An interview with Adrienne Bruce, a Linguistics and Philosophy major, has appeared in UConn Magazine. Adrienne is spending this semester at Sogang University in Seoul, South Korea, on a Gilman Scholarship for undergraduate studies abroad from the U.S. State Department. The full interview can be read here: “Speaking the Language”.
Other News
William Snyder | Tsing Hua University Colloquium
William Snyder will be giving a colloquium talk at Tsing Hua University on 29th October 2021. The talk will be titled “Evidence from child language acquisition for a parametric model of syntax”
Abstract:
In this talk I will present three case-studies, each based on longitudinal records of children’s spontaneous speech, that illustrate what happens when a child’s syntax undergoes a change. The first case-study, examining the acquisition of English verb-particle constructions, shows a near-total absence of commission errors. The second, examining prepositional questions in the speech of children acquiring English or Spanish, shows (first) that children may go as long as 9 months producing both direct-object questions and declaratives with prepositional phrases, before they even attempt to ask a prepositional question; and (second) that at some point, abruptly, children begin producing prepositional questions that are correctly formed for the target language. The third case study shows that in children acquiring English, the onset of verb-particle combinations occurs almost exactly when that child begins producing novel noun-noun compounds. I will argue that these findings, taken together, strongly favor a parametric approach to cross-linguistic variation in syntax. I will argue further that the findings have implications for the format of parameters, and for the process by which children set them.
Information on how to attend the talk virtually can be found here.
Stefan Kaufmann | Algorithmic Arts & Humanities Colloquium
Stefan Kaufmann will be speaking at the Algorithmic Arts & Humanities colloquium at the UConn Humanities Institute on October 21, 2021 at 12:30pm in HBL 4-209. The event will be livestreamed and you can attend in person. Here is the link for more information: https://humanities.uconn.edu/2021/10/11/dhms-presents-algorithmic-arts-humanities-at-uconn/
Pravaal Yadav | New Student
My name is Pravaal Yadav and I am from a small town in India called Jhansi. I did my BA and MA in English Literature from the University of Delhi and The English and Foreign Languages University, respectively. Later, I got interested in Linguistics and did a second MA program in Linguistics from the University of Delhi. My primary interest lies in syntax and I am currently interested in agreement patterns in Indo-Aryan languages.
In my spare time, I like to travel, read Urdu poetry, watch movies, and listen to music.
Walter Shaw | New Student
My name is Walter Shaw. I grew up in Western Pennsylvania and received my B.A. in Linguistics from Cornell University in the Spring of 2021. During my time there I took courses outside my major in psychology, history, and Russian. Within linguistics I especially enjoyed Romance Linguistics, Historical, and Syntax. My theoretical interests are primarily in Morphology and Syntax. I’ve always loved learning and exploring different disciplines and am looking forward to continuing that here at UConn!
Maryam Rezaasa | New Student
I am Maryam Rezaasa, born in the capital city of Iran, Tehran. I did my BA (2005-2011) in English Language Translation, and then my MA (2012-2014) in Linguistics at the University of Allameh Tabataba’i (Tehran, Iran), where I launched a couple of phonetic, phonological and morphological studies.
At the same time, throughout my studies, I was occupied supervising English language schools besides teaching General English, IELTS, and TOEFL there (in Iran and Turkey), as well as translating several books and doing simultaneous translation.
My research interest in linguistics broadly includes phonology, and more specifically, I am interested in phono-typological study of prosodic elements from both descriptive and comparative perspectives.
In my spare time, I usually enjoy shopping, cooking, and hanging out with the others, and I would be delighted to meet new people.
Zixi Liu | New Student
I’m Zixi Liu. My hometown is Tianjin, China, a cozy coastal city. As an undergrad I studied English literature and German in Shanghai International Studies University. After that, I went for MA in linguistics at University College London. There I fell in love with syntax as well as built up a tolerance for rainy weathers. Whenever I’m not thinking about linguistics (or even when I am?) I’d like to go outdoors and explore a bit.
Giulio Ciferri Muramatsu | New Student
My name is Giulio Ciferri Muramatsu, and I’m from Japan/Italy. I received my B.A. in Linguistics and Literature from Hokkaido University in Japan, writing my thesis on the syntax of yes-no questions and their answers. I’m interested in syntax, semantics, and language acquisition.
I like books (although I’m currently struggling to find any time to read) and watching soccer (especially Italian soccer). I’m very happy to be at UConn and look forward to what awaits.
Qiushi Chen | New Student
I am Chen Qiushi (陳秋實). I come from Sichuan, China. I received my BA in Chinese Philology from Nankai University, and my MA in Chinese Language and Literature from Fudan University. I love language and linguistics because I find it fascinating to explore the diversity of languages and its underlying universals. Among all the subfields I am most interested in (generative) syntax, but I also believe that, in order to be a good linguist, one should have a sound understanding of each part of linguistics, not just of their area of specialization.
When I am not doing linguistics, I read literature (including poetry, stories, novels, and manga), I write poetry in both Mandarin Chinese and Classical Chinese, and I enjoy watching anime. I love and benefit from Yamada Naoko and Leo Tolstoy; I love but suffer from Shimura Takako and Anton Chekhov.
Mingjiang Chen | New Student
My name is Mingjiang Chen. I come from Wuxi, China, a city close to Shanghai. I received my B.A. and M.A. in Italian Language and Culture both from Shanghai International Studies University. I’m passionate about languages. I enjoy studying foreign languages and I’m proud of my mother tongues, Mandarin and Wuxi Wu dialect. I’m also fairly interested in Neuroscience, Logic, and Mathematics. Linguistics, being a highly interdisciplinary science, combines all these studies in one subject and attracted me immediately after I took an introductory course in Modern Linguistics during my first year of M.A. The first few projects that I have done are mostly on argument/event structure through studying various phenomena like verbal reduplication, agreement, and Case. Currently I’m more interested in fundamental problems like syntactic configuration, aiming to propose an alternative generative model for syntactic structures, using tools from algebra and category theory. In my free time I love trekking, observing nature, or simply doing nothing.