UConn Linguistics at GLOW

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The 45th Generative Linguistics in the Old World (GLOW) Colloquium will take place at Queen Mary University of London on April 26-28, 2022 in a hybrid fashion. UConn linguistics will be well represented with talks and posters by:

  • Yuta Tatsumi (PhD 2021, now at Meika University). A cross linguistic survey of ‘parts’ of fractions (workshop on Typological generalizations and semantic theory)
  • Yusuke Yagi and Xuetong Yuan. Additive prejacent and/or additive alternatives: a principle and a parameter in Mandarin and Japanese (poster/alternate, workshop on Typological generalizations and semantic theory)
  • Takanobu Nakamura and Hiromune Oda (PhD 2022, now at The University of Tokyo) Maintaining Mandarin hen as a weak intensifier (poster, workshop on Typological generalizations and semantic theory)
  • Paula Fenger (PhD 2020, not at Leipzig Univerity) and Philipp Weisser. Limits of umlaut in Sinhala
  • Miloje Despić (PhD 2011, now at Cornell University). Number mismatch and ellipsis of hybrid nouns: A case for post-syntactic analysis of concord (poster)
  • Xuetong Yuan. Establishing discourse relations: two contrastive markers in Mandarin (poster)
  • Ksenia Bogomolets (PhD 2020, now at University of Auckland). Lexical Accent and the illusion of complexity

     

    UConn Linguistics at CLS

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    The 58th annual meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society (CLS) is taking place in-person on April 22-24, and UConn linguistics will be well represented at the conference with talks by:

    • Linghui Eva Gan. Question Answer Pairs in Hong Kong Sign Language
    • Penelope Daniel. Deriving Interpretive Effects of Spanish DOM
    • Xuetong Yuan. Establishing Discourse Relations: Two Contrastive Markers in Mandarin
    • Tarcisio Dias. Hyper-Raising and the Voiding of Freezing Effects
    • Nicolaus Schrum and Jon Sprouse. The Sustained Anterior Negativity as a Diagnostic for Movement in How-Come Questions

    … and poster presentations by:

    • Robin Jenkins. Covert Raising & Finite ECM in Turkish, Uyghur, & Japanese
    • Si Kai Lee. On Syntactic Tenselessness in Singlish: Evidence from Eventivity
    • Kazuya Kudo and Koji Shimamura (PhD 2018, now at Kanazawa Gakuin University & Kobe City University of Foreign Studies). On the Adjectivalizer -si in the Reduplicated & Deverbal Adjectives in Japanese
    • Beccy Lewis. A New Analysis of Associative Plurals: Evidence from Slavic languages

        Van der Hulst | AAUP Career Award

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        Harry van der Hulst has been awarded the 2022 Excellence in Research & Creativity Career Award from the UConn-AAUP, one of only two recipients in the university. The recipients were chosen by the UConn-AAUP Excellence Awards Committee from a pool of excellent candidates. The intention of the awards is to showcase academic excellence at UConn.

        A virtual ZOOM ceremony to honor Professor van der Hulst, and other UConn-AAUP award recipients, will take place on Monday, April 25th at 12:00pm. Any and all who wish to attend are welcome and are asked to email Barbara Kratochvil to receive the ZOOM link.

        UConn Linguists at ACAL

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        The 53nd Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL) will take place virtually on April 7-9, hosted by The Department of Linguistics at the University of California San Diego, and UConn linguistics will be represented at the conference with talks by:

        • Vicki Carstens and Peter Muriungi. Addressee Agreement in Kiitharaka and Speech Act Projection Theory
        • Penelope Daniel. Deriving SOVX word order in Mandinka
        • Vicki Carstens. Preverbal subjects and labeling in Nguni

            Wang, Kido & Snyder | Language Acquisition

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            The article “Acquisition of English adjectival resultatives: Support for the Compounding Parameter” by Shuyan Wang, Yasuhito Kido (visiting scholar 2017-2018), and William Snyder has just appeared as an online first article ahead of its print publication in Language Acquisition. Congratulations!

            Abstract: Two distinctive types of complex predicates found in English are separable verb-particle combinations (“particles”) and adjectival resultatives (“ARs”). Snyder ties both to the positive setting of the Compounding Parameter (“TCP”). This predicts that during the acquisition of a [+TCP] language, any child who has acquired ARs or particles will also permit “creative” bare-stem, endocentric compounding. Existing support comes from children acquiring Japanese and English. Yet the same evidence introduces two new puzzles: (i) why is compounding acquired roughly a year earlier in English than in Japanese?; and (ii) in English, why is compounding always acquired at the same time as (and never substantially prior to) particles? Here, we argue that both puzzles can be explained if we allow the trigger for a single parameter-setting (e.g., [+TCP]) to be completely different for children acquiring different languages. Specifically, the trigger for [+TCP] (and hence, ARs) in English is proposed to be particles, which are unavailable in Japanese. Two novel predictions are tested and supported: (i) the frequency will be higher for particles than for any (other) potential trigger in child-directed English or Japanese; and (ii) children acquiring English (unlike Japanese) will have reliably adult-like comprehension of ARs by the age of 3 years.