiers, & Seymour, 2005 for English; Pérez-Leroux, 2005 for Spanish). This has been attributed to the un-interpretable nature of the number features involved. I present experimental evidence that comprehension of Subject-Verb agreement is not universally late; it is found by 30 months in French-leaning children. I also present experimental evidence pertaining to very early sensitivity to (un-)grammaticality of French Subject- Verb agreement dependencies in preverbal children, and their changing preferences for (un-)grammatical stimuli over the course of 10 months (from 14 to 24 months of age). I interpret these changes as evidence for young children’s maturing agreement representations, from surface phonological to abstract number feature-based dependencies and provide independent experimental evidence regarding coordinated singular subjects that knowledge at 24 months is indeed feature-based. Overall, young children’s knowledge of Subject-Verb agreement is abstract and productive by the time they spontaneously produce any verbal forms, variation induced by language and productive by the time they spontaneously produce any verbal forms.
Géraldine Legendre (Johns Hopkins University)
Date: September 22
By the age of 3 children spontaneously produce agreeing third person singular and plural verbal forms, which they reportedly don’t comprehend until the age of 5 (Johnson, de Villiers, & Seymour, 2005 for English; Pérez-Leroux, 2005 for Spanish). This has been attributed to the un-interpretable nature of the number features involved. I present experimental evidence that comprehension of Subject-Verb agreement is not universally late; it is found by 30 months in French-leaning children. I also present experimental evidence pertaining to very early sensitivity to (un-)grammaticality of French Subject- Verb agreement dependencies in preverbal children, and their changing preferences for (un-)grammatical stimuli over the course of 10 months (from 14 to 24 months of age). I interpret these changes as evidence for young children’s maturing agreement representations, from surface phonological to abstract number feature-based dependencies and provide independent experimental evidence regarding coordinated singular subjects that knowledge at 24 months is indeed feature-based. Overall, young children’s knowledge of Subject-Verb agreement is abstract and productive by the time they spontaneously produce any verbal forms, variation induced by language and productive by the time they spontaneously produce any verbal forms.
Title: Language acquisition in a dialect contact situation
Cristina Schmitt (Michigan State University)
Date: September 15
Children quickly and efficiently become competent speakers of a language, but how do they do this? Researchers all agree that the acquisition process must involve an interplay between innate biases and properties of the input (the language children are exposed to). Of course beyond that, there is much disagreement about the division of labor between innate biases and external forces. However, a good understanding of how children cope with different types of input can help shed some light on the nature of the innate biases and how they guide children’s acquisition path. In this project we examine children’s acquisition under conditions of highly variable input.
Most work on the acquisition of grammatical properties assumes that children live in a homogeneous speech community with negligible amounts of variation within and across speakers. Much like studying the physics of motion by assuming a frictionless surface, idealizing the language acquisition problem to a homogenous, non-varying environment was methodologically important and allowed us to learn how core properties of various languages are acquired (Chomsky 1965). In a typical study, almost as in a fairy tale, the child reaches a well-understood, well-described and clear-cut target state, which is taken to coincide almost exactly with the grammar of the caretakers and the speech community.
But the ideal homogeneous speech community in reality does not exist. Every community with internal social divisions will have a certain amount of sociolinguistic variation, and historically speaking, contact between different languages has always been “the norm not the exception” (Thomason 2001:12).
In my previous work with Karen Miller we have shown that sociolinguistic variation has an effect on the speed at which children converge to the adult grammar. However, it does not prevent the acquisition of the target grammar. In fact, Miller (2007) showed that by age 7, even children whose input had high rates of ambiguity could use number morphology in comprehension tasks just as reliably as adults.
In this project we go a step further and we examine the acquisition of grammatical properties in a much less stable situation, that of language and dialect contact. Specifically we examine the acquisition of agreement and VP complement realization in a situation of contact between two mutually intelligible dialects of Spanish: Rioplatense Spanish and Paraguayan Spanish.
In contrast to the socially stratified variation associated, for example, to a phonetic rule within a stable community, variation induced by language and dialect contact exposes the child to data generated by multiple grammars, providing less than straightforward evidence for any particular hypothesis. Such a situation creates a tension between two forces: the force that drives generalization (Yang 2015, 2016), and the force that requires children to be as faithful to the input as they can.
Our goal is to examine the acquisition of Spanish by children exposed to two different varieties of Spanish spoken in Buenos Aires, Argentina: the local, dominant variety, known as Rioplatense Spanish, and the socially marked Paraguayan variety. Language contact involving closely related varieties poses a particularly interesting problem for language acquisition, since the child is exposed to input data which may not be consistent with a single grammar, despite the fact that the overall similarity between the two varieties in terms of a shared lexicon and broadly similar syntax might appear to support a single grammar analysis.
The paper is divided in three parts: (i) to discuss some methodological issues associated to data collection in contact situations; (ii) to outline the learning problem for the child in contact situations and (iii) to present some preliminary results from natural speech data related to agreement and DP complement realization.
Cristina Schmitt (Michigan State University)
Date: September 15
Children quickly and efficiently become competent speakers of a language, but how do they do this? Researchers all agree that the acquisition process must involve an interplay between innate biases and properties of the input (the language children are exposed to). Of course beyond that, there is much disagreement about the division of labor between innate biases and external forces. However, a good understanding of how children cope with different types of input can help shed some light on the nature of the innate biases and how they guide children’s acquisition path. In this project we examine children’s acquisition under conditions of highly variable input.
Most work on the acquisition of grammatical properties assumes that children live in a homogeneous speech community with negligible amounts of variation within and across speakers. Much like studying the physics of motion by assuming a frictionless surface, idealizing the language acquisition problem to a homogenous, non-varying environment was methodologically important and allowed us to learn how core properties of various languages are acquired (Chomsky 1965). In a typical study, almost as in a fairy tale, the child reaches a well-understood, well-described and clear-cut target state, which is taken to coincide almost exactly with the grammar of the caretakers and the speech community.
But the ideal homogeneous speech community in reality does not exist. Every community with internal social divisions will have a certain amount of sociolinguistic variation, and historically speaking, contact between different languages has always been “the norm not the exception” (Thomason 2001:12).
In my previous work with Karen Miller we have shown that sociolinguistic variation has an effect on the speed at which children converge to the adult grammar. However, it does not prevent the acquisition of the target grammar. In fact, Miller (2007) showed that by age 7, even children whose input had high rates of ambiguity could use number morphology in comprehension tasks just as reliably as adults.
In this project we go a step further and we examine the acquisition of grammatical properties in a much less stable situation, that of language and dialect contact. Specifically we examine the acquisition of agreement and VP complement realization in a situation of contact between two mutually intelligible dialects of Spanish: Rioplatense Spanish and Paraguayan Spanish.
In contrast to the socially stratified variation associated, for example, to a phonetic rule within a stable community, variation induced by language and dialect contact exposes the child to data generated by multiple grammars, providing less than straightforward evidence for any particular hypothesis. Such a situation creates a tension between two forces: the force that drives generalization (Yang 2015, 2016), and the force that requires children to be as faithful to the input as they can.
Our goal is to examine the acquisition of Spanish by children exposed to two different varieties of Spanish spoken in Buenos Aires, Argentina: the local, dominant variety, known as Rioplatense Spanish, and the socially marked Paraguayan variety. Language contact involving closely related varieties poses a particularly interesting problem for language acquisition, since the child is exposed to input data which may not be consistent with a single grammar, despite the fact that the overall similarity between the two varieties in terms of a shared lexicon and broadly similar syntax might appear to support a single grammar analysis.
The paper is divided in three parts: (i) to discuss some methodological issues associated to data collection in contact situations; (ii) to outline the learning problem for the child in contact situations and (iii) to present some preliminary results from natural speech data related to agreement and DP complement realization.
Mid-Continental Phonetics and Phonology Conference (MidPhon 21) at Michigan State 2016
Date: September 16-19
The 21st Mid-Continental Phonetics and Phonology Conference (MidPhon 21), to be held at MSU on September 16-19, 2016, is organized by Yen-Hwei Lin, Karthik Durvasula and a group of linguistics graduate students, and sponsored by the Department of Linguistics and Languages and MSU’s Cognitive Science Program. For the past 20 years, MidPhon has served successfully as an annual phonetics/phonology conference for faculty and students of the Big Ten Academic Alliance and Mid-West research institutions to disseminate research findings, to exchange ideas, and to seek collaboration opportunities. We are excited to bring MidPhon to MSU for the first time in 2016. The conference program and information can be found at the conference website: https://msu.edu/~lingorg/midphon21/
Date: September 16-19
The 21st Mid-Continental Phonetics and Phonology Conference (MidPhon 21), to be held at MSU on September 16-19, 2016, is organized by Yen-Hwei Lin, Karthik Durvasula and a group of linguistics graduate students, and sponsored by the Department of Linguistics and Languages and MSU’s Cognitive Science Program. For the past 20 years, MidPhon has served successfully as an annual phonetics/phonology conference for faculty and students of the Big Ten Academic Alliance and Mid-West research institutions to disseminate research findings, to exchange ideas, and to seek collaboration opportunities. We are excited to bring MidPhon to MSU for the first time in 2016. The conference program and information can be found at the conference website: https://msu.edu/~lingorg/midphon21/
Colloquium and Events Schedule (Fall 2016)
All colloquium talks are in B342 Wells Hall at 4:30pm unless otherwise noted.
Title: Conversational implicature in degree semantics
Jessica Rett (University of California, Los Angeles)
Date: April 28
Semantic theories of degree constructions have as their central challenge a tension between the positive and comparative constructions (John is tall and John is taller than Bill, respectively). The former is relatively unmarked (across languages) but carries an element of meaning that is absent from the latter: evaluativity, or the requirement that John's height exceed a contextual standard. Degree theorists (Bartsch & Venneman 1972, Cresswell 1976) addressed the tension by encoding evaluativity in a null operator POS in contrastive distribution with the comparative morpheme, a move that has been argued to be uncompositional (Klein 1980) and empirically inadequate (Rett 2008). Others, like Klein (1980, 1982), have addressed the tension with a semantics that doesn't include degrees and reduces evaluativity to vagueness. Such accounts have their own empirical problems (Kennedy 1999, Rett 2008).
In this talk, I will argue that this tension -- and evaluativity in general -- is best analyzed as a conversational implicature. In the positive construction, evaluativity arises as a non-scalar Quantity implicature, similar to the added meaning in Grice's (1975) tautology War is war. In constructions in which evaluativity is associated only with the negative antonym (e.g. John is as short as Bill), evaluativity arises as a Manner implicature. I demonstrate that in each case evaluativity behaves exactly like other non-scalar Quantity and Manner implicatures; I derive differences in the presuppositional status of evaluativity based on its at-issueness; and I show that the account extends quite naturally to non-adjectival phenomena.
Jessica Rett (University of California, Los Angeles)
Date: April 28
Semantic theories of degree constructions have as their central challenge a tension between the positive and comparative constructions (John is tall and John is taller than Bill, respectively). The former is relatively unmarked (across languages) but carries an element of meaning that is absent from the latter: evaluativity, or the requirement that John's height exceed a contextual standard. Degree theorists (Bartsch & Venneman 1972, Cresswell 1976) addressed the tension by encoding evaluativity in a null operator POS in contrastive distribution with the comparative morpheme, a move that has been argued to be uncompositional (Klein 1980) and empirically inadequate (Rett 2008). Others, like Klein (1980, 1982), have addressed the tension with a semantics that doesn't include degrees and reduces evaluativity to vagueness. Such accounts have their own empirical problems (Kennedy 1999, Rett 2008).
In this talk, I will argue that this tension -- and evaluativity in general -- is best analyzed as a conversational implicature. In the positive construction, evaluativity arises as a non-scalar Quantity implicature, similar to the added meaning in Grice's (1975) tautology War is war. In constructions in which evaluativity is associated only with the negative antonym (e.g. John is as short as Bill), evaluativity arises as a Manner implicature. I demonstrate that in each case evaluativity behaves exactly like other non-scalar Quantity and Manner implicatures; I derive differences in the presuppositional status of evaluativity based on its at-issueness; and I show that the account extends quite naturally to non-adjectival phenomena.
Title: What kind of syntax did early humans (and Neanderthals) command? A linguistic reconstruction
Ljiljana Progovac (Wayne State University)
Date: April 7
Here I first introduce a precise linguistic reconstruction of the earliest stages of syntax, following syntactic theory and considering an abundance of analyzed linguistic data (based on Progovac, 2015, Evolutionary Syntax, OUP, and previous work). Then I seek cross-fertilization between the fruits of this reconstruction and the findings in several other disciplines relevant for language evolution, including Darwin's natural selection, anthropology, neuroscience, and genetics. This reconstruction follows a simple idea, that syntax evolved gradually/incrementally (through well-defined stages), and that these stages are not only still evident in various modern constructions ("living fossils"), but that they also provide a necessary scaffolding upon which more complex structures can be built.
By reconstructing a particular path along which syntax evolved (by unraveling the layers of functional structure postulated in Minimalism, such as vP and TP), this approach is able to shed new and novel light on some essential properties of language design itself, including the small clause foundation of modern sentences, and islandhood effects. In addition, the reconstructed small clause absolutive-like stage provides the common denominator for some major parameters of crosslinguistic variation, including the expression of transitivity by ergative, accusative, and serial verb means.
Interestingly, in making an argument for the antiquity of language, Dediu & Levinson (2013, Frontiers in Psychology 4) express their hope "that some combinations of structural features will prove so conservative that they will allow deep reconstruction," thus shedding light on the language capacities of Neanderthals, as well as H. heidelbergensis, our common ancestor with Neanderthals. I propose that the earliest stages of syntax as reconstructed here provide just such a conservative platform, which may have been commanded by our cousins and the common ancestor, and I provide a fragment of such grammar. This reconstruction is at the right level of granularity to engage the hominin timeline, as well as the fields of neuroscience and genetics. Here I briefly report the results of a specific fMRI experiment in which we tested certain predictions of this proposal.
Ljiljana Progovac (Wayne State University)
Date: April 7
Here I first introduce a precise linguistic reconstruction of the earliest stages of syntax, following syntactic theory and considering an abundance of analyzed linguistic data (based on Progovac, 2015, Evolutionary Syntax, OUP, and previous work). Then I seek cross-fertilization between the fruits of this reconstruction and the findings in several other disciplines relevant for language evolution, including Darwin's natural selection, anthropology, neuroscience, and genetics. This reconstruction follows a simple idea, that syntax evolved gradually/incrementally (through well-defined stages), and that these stages are not only still evident in various modern constructions ("living fossils"), but that they also provide a necessary scaffolding upon which more complex structures can be built.
By reconstructing a particular path along which syntax evolved (by unraveling the layers of functional structure postulated in Minimalism, such as vP and TP), this approach is able to shed new and novel light on some essential properties of language design itself, including the small clause foundation of modern sentences, and islandhood effects. In addition, the reconstructed small clause absolutive-like stage provides the common denominator for some major parameters of crosslinguistic variation, including the expression of transitivity by ergative, accusative, and serial verb means.
Interestingly, in making an argument for the antiquity of language, Dediu & Levinson (2013, Frontiers in Psychology 4) express their hope "that some combinations of structural features will prove so conservative that they will allow deep reconstruction," thus shedding light on the language capacities of Neanderthals, as well as H. heidelbergensis, our common ancestor with Neanderthals. I propose that the earliest stages of syntax as reconstructed here provide just such a conservative platform, which may have been commanded by our cousins and the common ancestor, and I provide a fragment of such grammar. This reconstruction is at the right level of granularity to engage the hominin timeline, as well as the fields of neuroscience and genetics. Here I briefly report the results of a specific fMRI experiment in which we tested certain predictions of this proposal.
Title: Decomposing Merge: The source of hierarchical recursion
Norbert Hornstein (University of Maryland)
Date: March 24
How’s a Minimalist to understand the notion ‘linguistic universal.’ Not in a Greenbergian sense as an evident surface pattern exemplified in all (or most, or many) of the world’s languages. Not in GB terms as a specification of the structural properties of the Faculty of Language (FL). Rather, ‘UG’ names those characteristics of FL that are proprietary to language. MP’s intellectual conceit is that it is possible to factor the properties of FL into those that are distinctively linguistic and those that are more cognitively and/or computationally generic. The idea is that the set of such specifically linguistic principles (UG) is very small and that in combination with the cogntively and computationally more generic principles it is possible to derive the properties of FL.
One way of implementing the MP research program is to “minimalize” a candidate theory of UG and attempt the decomposition. As I believe that GB was a pretty good broad brush stroke guestimate of what FL might look like, trying to reduce the properties of GB to a more palatable conceptual account is a good way of pursuing the Minimalist Program.
One important feature of GB (indeed of all generative theories since the mid 1950s) is the fact that Gs generate unbounded hierarchically structured syntactic objects, i.e. the fact of hierarchical recursion. One success of MP has been to discover what kind of operation achieves this (Merge) and how we can understand broad properties of Gs as by-products of this system of recursion.
This talk argues that endocentricity is a defining characteristic of syntactic expressions. I understand this to mean that classical X’ theory was roughly correct. In the context of MP, this means that labeling is a key grammatical operation. I want to argue that it is also key to understanding how recursion works in natural language grammars. The approach here contrasts with Chomsky’s recent thinking on the topic in that it treats labels as important for the derivation and not merely important for the mapping of derived structures to the CI interface. For Chomsky, labels titivate hierarchically structured objects generated by Merge. Here, they are instrumental in allowing the derivation of hierarchically structured objects at all.
Norbert Hornstein (University of Maryland)
Date: March 24
How’s a Minimalist to understand the notion ‘linguistic universal.’ Not in a Greenbergian sense as an evident surface pattern exemplified in all (or most, or many) of the world’s languages. Not in GB terms as a specification of the structural properties of the Faculty of Language (FL). Rather, ‘UG’ names those characteristics of FL that are proprietary to language. MP’s intellectual conceit is that it is possible to factor the properties of FL into those that are distinctively linguistic and those that are more cognitively and/or computationally generic. The idea is that the set of such specifically linguistic principles (UG) is very small and that in combination with the cogntively and computationally more generic principles it is possible to derive the properties of FL.
One way of implementing the MP research program is to “minimalize” a candidate theory of UG and attempt the decomposition. As I believe that GB was a pretty good broad brush stroke guestimate of what FL might look like, trying to reduce the properties of GB to a more palatable conceptual account is a good way of pursuing the Minimalist Program.
One important feature of GB (indeed of all generative theories since the mid 1950s) is the fact that Gs generate unbounded hierarchically structured syntactic objects, i.e. the fact of hierarchical recursion. One success of MP has been to discover what kind of operation achieves this (Merge) and how we can understand broad properties of Gs as by-products of this system of recursion.
This talk argues that endocentricity is a defining characteristic of syntactic expressions. I understand this to mean that classical X’ theory was roughly correct. In the context of MP, this means that labeling is a key grammatical operation. I want to argue that it is also key to understanding how recursion works in natural language grammars. The approach here contrasts with Chomsky’s recent thinking on the topic in that it treats labels as important for the derivation and not merely important for the mapping of derived structures to the CI interface. For Chomsky, labels titivate hierarchically structured objects generated by Merge. Here, they are instrumental in allowing the derivation of hierarchically structured objects at all.
Title: Dimensions of comparison
Alexis Wellwood (Northwestern University)
Date: March 17
Comparatives and superlatives sometimes contain explicit cues as to the intended dimension for comparison (longer, fastest), and other times the cues are more subtle (more coffee, jump the most). In my formal work (e.g. Wellwood 2015, Dunbar & Wellwood 2016), I have argued for a unified theory of how the space of possible dimensions for comparison is constrained across linguistic contexts. In this talk, I demonstrate some of the ways in which syntactic, lexical, and morphological information can influence children's and adults' comparisons of entities and events, presenting data from acquisition (Wellwood, Gagliardi, & Lidz, 2016), sentence-to-animation verification, and language preference tasks. Throughout, I emphasize the importance of thinking about nonlinguistic cognition in tests of linguistic knowledge.
*Referenced work is available at http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/wellwood/research.html
Alexis Wellwood (Northwestern University)
Date: March 17
Comparatives and superlatives sometimes contain explicit cues as to the intended dimension for comparison (longer, fastest), and other times the cues are more subtle (more coffee, jump the most). In my formal work (e.g. Wellwood 2015, Dunbar & Wellwood 2016), I have argued for a unified theory of how the space of possible dimensions for comparison is constrained across linguistic contexts. In this talk, I demonstrate some of the ways in which syntactic, lexical, and morphological information can influence children's and adults' comparisons of entities and events, presenting data from acquisition (Wellwood, Gagliardi, & Lidz, 2016), sentence-to-animation verification, and language preference tasks. Throughout, I emphasize the importance of thinking about nonlinguistic cognition in tests of linguistic knowledge.
*Referenced work is available at http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/wellwood/research.html
Title: Obligatory attempts at meaning construction in the processing of English compound words and noun phrases
Christina Gagne (University of Alberta)
Date: March 3
Compositionality and productivity, which are the abilities to combining existing concepts and words to create new concepts and phrases, words, and sentences, are hallmarks of the human conceptual and language systems. Combined concepts are formed within the conceptual system and can be expressed via modifier-noun phrases (e.g., mountain vacation) and compound words (e.g., seashell), which are the simplest forms of productivity. We propose that relational information serves as the conceptual mortar for conceptual structures created during conceptual combination. To illustrate, the LOCATIVE relation is used to connect mountain and vacation during the formation of mountain vacation. In this talk, we will begin by providing an overview of the issue of compositionality, and then will discuss a theoretical framework aimed at accounting for the role of relational information in conceptual combination. The particular focus will be on the role and nature of relational competition during the processing of both novel modifier-noun phrases and established compounds. We will also discuss recent investigations of the role of relational competition in compounds that are not semantically transparent.
Christina Gagne (University of Alberta)
Date: March 3
Compositionality and productivity, which are the abilities to combining existing concepts and words to create new concepts and phrases, words, and sentences, are hallmarks of the human conceptual and language systems. Combined concepts are formed within the conceptual system and can be expressed via modifier-noun phrases (e.g., mountain vacation) and compound words (e.g., seashell), which are the simplest forms of productivity. We propose that relational information serves as the conceptual mortar for conceptual structures created during conceptual combination. To illustrate, the LOCATIVE relation is used to connect mountain and vacation during the formation of mountain vacation. In this talk, we will begin by providing an overview of the issue of compositionality, and then will discuss a theoretical framework aimed at accounting for the role of relational information in conceptual combination. The particular focus will be on the role and nature of relational competition during the processing of both novel modifier-noun phrases and established compounds. We will also discuss recent investigations of the role of relational competition in compounds that are not semantically transparent.
The Graduate Linguistics Expo at Michigan State (GLEAMS) 2016
Date: February 27-28
GLEAMS is Michigan State University’s Department of Linguistics and Languages’ departmental graduate student colloquium, organized by the MSU Linguistics Student Organization. This workshop will showcase graduate work in phonology, syntax, semantics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and child language acquisition, giving graduate students the opportunity to present their work to colleagues within and outside the department.
This year's invited speakers are Donca Steriade (MIT) and Richard Larson (Stony Brook). More information—including a schedule—is available at the official GLEAMS website.
Date: February 27-28
GLEAMS is Michigan State University’s Department of Linguistics and Languages’ departmental graduate student colloquium, organized by the MSU Linguistics Student Organization. This workshop will showcase graduate work in phonology, syntax, semantics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and child language acquisition, giving graduate students the opportunity to present their work to colleagues within and outside the department.
This year's invited speakers are Donca Steriade (MIT) and Richard Larson (Stony Brook). More information—including a schedule—is available at the official GLEAMS website.
Title: U.S. Regional Vowel Patterns in Production and Perception
Tyler Kendall (University of Oregon)
Date: February 18
In this talk, I present continuing work from a collaborative project with Valerie Fridland (University of Nevada, Reno), which is exploring the relationship between speech production and perception at both the regional and individual level (Kendall and Fridland 2012, Fridland and Kendall 2012, Fridland, Kendall, and Farrington 2014). We examine vowel production and perception patterns from speakers in 8 U.S. states (CA, IL, NC, NV, NY, OR, TN, VA) across the South, West, and Inland North (Labov et al. 2006). Building on other recent work (Evans and Iverson 2004, 2007, Sumner and Samuel 2009, Fridland and Kendall 2012), we are investigating questions such as (a) whether differences in regional speakers’ production patterns implicate differences in perception, (b) whether individual differences in production relate to individual differences in perception, and, (c) whether different vowel sub-systems (e.g. tense and lax mid-front vowels, low back vowels) vary in the way that this linkage between production and perception is realized. I discuss the current status of this work along with some of our recent findings with respect to the above questions. I also discuss some new directions for our work, including an examination of how the addition of social information about the stimuli voice’s regional identity influences listener perceptions and an attempt to map perceptual data (vowel identification patterns from 500+ participants around the U.S.) using methods from dialectometry (Kendall and Fridland 2016).
Tyler Kendall (University of Oregon)
Date: February 18
In this talk, I present continuing work from a collaborative project with Valerie Fridland (University of Nevada, Reno), which is exploring the relationship between speech production and perception at both the regional and individual level (Kendall and Fridland 2012, Fridland and Kendall 2012, Fridland, Kendall, and Farrington 2014). We examine vowel production and perception patterns from speakers in 8 U.S. states (CA, IL, NC, NV, NY, OR, TN, VA) across the South, West, and Inland North (Labov et al. 2006). Building on other recent work (Evans and Iverson 2004, 2007, Sumner and Samuel 2009, Fridland and Kendall 2012), we are investigating questions such as (a) whether differences in regional speakers’ production patterns implicate differences in perception, (b) whether individual differences in production relate to individual differences in perception, and, (c) whether different vowel sub-systems (e.g. tense and lax mid-front vowels, low back vowels) vary in the way that this linkage between production and perception is realized. I discuss the current status of this work along with some of our recent findings with respect to the above questions. I also discuss some new directions for our work, including an examination of how the addition of social information about the stimuli voice’s regional identity influences listener perceptions and an attempt to map perceptual data (vowel identification patterns from 500+ participants around the U.S.) using methods from dialectometry (Kendall and Fridland 2016).
Title: Using nonce-probe tests and auditory priming to investigate speakers' phonological knowledge of tone sandhi
Jie Zhang (University of Kansas)
Date: February 11
Recent phonological research has shown that speakers may both overlearn and underlearn from lexical patterns of their language. This points to the importance of experimental studies that more directly tap into speakers' phonological knowledge to the construction of phonological analysis. This issue is particularly relevant for Chinese tone sandhi patterns, which often pose analytical challenges due to their complexity and phonetic arbitrariness. In this talk, I explore the use of nonce-probe tests ("wug" tests) and auditory priming in the investigation of speakers’ tacit knowledge of tone sandhi in a variety of Chinese dialects. In particular, I focus on the comparison between transparent sandhi patterns that are driven by surface-true phonotactic generalizations and opaque sandhi patterns that are not. Wug-test results show that opaque tone sandhis typically lack full productivity and often categorically fail to apply to nonce syllables, while transparent sandhis are more productive. Auditory priming studies show that disyllabic words undergoing an opaque sandhi on the first syllable are more strongly primed by a syllable carrying the sandhi tone, while words undergoing a transparent sandhi are more strongly primed by the base tone; in addition, lexical frequency of the words regulates the nature of priming for opaque sandhis, but not for transparent sandhis. These results collectively suggest that speakers internalize opaque sandhis by the listing of tonal allomorphs, while transparent sandhis can be derived through productive phonological processes from the base tone.
Jie Zhang (University of Kansas)
Date: February 11
Recent phonological research has shown that speakers may both overlearn and underlearn from lexical patterns of their language. This points to the importance of experimental studies that more directly tap into speakers' phonological knowledge to the construction of phonological analysis. This issue is particularly relevant for Chinese tone sandhi patterns, which often pose analytical challenges due to their complexity and phonetic arbitrariness. In this talk, I explore the use of nonce-probe tests ("wug" tests) and auditory priming in the investigation of speakers’ tacit knowledge of tone sandhi in a variety of Chinese dialects. In particular, I focus on the comparison between transparent sandhi patterns that are driven by surface-true phonotactic generalizations and opaque sandhi patterns that are not. Wug-test results show that opaque tone sandhis typically lack full productivity and often categorically fail to apply to nonce syllables, while transparent sandhis are more productive. Auditory priming studies show that disyllabic words undergoing an opaque sandhi on the first syllable are more strongly primed by a syllable carrying the sandhi tone, while words undergoing a transparent sandhi are more strongly primed by the base tone; in addition, lexical frequency of the words regulates the nature of priming for opaque sandhis, but not for transparent sandhis. These results collectively suggest that speakers internalize opaque sandhis by the listing of tonal allomorphs, while transparent sandhis can be derived through productive phonological processes from the base tone.
Title: Acquisition of Variation
Karen Miller (Pennsylvania State University)
Date: January 21
Studies that investigate language acquisition in contexts of variable input may provide a new way of informing models of language acquisition. In this talk, I will discuss language acquisition in the context of different input types (e.g. categorical input, variable input, inconsistent input) and present a series of studies that examine child language acquisition in contexts of variable input. While studies in this area are relatively rare, and the results I present are preliminary, I hope the presentation will generate discussion about how we might represent the initial state of the learner and the process of language acquisition more generally.
Karen Miller (Pennsylvania State University)
Date: January 21
Studies that investigate language acquisition in contexts of variable input may provide a new way of informing models of language acquisition. In this talk, I will discuss language acquisition in the context of different input types (e.g. categorical input, variable input, inconsistent input) and present a series of studies that examine child language acquisition in contexts of variable input. While studies in this area are relatively rare, and the results I present are preliminary, I hope the presentation will generate discussion about how we might represent the initial state of the learner and the process of language acquisition more generally.
Title: Sociolinguistics and language shift: approaches to the study of language endangerment
Maya Ravindranath (University of Rochester)
Date: Friday, December 11 @ 2:00 PM
Location: Wells Hall B-243
The rate of language endangerment worldwide is rapid, with linguists currently estimating that 50 – 90% of the world’s languages will be lost in the coming decades (Crystal 2000, Krauss 1992). Moreover, we know that the majority of the world’s population speaks a minority of the world’s languages, with 94% of the world’s languages being spoken by only 6% of the world’s people (Lewis, Simons and Fennig 2013). Correspondingly, the language endangerment literature to date has mostly focused on small language communities, where the language is already clearly moribund with few children speakers, and the investigations are generally locally-oriented, qualitative rather than quantitative, and ethnographic, with a primary focus on the documentation of languages that may shortly be lost. In this paper I examine two language communities that fall into neither of these categories. In one (Garifuna, Belize), the speaker population is small but the language still has many fluent speakers, and in the other (Indonesia) the language communities I focus on have speaker populations in the tens of millions. In both cases I argue that these languages are potentially endangered, and that these are the types of communities that we should be investigating in order to better understand the process of language shift.
I will discuss and compare two approaches to the study of language shift and endangerment – a ‘big data’ approach, and an ethnographic approach that uses participant observation at the speech community level. Both approaches treat language choice as a sociolinguistic variable, following Gal (1978), and the goal of both approaches is to examine the social factors that correlate with a breakdown in intergenerational transmission of the heritage language – the single most important parameter in the process of language shift (Fishman 1991). Leaving aside the fact that certain aspects of language choice may be age-graded and that this may be closely related to institutional pressures at the level of national language policy, a big data approach to language shift allows us to see that language shift can be a communal change that happens in less than a generation. From this perspective we gain insight into the demographic factors that correlate with shift toward the dominant language, including gender, class, and education. At the root of community-level decisions about language choice, however, are the choices that individuals and families make over the course of their own lives, and most notably the choices that parents make when talking to their children (the central problem of intergenerational transmission). From this perspective language shift is a generational change, and from this perspective we gain insight into the characteristics of the pivot generation of speakers who push the shift forward. Using these approaches in tandem allows us to “examine what may result from combinations of…how individuals change or do not change during their lives [and] how communities change or do not change over time” (Labov 1994:83).
Maya Ravindranath (University of Rochester)
Date: Friday, December 11 @ 2:00 PM
Location: Wells Hall B-243
The rate of language endangerment worldwide is rapid, with linguists currently estimating that 50 – 90% of the world’s languages will be lost in the coming decades (Crystal 2000, Krauss 1992). Moreover, we know that the majority of the world’s population speaks a minority of the world’s languages, with 94% of the world’s languages being spoken by only 6% of the world’s people (Lewis, Simons and Fennig 2013). Correspondingly, the language endangerment literature to date has mostly focused on small language communities, where the language is already clearly moribund with few children speakers, and the investigations are generally locally-oriented, qualitative rather than quantitative, and ethnographic, with a primary focus on the documentation of languages that may shortly be lost. In this paper I examine two language communities that fall into neither of these categories. In one (Garifuna, Belize), the speaker population is small but the language still has many fluent speakers, and in the other (Indonesia) the language communities I focus on have speaker populations in the tens of millions. In both cases I argue that these languages are potentially endangered, and that these are the types of communities that we should be investigating in order to better understand the process of language shift.
I will discuss and compare two approaches to the study of language shift and endangerment – a ‘big data’ approach, and an ethnographic approach that uses participant observation at the speech community level. Both approaches treat language choice as a sociolinguistic variable, following Gal (1978), and the goal of both approaches is to examine the social factors that correlate with a breakdown in intergenerational transmission of the heritage language – the single most important parameter in the process of language shift (Fishman 1991). Leaving aside the fact that certain aspects of language choice may be age-graded and that this may be closely related to institutional pressures at the level of national language policy, a big data approach to language shift allows us to see that language shift can be a communal change that happens in less than a generation. From this perspective we gain insight into the demographic factors that correlate with shift toward the dominant language, including gender, class, and education. At the root of community-level decisions about language choice, however, are the choices that individuals and families make over the course of their own lives, and most notably the choices that parents make when talking to their children (the central problem of intergenerational transmission). From this perspective language shift is a generational change, and from this perspective we gain insight into the characteristics of the pivot generation of speakers who push the shift forward. Using these approaches in tandem allows us to “examine what may result from combinations of…how individuals change or do not change during their lives [and] how communities change or do not change over time” (Labov 1994:83).
Title: The most exotic of languages: the ontogeny of recursive nominal modification in child language
Ana Teresa Perez-Leroux (University of Toronto)
Date: November 19
The ability to merge phrases underlies the cognitive capacity to manipulate symbols in a recursive fashion that is central to human nature/the creative property of language (Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch 2003). Therefore evidence of recursive structures should be present in all human languages (Roberts 2015). Recent challenges to Chomskyan universals question the existence of recursive embedding in the language of the Pirahã, a language isolate of the Brazilian Amazonia. While this challenge has been countered, evidence does show that recursive embedding of phrases in children is very constrained. Particularly problematic is the fact that children go through separate steps, mastering first the rule that allows a single level of embedding of a possessive nominal, as in Elmo’s sister, and only later learning to apply this rule iteratively (Elmo’s sister’s ball) (Pérez-Leroux et al 2011). This raises the question of what it means for a child to acquire a rule, and of whether child language represents evidence against the universality of recursion in language. I will discuss an elicited production study of complex nominal in 50 English speaking monolingual children (aged 4;0-5;11), where we examine i) the contrast between recursive and non-recursive noun modification in children’s production, ii) alternative strategies children employ when producing recursive modification, including evidence of overelaboration and of linearization problems, and iii) on the individual differences between children who produce recursive modification and those who do not.
Ana Teresa Perez-Leroux (University of Toronto)
Date: November 19
The ability to merge phrases underlies the cognitive capacity to manipulate symbols in a recursive fashion that is central to human nature/the creative property of language (Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch 2003). Therefore evidence of recursive structures should be present in all human languages (Roberts 2015). Recent challenges to Chomskyan universals question the existence of recursive embedding in the language of the Pirahã, a language isolate of the Brazilian Amazonia. While this challenge has been countered, evidence does show that recursive embedding of phrases in children is very constrained. Particularly problematic is the fact that children go through separate steps, mastering first the rule that allows a single level of embedding of a possessive nominal, as in Elmo’s sister, and only later learning to apply this rule iteratively (Elmo’s sister’s ball) (Pérez-Leroux et al 2011). This raises the question of what it means for a child to acquire a rule, and of whether child language represents evidence against the universality of recursion in language. I will discuss an elicited production study of complex nominal in 50 English speaking monolingual children (aged 4;0-5;11), where we examine i) the contrast between recursive and non-recursive noun modification in children’s production, ii) alternative strategies children employ when producing recursive modification, including evidence of overelaboration and of linearization problems, and iii) on the individual differences between children who produce recursive modification and those who do not.
Title: Commitments under (and out of) control: Form and meaning in the grammar of intention reports
Thomas Grano (Indiana University)
Date: November 12
Unlike belief and desire reports, intention reports (like "Kim intended to leave") are not well studied in formal semantics. I aim to begin to fill this gap, and in so doing, to take a stance on the analysis of intention reports that do not exhibit syntactic control, e.g., "Kim intended for Sandy to leave". In previous work, such sentences have been argued to involve a coercion mechanism that inserts a causative predicate into the semantic representation to yield an interpretation along the lines of "Kim intended to bring it about that Sandy leave". I argue that even uncontroversially coercion-free intention reports like "Kim intended to leave" involve a layer of meaning not predicted by existing approaches, and that once this extra layer of meaning is built into the denotation for intend in the appropriate way, the interpretive properties of putatively coercion-based intention reports follow straightforwardly with no appeal to coercion needed. In making this argument, I draw connections to relevant work in experimental philosophy on intentional action, and to relevant work in syntax on the distribution of controlled and non-controlled subjects in embedded clauses.
Thomas Grano (Indiana University)
Date: November 12
Unlike belief and desire reports, intention reports (like "Kim intended to leave") are not well studied in formal semantics. I aim to begin to fill this gap, and in so doing, to take a stance on the analysis of intention reports that do not exhibit syntactic control, e.g., "Kim intended for Sandy to leave". In previous work, such sentences have been argued to involve a coercion mechanism that inserts a causative predicate into the semantic representation to yield an interpretation along the lines of "Kim intended to bring it about that Sandy leave". I argue that even uncontroversially coercion-free intention reports like "Kim intended to leave" involve a layer of meaning not predicted by existing approaches, and that once this extra layer of meaning is built into the denotation for intend in the appropriate way, the interpretive properties of putatively coercion-based intention reports follow straightforwardly with no appeal to coercion needed. In making this argument, I draw connections to relevant work in experimental philosophy on intentional action, and to relevant work in syntax on the distribution of controlled and non-controlled subjects in embedded clauses.
Title: Environmental effects on the production and perception of phonetic detail in non-native phonotactics
Lisa Davidson (New York University)
Date: October 29
Recent research has shown that speakers are sensitive to non-contrastive phonetic detail present in nonnative speech (e.g., Escudero et al. 2012, Wilson et al. 2014). Difficulty in mapping this unfamiliar phonetic variation to possible phonemic categories can lead to modification of nonnative forms with vowel epenthesis and other changes. This mapping problem may be exacerbated in the classroom, as previous studies have found that classroom acoustics has a detrimental effect on listeners’ ability to identify nonnative sounds and words (e.g., Takata and Nábělek, 1990). In this talk, I address the effects of two acoustic environments—a soundbooth and a classroom—on English speakers’ ability to process and produce unfamiliar consonant sequences. A number of acoustic-phonetic properties were modified to create stimulus variants that typically signal non-contrastive variation within languages that contain such obstruent-obstruent and obstruent-nasal clusters. English speakers' productions of the stimuli were significantly modulated by the acoustic manipulations in both environments, suggesting that the relevant acoustic detail is not substantially degraded in the classroom. However, differences in the response patterns in the two environments indicate that the classroom setting does affect how speakers interpret nonnative phonetic detail for the purpose of establishing production targets.
Lisa Davidson (New York University)
Date: October 29
Recent research has shown that speakers are sensitive to non-contrastive phonetic detail present in nonnative speech (e.g., Escudero et al. 2012, Wilson et al. 2014). Difficulty in mapping this unfamiliar phonetic variation to possible phonemic categories can lead to modification of nonnative forms with vowel epenthesis and other changes. This mapping problem may be exacerbated in the classroom, as previous studies have found that classroom acoustics has a detrimental effect on listeners’ ability to identify nonnative sounds and words (e.g., Takata and Nábělek, 1990). In this talk, I address the effects of two acoustic environments—a soundbooth and a classroom—on English speakers’ ability to process and produce unfamiliar consonant sequences. A number of acoustic-phonetic properties were modified to create stimulus variants that typically signal non-contrastive variation within languages that contain such obstruent-obstruent and obstruent-nasal clusters. English speakers' productions of the stimuli were significantly modulated by the acoustic manipulations in both environments, suggesting that the relevant acoustic detail is not substantially degraded in the classroom. However, differences in the response patterns in the two environments indicate that the classroom setting does affect how speakers interpret nonnative phonetic detail for the purpose of establishing production targets.
Title: Composing comparative clauses
Nicholas Fleisher (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
Date: October 8
The interpretation of quantifiers inside comparative than clauses has generated intense interest in the past fifteen years. Researchers have grappled in particular with the challenge presented by examples like John is taller than every girl is, where the universal every girl appears to take syntactically exceptional matrix scope. I survey the landscape of theoretical approaches to the problem: in one class of theories, which I call encapsulation theories, the comparative-clause quantifier contributes to the calculation of a single distinguished degree; in the other class, which I call entanglement theories, it contributes to the calculation of a set of degrees that are distributed over the matrix degree relation. Based on novel data from non-upward-entailing differentials, I show that entanglement theories have the clear upper hand. I go on to explore connections between comparative clauses and embedded questions, which are syntactically similar and exhibit some analogous (and better studied) unexpected scopal behavior.
Nicholas Fleisher (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
Date: October 8
The interpretation of quantifiers inside comparative than clauses has generated intense interest in the past fifteen years. Researchers have grappled in particular with the challenge presented by examples like John is taller than every girl is, where the universal every girl appears to take syntactically exceptional matrix scope. I survey the landscape of theoretical approaches to the problem: in one class of theories, which I call encapsulation theories, the comparative-clause quantifier contributes to the calculation of a single distinguished degree; in the other class, which I call entanglement theories, it contributes to the calculation of a set of degrees that are distributed over the matrix degree relation. Based on novel data from non-upward-entailing differentials, I show that entanglement theories have the clear upper hand. I go on to explore connections between comparative clauses and embedded questions, which are syntactically similar and exhibit some analogous (and better studied) unexpected scopal behavior.
Title: Engaging Seriously with Prescriptivism
Anne Curzan (University of Michigan)
Date: October 1
In linguistics, prescriptivism often serves as a foil: the linguistic "bad guy," so to speak. In a frequent scholarly move (which I myself have done in published work), prescriptivism is contrasted with descriptivism, typically as a way to distinguish the goals of linguistic inquiry from the goals of most usage guides. And in justifiably excluding prescriptivism as an academic approach to the study of language, scholars have often unjustifiably excluded prescriptivism as a sociolinguistic factor and a legitimate object of scholarly inquiry. In this talk, I build on Deborah Cameron's invaluable work on verbal hygiene to provide a comprehensive definition of prescriptivism and address the role of prescriptivism in telling language history. We'll also discuss how rethinking our views of prescriptivism can foster more effective "public linguistics," aiding linguists' efforts to engage with widely held beliefs about language beyond the academy.
Anne Curzan (University of Michigan)
Date: October 1
In linguistics, prescriptivism often serves as a foil: the linguistic "bad guy," so to speak. In a frequent scholarly move (which I myself have done in published work), prescriptivism is contrasted with descriptivism, typically as a way to distinguish the goals of linguistic inquiry from the goals of most usage guides. And in justifiably excluding prescriptivism as an academic approach to the study of language, scholars have often unjustifiably excluded prescriptivism as a sociolinguistic factor and a legitimate object of scholarly inquiry. In this talk, I build on Deborah Cameron's invaluable work on verbal hygiene to provide a comprehensive definition of prescriptivism and address the role of prescriptivism in telling language history. We'll also discuss how rethinking our views of prescriptivism can foster more effective "public linguistics," aiding linguists' efforts to engage with widely held beliefs about language beyond the academy.
Title: Causative alternation and the realization of aspectual se in Southern Peninsular dialects of Spanish
Mercedes Tubino-Blanco (Western Michigan University)
Date: September 17
The different patterns on the direct (i.e., lexical) causativization exhibited by intransitive verbs are a fundamental topic in the lexical semantics area. The possibilities and restrictions observed in the causativization of intransitives have always triggered divisions in their classification (Levin & Rappaport Hovav 1995) beyond the classical inergative-unaccusative distinction proposed by Perlmutter 1978. Spanish is an interesting language to explore the limits between possibilities and restrictions regarding this phenomenon, given the syntactic variation exhibited by its different dialects. In this paper we discuss this variation in the form of contrasts between intransitive predicates that resist lexical causativization in Standard Spanish, such as caer ‘fall’ and entrar ‘go in’, but allow it in certain dialects such as Andalusian Spanish, exploring the relationship between such patterns and other phenomena such as the eventive structure obtained as a consequence of the composition of the verbs under study and other syntactic elements such as reflexive se.
Mercedes Tubino-Blanco (Western Michigan University)
Date: September 17
The different patterns on the direct (i.e., lexical) causativization exhibited by intransitive verbs are a fundamental topic in the lexical semantics area. The possibilities and restrictions observed in the causativization of intransitives have always triggered divisions in their classification (Levin & Rappaport Hovav 1995) beyond the classical inergative-unaccusative distinction proposed by Perlmutter 1978. Spanish is an interesting language to explore the limits between possibilities and restrictions regarding this phenomenon, given the syntactic variation exhibited by its different dialects. In this paper we discuss this variation in the form of contrasts between intransitive predicates that resist lexical causativization in Standard Spanish, such as caer ‘fall’ and entrar ‘go in’, but allow it in certain dialects such as Andalusian Spanish, exploring the relationship between such patterns and other phenomena such as the eventive structure obtained as a consequence of the composition of the verbs under study and other syntactic elements such as reflexive se.