UConn Linguistics at the DGfS Summer School

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:

UConn Linguistics at IASCL

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:

  • Yixuan Yan. How do children distribute? Evidence from Mandarin Chinese

… and posters by:

  • Margaret Chui Yi Lee. Acquisition of epistemic modals in Mandarin Chinese
  • Yixuan Yan. Does impoverished morphology make conditionals late? Counter-evidence from Mandarin

 

    Kaufmann, Todorović & Jovović | JSL

    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.

    Mizuno | Semantics & Pragmatics

    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.

    UConn Linguistics at FASL

    The 33rd annual meeting of Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics (FASL 33) was hosted by Dalhousie University (Halifax, Canada) on May 16th-19th. UConn linguistics was well represented with presentations by:

    • Miloje Despić (PhD 2011, now at Cornell University). Negation and finiteness in BCMS
    • Miloje Despić and Neda Todorović (PhD 2016, now at Reed College). On adjunction, complementation and the problem of present perfectives in BCMS
    • Adrian Stegovec. Prosodic deficiency and person deficiency: What we can learn from cross-linguistic variation in Slavic clitic and weak pronouns (invited presentation, roundtable on “Trends and synergies in the research on Slavic clitics”)
    • Krzysztof Migdalski (post-doc 2006-2008, now at University of Wrocław) and Hakyung Jung. Categorial mismatches of pronouns — a diachronic perspective
    • Katarina Gomboc Čeh and Arthur Stepanov (PhD 2001, now at University of Nova Gorica). Processing syntactic dependencies in Slovenian heritage speakers
    • Krzysztof Migdalski. UG determinism and phi-feature interpretability in the direction of language change (poster)

    UConn linguists at FASL (left-to-right: Miloje, Krzysztof, Adrian, Neda):