Author: Adrian Stegovec

UConn Linguistics at CLS

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The 60th annual meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society (CLS) is taking place at the University of Chicago on April 26th-28th, and UConn linguistics will be well represented at the conference with talks by:

  • Qiushi Chen. On the units of syntactic reanalysis: Evidence from two Sinitic languages.
  • Stefan Kaufmann, Magdalena Kaufmann, & Stefan Hinterwimmer. In case falls is relevant.
  • Alexandre Vaxman (PhD 2016, now at University of Tours). The morphemic weight scale in the lexical accent system of Nxaảmxcín (Moses-Columbia Salish).
  • Zixi Liu. Contextuality in the height of A-positions: Nominative object construction in Japanese.

… and poster presentations by:

  • Heesun Yang (incoming cohort 2024-25) and Bum-Sik Park (PhD 2005, now at Dongguk University). Korean High Negation Questions and Their Syntax and Semantics.
  • Shangyan Pan. From ‘giving’ to receiving: the syntax and diachronic change of the Mandarin ‘give’.

 

The UConn Linguistics contingent at CLS 60:

      UConn Linguists at WCCFL

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      The 42nd meeting of the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL 42), hosted by UC Berkeley, took place on April 12-14, 2024. UConn was well represented at the conference with talks by:

      • Vicki Carstens. The (un)interpretability of grammatical gender: asymmetries of AGR with conjoined subjects as a formal diagnostic
      • Yusuke Yagi. Some Reconstruction Effects are by Default Semantic
      • Qiushi Chen. How to realize your lower copy: Evidence from Chichewa object dislocation
      • Adina Camelia Bleotu, Andreea Nicolae, Anton Benz, Alexandre Cremers, Gabriela Bilbiie, Mara Panaitescu & Lyn Tieu (PhD 2013, now at University of Toronto). Does merely hearing and boost implicatures with disjunction or is relevance also needed?

      … and posters by:

      • Tarcisio Dias. Contextual markedness in Brazilian Portuguese size morphology
      • Yoshiki Fujiwara (PhD 2022, now at Yamaguchi University). Across-the-board constructions in Japanese
      • Yosuke Sato & Hiromune Oda (PhD 2021, now at University of Tokyo). Variation in Particle Stranding Ellipsis in the Two-Grammar Model for Japanese.
      • Zheng Shen (PhD 2018, now at National University of Singapore) & Beth Chan. Wh-island effects and d-linking effects in wh-in situ questions.
      • Pasha Koval (PhD 2023, now at NYU Abu Dhabi) & Jon Sprouse. Relative Clause Extraposition in English is created by rightward syntactic movement.
      • Zixi Liu. How high can you get: Nominative object construction in Japanese

       

      Pictured: Most of the UConn linguistics contingent at WCCFL

       

      UConn linguistics at NACCL

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      The 36th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL-36) took place on March 22-24, hosted by Pomona College. UConn Linguistics was represented at the conference with talks by:

      • Qiushi Chen. Be Careful Where You Reanalyze Your Syntax: On N(P)-fronting in Two Southwestern Mandarin Varieties
      • Shangyan Pan. Gei as Functional Elements: How Many Are There?
      • Jarry Chia-Wei Chuang & Danny Yi-Xiang Liao. Motivation of Checked Tone Merger in TSM: Syllable Structure and Tonal Pattern
      • Jarry Chia-Wei Chuang & Lily Li-Ping Chen. Unifying OR-distinction & Moraic Model: The Status of Prenuclear Glide
      • Pei-Jung Kuo (PhD 2009, now at National Chiayi University). A Zonal Inclusion Analysis for the Empathic Marker gei in the ba Construction

      Bogomolets, Fenger & Stegovec | Syntax

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      The article “Movement in disguise: Morphology as a diagnostic for verb movement in Algonquian”, by Ksenia Bogomolets (PhD 2020, now at Māori Language Commission & University of Auckland), Paula Fenger (PhD 2020, now at Leipzig University), and Adrian Stegovec, has just appeared online ahead of its print publication in the journal Syntax.

      Abstract: This paper argues for a unification of two seemingly unrelated phenomena from unrelated language families: Verb Second in Germanic, and Conjunct versus Independent Order in Algonquian. It is argued that both reflect the possibility of the verb moving to C. While in Germanic this results in word order differences, in Algonquian V-to-C movement is detectable only via morphological alternations in agreement morphology. Under this view, Conjunct/Independent agreement and V2 are merely distinct reflexes of the same underlying process. This opens up new avenues of research in relation to V-to-C movement, framing it as a parametric option with potentially very different surface results in different languages depending on the setting of other parameters.

      The Linguistic Review | Special Issue

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      A special issue of The Linguistic Review on “Workspace, MERGE and Labelling”, guest edited by Victor Junnan Pan, Mamoru Saito and Yuqiao Du, was recently published (Volume 41, Issue 1, February 2024). The issue is the culmination of the Workshop on Workspace, MERGE and Labeling, which was held on August 7th, 2022 as part of GLOW in Asia XIII, hosted by the Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The papers in the issue are based on select talks presented at the workshop and main conference, and many of them are authored by current UConn linguistics faculty and alumni:

      • Željko Bošković. On wh and subject positions, the EPP, and contextuality of syntax
      • Mamoru Saito. On Minimal Yield and Form Copy: evidence from East Asian languages
      • Hiromune Oda (PhD 2021, now at University of Tokyo). Large-scale pied-piping in the labeling theory and conditions on weak heads
      • Adrian Stegovec. The third way: object reordering as ambiguous labeling resolution