Mizuno | NLLT

Posted on by

The paper “Argument ellipsis as topic deletion” by our alumnus Teruyuki Mizuno (PhD 2023, now at Ochanomizu University, Tokyo) has just been published online in Natural Language & Linguistic Theory ahead of the print version. Congratulations Teru! The paper can be accessed here.

Abstract: In recent syntactic literature, argument ellipsis has become a productive perspective of investigation for null arguments in natural language. Focusing on Japanese as the primary object of study, this paper aims to deepen our understanding of the underlying syntactic mechanism behind the derivation of argument ellipsis. The main empirical observation is that argument ellipsis and topicalization exhibit a striking parallelism with respect to the way they interact with wh-dependencies. Building on this observation, I argue that argument ellipsis is an instance of topic deletion, which involves movement of arguments to Spec,TopicP, and phonological deletion of the arguments under the identity of the topic in discourse. I show that the topic-deletion account of argument ellipsis offers a principled explanation for a variety of restrictions concerning what types of argument can or cannot undergo ellipsis. I also suggest that the proposed account enables a unified perspective on argument ellipsis and discourse pro-drop by analyzing them uniformly as instances of topic deletion, thereby shedding new light on the deep typological correlation that has been observed between them.

UConn Linguists at the LSA Annual Meeting

Posted on by

The 2025 edition of the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America took place January 9-12 in Philadelphia. UConn linguistics was represented at the conference with talks by:

  • Shane Blau (post-doc 2023-24), Diane Lillo-Martin, Deborah Chen Pichler (PhD 2001, now at Gallaudet University), Elaine Gale. Sign Language Acquisition by Deaf Children with Hearing, Signing Families: Visual Communication and Vocabulary
  • Penelope Daniel. Parameters of differential argument marking
  • Yoshiki Fujiwara (PhD 2022, now at Yamaguchi University). Wh-scope-marking in Tamil

… a poster presentation by:

  • Jon Gajewski. On the pragmatics of propositional anaphora

    UConn Linguistics at SIGN, TISLR & ACEDHH

    Posted on by

    UConn linguistics was well represented at three sign language conferences in December, January, and February. At the 10th edition of the SIGN conference (SIGN10), which was held at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus, Trinidad & Tobago, December 9-10, we were represented with the following talks by:

    • Diane Lillo-Martin, Deborah Chen Pichler (PhD 2001, now at Gallaudet University) and Elaine Gale. Family ASL: Deaf Children and Hearing Parents Learning ASL Together
    • Elaine Gale, Patrice Creamer and Shane Blau (post-doc 2023-24). Language input for Deaf infants: What do Deaf babies need and how can parents provide it?

    At the 15th conference on Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research (TISLR 15), which was held at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, January 11-12, we were represented with the following talks by:

    • Shengyun Gu (PhD 2023, now at Occidental College), Diane Lillo-Martin, Deborah Chen Pichler, Elaine Gale. ASL Phonology Development in Deaf Children with Hearing Sign-Learning Parents
    • Shane Blau. Perceptual discrimination in signed languages: Evidence from deaf and hearing infants

    … and posters by:

    • Shane Blau, Deborah Chen Pichler, Elaine Gale, and Diane Lillo-Martin. Development of Visual Communication and Sign Language by Deaf Children in the Family ASL Project
    • Shengyun Gu. Iconicity for all, but not in the same way: Evidence from weak drop processing
    • Linghui Gan. Correlation between word order and information structure in Hong Kong Sign Language
    • Linghui Gan. Question Answer Pairs (QAPs) in Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL)
    • Natasha Thalluri and Kathryn Davidson (post-doc 2012-13, now at Harvard University). Universality and variation in sign language comparatives
    • Kazumi Matsuoka (1998 PhD, now Keio University, Japan). Reflecting lexical aspect: Interactions of perfectives and verb types in Japanese Sign Language
    • Nozomi Tomita, Masashi Tamura, and Kathryn Davidson. Negative possessive and existential sentences in Japanese Sign Language (JSL)
    • Kazumi Matsuoka. Reflecting lexical aspect: Interactions of perfectives and verb types in Japanese Sign Language
    • Madeline Quam, Annemarie Kocab, Jesse Snedeker, and Marie Coppola. Distinguishing Agents and Patients in Homesign Language Systems

    And lastly, at the conference of the Association of College Educators – Deaf & Hard of Hearing (ACEDHH), which was held on January 30-February 1 in Washington DC, we were represented with a talk by:

    • Diane Lillo-Martin, Chui-Yi Lee, Elaine Gale, and Deborah Chen Pichler. Bimodal Bilingual Benefits Counter Audism and Linguicism

    UConn Linguistics at BUCLD

    Posted on by

    The 49th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD49) is taking place on November 7-10th 2024. UConn linguistics is going to be well represented at the conference with a keynote talk by:

    • Diane Lillo-Martin. Sign Language Acquisition is a Human Right

    … talks by:

    • Irene Canudas Grabolosa, Madeline Quam, Marie Coppola, Jesse C. Snedeker and Annemarie Kocab. The role of language in building one and two-place predicates: event imitation in homesigners
    • Annemarie Kocab, Madeline Quam, Marie Coppola and Jesse Snedeker. Who did what to whom? Marking event participants in Nicaraguan homesign systems
    • Ting Xu (PhD 2016, now at Tsinghua University), Lyn Tieu (PhD 2013, now at University of Toronto) and Stella Christie. Highlighting the presupposition trigger helps: Evidence from Mandarin-acquiring children’s interpretation of presuppositional you ‘again’
    • Penelope Daniel. Clitics as prerequisites for Spanish DOM

    … and posters by:

    • Alyssa Vorobey, Nadia Faehndrich and Lyn Tieu. Children project the presuppositional inferences of co-speech sound effects
    • Anita Sritharan, Janice Shum and Lyn Tieu. Extending presupposition projection to co-speech gestures: The view from child language
    • Lea Heßler-Reusch, Ting Xu and Xiaolu Yang. Chinese L2 learner’s interpretation of telicity in German
    • Madeline Quam, Annemarie Kocab and Marie Coppola. Pragmatic knowledge in asymmetric language contexts
    • Yoshiki Fujiwara (PhD 2022, now at Yamaguchi University). Acquisition of particle drop in Japanese: a preliminary study
    • Chui Yi Lee and Angelica Hill. Children’s acquisition of circumstantial modals: Do they know where necessity can come from?
    • Yixuan Yan and Yitong Luo. Do children know that PolQs are not AltQs? Evidence from Mandarin Chinese

    In addition, Yixuan (Pepper) Yan was also awarded the Paula Menyuk Award for top-rated abstracts by student first authors. Congratulations!

    Photo: UConn linguists and UConn-connected people at BUCLD following Diane Lillo-Martin’s keynote talk.

    Daniel | Glossa

    Posted on by

    Penelope Daniel’s article “Evidence for a VP-internal analysis of postverbal arguments in an SOVX language” has just appeared in Volume 9 of Glossa. The paper can be accessed online here. Congratulations Penelope!

    Abstract: Mande languages are known for their typologically unusual SOVX word order, in which the subject and direct object precede the verb, while adjuncts and other complements must follow it. Koopman (1992) argues for Bambara that this unique word order arises when the direct object obligatorily raises to a preverbal position for Case, while any other postverbal elements surface in their base-generated position within the VP. However, Nikitina (2019) proposes for Wan that postverbal elements are located in a high, clause-adjoined position. This paper presents syntactic evidence from Mandinka in support of the former analysis of postverbal indirect objects. In particular, I provide word order, pronominalization, and binding facts that show that postverbal indirect objects must be located in a low, VP-internal position, which is incompatible with a clausal-adjunction analysis.

    Ritter & Van der Hulst | The Oxford Handbook of Vowel Harmony

    Posted on by

    The Oxford Handbook of Vowel Harmony co-edited by Nancy A. Ritter and Harry van der Hulst has just been published in ebook form by Oxford University Press and will be published as a physical volume in January.

    This handbook provides a detailed account of the phenomenon of vowel harmony, a pattern according to which all vowels within a word must agree for some phonological property or properties. Vowel harmony has been central in the development of phonological theories thanks to its cluster of remarkable properties, notably its typically ‘unbounded’ character and its non-locality, and because it forms part of the phonology of most world languages. The five parts of this volume cover all aspects of vowel harmony from a range of theoretical and methodological perspectives. Part I outlines the types of vowel harmony and some unusual cases, before Part II explores structural issues such as vowel inventories, the interaction of vowel harmony and morphological structure, and locality. The chapters in Part III provide an overview of the various theoretical accounts of the phenomenon, as well as bringing in insights from language acquisition and psycholinguistics, while Part IV focuses on the historical life cycle of vowel harmony, looking at topics such as phonetic factors and the effect of language contact. The final part contains 31 chapters that present data and analysis of vowel harmony across all major language families as well as several isolates, constituting the broadest coverage of the phenomenon to date.

    The volume also contains the following chapters written by UConn linguists:

    • Nancy A. Ritter and Harry van der Hulst. Themes in vowel harmony
    • Andrea Calabrese. Morpho-syntactic asymmetries in Serviglianese vowel harmony domains
    • Harry van der Hulst and Jacques Durand. Vowel harmony in dependency-based models