14 October 2013

Roberto Zavala Maldonado speaks on Friday

Roberto Zavala Maldonado, a linguist from CIESAS-Sureste, will give a talk entitled "Preferred Argument Structure in Chol (Mayan), an agentive language," at 3:30 on Friday, October 18 in Machmer E37. Professor Maldonado, an expert on Mayan and Mixe-Zoquean, languages will be here all week and is available for meetings. To make an appointment, get in touch with Rajesh Bhatt.

Rajesh Bhatt gives colloq talk at Michigan

Rajesh Bhatt presented joint work with Stefan Keine at a department colloquium at the University of Michigan on October 4. A talk and abstract follows.

An Argument for Semantically Contentful Head Movement

In this presentation we develop an argument that head movement may
have semantic effects and that it can hence not be a PF phenomenon.
The argument is based on novel facts regarding scope in infinitival
complementation structures in German. We show that every element
inside the infinitival clause must take scope over the matrix verb if
the embedded clause is a VP that remains in situ. If, by contrast, the
embedded clause is either a vP or a VP that undergoes movement, no
such wide scope is possible. We propose that wide scope of embedded
elements is the result of syntactic verb cluster formation: The
infinitival verb incorporates into the higher verb. To obtain the
observed scope facts, we suggest that the verb cluster is semantically
interpreted via Function Composition. Supplemented with standard
assumptions about the interpretation of movement, this account derives
the wide scope of material inside the embedded clause.

PhD position at Université Paris Diderot

PhD position at Université Paris Diderot: Verbal ellipsis in Portuguese and English

The Université Paris Diderot (Paris 7) is offering a fully funded three year PhD grant in linguistics on the topic of "Post-verbal ellipsis in Portuguese and English". Research is to be conducted at Paris Diderot, under the joint supervision of Philip Miller (Université Paris Diderot, Paris 7) and Sonia Cyrino (Unicamp, Universidade estadual de Campinas). The position is expected to open in January 2014, subject to final confirmation of funding, with a salary of at least 1400 euros per month. A detailed description of the project is included at the end of the document.

Qualifications
Candidates must have excellent command of Portuguese (Brazilian or European) and English. They must hold a master's degree in linguistics (or in a related field), and have research experience in one or more of the following specialties: syntax and semantics of Portuguese, syntax and semantics of English, ellipsis and anaphora, discourse pragmatics, corpus linguistics, psycholinguistics.

Application
Candidates should send a CV, a .pdf copy of their Master's thesis, a statement of interest, and the names of three references (with their contact information) to Philip Miller (philip.miller@univ-paris-diderot.fr) and Sonia Cyrino (cyrino@iel.unicamp.br) by October 27 2013.

NELS 44

This weekend, UConn, Storrs is hosting NELS 44, where the following members of the department will give posters.

Visiting professor Ilaria Frana will give a poster with UMass alumnus Kylito Rawlins entitled: `Mica' questions and bias.

Andrew Weir will give the poster "Fragment answers and the Question under Discussion."  

Shayne Sloggett will give the poster "Case Licensing in processing: Evidence from German"

Alumna Junko Shimoyama will also give a talk with Alex Drummond entitled "QR as an agent of vehicle change: Evidence from Japanese and Hindi comparatives.

Bhatt/Keine get paper accepted to Linguistic Variation

Linguistic Variation has accepted for publication "Complete and Defective Agreement in Kutchi" by Rajesh Bhatt and Stefan Keine. Congratulations!

Japanese/Korean Linguistics 23

MIT is hosting the Twenty-Third meeting of the  Japanese/Korean Linguistics conference. UMass alumna Junko Shimoyama is an invited speaker, and there are talks by alumni Chris Davis, Kiyomi Kusumoto, and Jennifer Smith. Go here for more information.