Yoshiki Fujiwara, who recently graduated from our program in 2022, has began his tenure-track job as lecturer at the Faculty of Humanities at Yamaguchi University. Congratulations Yoshiki!
UConn Linguists at WCCFL
The 42th 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
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
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
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
UConn Linguists at PLC
The 48th annual Penn Linguistics Conference took place on March 16-17 and UConn linguistics was represented at the conference with talks by:
- Tarcisio Dias. Subject/Subject asymmetries
- Robin Jenkins. Making the remarkable regular: `marked absolutive’ alignment in Nias
- Qiushi Chen. On the secondary nature of (morpho-) syntactic change: Evidence from yi in Southwestern Mandarin
Željko Bošković | Invited talk at CUHK
Željko Bošković gave an invited talk at the Chinese University of Hong Kong on March 9th titled: Nominal and non-nominal subjects and adieu to the A/A’-distinction. More information on the talk can be found here.
UConn Linguistics at GLOW in Asia
The 14th Generative Linguistics in the Old World in Asia (GLOW in Asia XIV) took place March 6-8th, hosted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong. UConn linguistics was very well represented at the conference with a keynote talk by:
- Željko Bošković. More than one way to spell out a phase
… main session talks by:
- Tarcisio Dias. Superraise only if you hyperraise
- Mia Gong and Miloje Despić (PhD 2011, now at Cornell University). On the Nature of Reflexive Binding in Mongolian: from Nominals to Clauses
- Masako Maeda & Yoichi Miyamoto (PhD 1994, now at Osaka University). Relativized Minimality and Form Copy in Japanese.
- Kensuke Takita (Doshisha University, visiting scholar 2008-09). Modal Mismatches under Clausal Argument Ellipsis.
… and posters by:
- Yuya Noguchi. Syntactic aspects of co-occurrence of a wh- and a concealed question in Japanese
- Nick Huang (post-doc 2019-2021, now at National University of Singapore) and Zheng Shen (PhD 2018, now at National University of Singapore). The role of main verbs in subextraction of wh-phrases from NPs
- Miloje Despić. Uncovering Hidden Structures in BCMS: The Case of Negative Imperatives
- Masao Ochi (PhD 1999, now at Osaka University) and Yuta Tatsumi (PhD 2021, now at Meikai University). Numeral Classifiers in Japanese and (Anti-)Labeling
- Heesun Yang and Bum-Sik Park (PhD 2005, now at Dongguk University). The Syntax and Semantics of the High Negation Question in Korean
- Jarry Chuang. Right Dislocation in Chinese: Consequence of Topicalization & Comp-to-Spec movement
- Austin Jaejun Kim and Myung-Kwan Park (PhD 1994, now at Dongguk University). Reanalysis and intervention in English ‘tough’ constructions
- Yuta Sakamoto (PhD 2017, now at Meiji University) and Rikuto Yokoyama. Silent Presupposition in Japanese Clefts: Ellipsis vs. Proform
- Pravaal Yadav. Discourse’s effect on the Structure: An evidence from agreement patterns in Hindi-Urdu
UConn at ECO5
ECO-5 is an annual gathering of linguistics graduate students from five East Coast universities (UMass, MIT, Harvard, UConn, and UMD), and this year it was hosted by the UMass Linguistics department, taking place on March 2nd. UConn Linguistics was represented at ECO-5 with talks by:
- Aarón Sánchez. (Un)agreement in Spanish and Greek Fake Indexicals
- Shangyan Pan. Gei as functional elements: How many are there?
- Tyler Poisson. Arithmetic in English and ditransitive constructions
- Qi Wu. Introducing Target/Stimulus argument of Mandarin Experiencer-Subject psych-predicates
Dias at IGG
The 49th Incontro di Grammatica Generativa (IGG49) took place on February 22nd-23rd, hosted by the University School for Advanced Studies IUSS Pavia. UConn was represented at the conference with a talk by:
- Tarcisio Dias. Slippery subjects in Brazilian Portuguese