Beccy Lewis successfully defended her doctoral dissertation titled Cross-linguistic variation in the function of heterogeneous plural marking and its theoretical consequences on August 30th. Since then, Beccy has already been busy with starting her new job as visiting lecturer in linguistics at UMass, Amherst.
Congratulations, Beccy!
Beccy during the defense:
Dr. Lewis with her committee after the successful defense:
The 16th Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition conference (GALA 16), was held September 12-14 at the NOVA University of Lisbon. UConn linguistics was represented at the conference with talks by:
… and posters by:
Part of the UConn linguistics contingent at GALA:
The 2024 edition of the meeting of the Formal and Experimental Advances in Sign Language Theory (FEAST) colloquium took place August 6-8 in Ann Arbor, MI. UConn linguistics was represented at the conference with the following talks:
… and the following poster presentations:
Photo of (from left to right): Linghui Eva Gan, Kazumi Matsuoka (PhD 1998, now at Keio University), and Diane Lillo-Martin at the FEAST:
Shengyun Gu, who graduated from our program in 2023, has began her tenure-track job as assistant professor in the cognitive science of language at Occidental College. Congratulations Shengyun!
The DGfS Summer School on Form-Meaning Mismatches in Spoken and Visual Communication is taking place at the University of Goettingen between August 12th-August 23rd, and Željko Bošković and Magdalena Kaufmann are both teaching courses at the summer school:
The 16th Congress of the International Association for the Study of Child Language (IASCL 16) was held on July 15-19 in Prague, Czechia, and UConn Linguistics was represented at the conference with a talk by:
… and posters by:
The paper “Obviate me (not): Obviation effects in Serbian main and complement clauses” by Magdalena Kaufmann, Neda Todorović (PhD 2016, now at Reed College), and Ivana Jovović (PhD 2023, now at Central Connecticut University) has just appeared in Vol. 31 of the Journal of Slavic Linguistics as part of the special issue of papers from the 30th conference on Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics (FASL 30). The full paper can be accessed here.
Abstract: In Serbian, complements of directive and desiderative predicates can be finite clauses headed by da. da-clauses also serve as matrix clauses conveying directives or expressing wishes. Unlike subjunctive complements in Romance, Slovenian, or Hungarian, embedded da-clauses do not show obviation effects, i.e., they allow for coreference between matrix and embedded subject. However, overt embedded pronominal subjects are banned in this case. We argue that this ban is a reflex of obviative modality in a particular complement type and disambiguation towards this type by an overt subject. The obviative construction also underlies the directive or desiderative matrix da-clauses, where obviation surfaces as a restriction on what conversational participants the subject can refer to.
Magdalena and Stefan Kaufmann gave a talk as part of the Theoretical Linguistics Colloquium at the University of Vienna on July 1st. Their talk was titled “Ways of being iffy”.
The paper “Strategies for Anderson conditionals: Their implications for the typology of O-marking and X-marking” by recent alumni Teruyuki Mizuno (now at Ochanomizu University, Tokyo) has just been published as an early-access version in Semantics and Pragmatics. Congratulations Teru! The full paper can be accessed here.
Abstract: This paper contributes to the recent development of the research on O-/X-marking (von Fintel & Iatridou 2023) through providing novel data on so-called Anderson conditionals (Anderson 1951). While English has to use X-marking for Anderson conditionals, I show that Japanese Anderson conditionals cannot involve X-marking, thus suggesting a discrepancy across languages with respect to the way they express relevant constructions. I suggest that Japanese Anderson conditionals involve a perspectival shift analogous to the Historical Present, which I show to help bring the same semantic effects as X-marking would do. I discuss implications of my data for the uniformity hypothesis of X-marking submitted by von Fintel & Iatridou 2023. I also suggest that the availability of X-marking for Anderson conditionals and the availability of X-marking for Future Less Vivid conditionals (Iatridou 2000) seem to stand or fall together across languages.