Tübingen University is hosting the German Linguistic Society's (DGfS) summer this August. Daniel Altshuler (Hampshire College) will be offering a course on temporal interpretation of narrative discourse and our own Lyn Frazier will be offering a course on processing at the syntax-discourse interface. You can learn more here.
27 March 2016
20 March 2016
Amy Rose Deal gives department colloquium
Amy Rose Deal (UC, Berkeley) will give the department colloquium on Friday, March 25 at 3:30 in ILC N400. A title and abstract of her talk follow.
Title:
Shifty asymmetries: toward universals and variation in shifty indexicality
Abstract:
Indexical shift is a phenomenon whereby indexicals embedded in speech and attitude reports depend for their reference on the speech/attitude report, rather than on the overall utterance. For example, in a language with indexical shift, "I" may refer to Bob in a sentence like "Who did Bob think I saw?". The last 15 years have seen an explosive growth in research on indexical shift cross-linguistically. In this talk, I discuss three major generalizations that emerge from this work, and present a theory that attempts to explain them. The account that I develop concerns the syntax of indexical shift along with its semantics, and has consequences for the linguistic encoding of attitudes de se. Throughout the talk I will exemplify indexical shift primarily, though by no means exclusively, with data from original fieldwork on Nez Perce.
Bernhard Angele at Cognitive Brown Bag
Bernhard Angele of Bournemouth University (UK) will give the Brown Bag presentation on Wednesday March 23 from 12-1:20 in Tobin 521B. A title and abstract of his talk follows.
Title:
They’re onto us! The phenomenon of participants detecting display changes and what it can tell us about the reading process
Abstract:
In the boundary change paradigm (Rayner, 1975), when a reader's eyes cross an invisible boundary location, a preview word is replaced by a target word. Readers are generally unaware of such changes due to saccadic suppression. However, some readers detect changes on a few trials and a small percentage of them detect many changes. I will present three experiments which combined eye movement data with signal detection analyses to investigate display change detection. On each trial, readers had to indicate if they saw a display change in addition to reading for meaning. On half the trials the display change occurred during the saccade (immediate condition); on the other half, it was slowed by 15–25 ms (delay condition) to increase the likelihood that achange would be detected; we also manipulated the properties of the parafoveal preview word. Using this new paradigm, we found that subjects were (1) highly sensitive to display change delays, and (2) more sensitive to display changes which involved a change of letter identity (e.g. jNxVa to gReEn) than to display changes which involved a change of visual features, but kept letter identity constant (e.g. gReEn to GrEeN). Finally, (3) subjects were significantly more sensitive to display changes when the change was from a non-wordlike preview (xbtchp to garden) than when the change was from a wordlike preview (puvtur to garden), but the preview benefit effect on the target word was not affected by whether the preview was wordlike or non-wordlike. Additionally, we did not find any influence of pre-boundary wordfrequency on display change detection performance. Our results suggest that display change detection and lexical processing do not use the same cognitive mechanisms. We propose that parafoveal processing takes place in two stages: an early, orthography-based, pre-attentional stage, and a late, attention-dependent lexical access stage.
Post-baccalaureate research positions at University of Maryland
The Department of Linguistics at the University of Maryland, is looking to fill up to four full-time positions for post-baccalaureate researchers.
Starting date for all positions is Summer/Fall 2016. Salary is competitive, with benefits included. The positions would be ideal for individuals with a BA degree who are interested in gaining significant research experience in a very active research group as preparation for a research career. Applicants must already have permission to work in the US, or be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, and should have completed a BA or BS degree by the time of appointment. The ability to interact comfortably with a wide variety of people (and machines) is a distinct advantage. Applicants may request to be considered for all four positions.
The positions are open until filled. For best consideration, applications should be submitted by April 1st, 2016. However, review of applications will begin immediately.
Positions #1–#2: Baggett Research Fellowships
Baggett Fellowships are full-time positions. Fellows can pursue research in linguistics, cognitive (neuro-)science of language, language acquisition, or computational modeling. 1–2 positions are available for 2016-2017. Positions are for one year and are not renewable.Contact: Dr. Andrea Zukowski (zukowski -at- umd -dot- edu) Application requirements
Further details on just the Baggett positions
Position #3: Research Assistant in Psycholinguistics/Cognitive Neuroscience
This person will be involved in all aspects of studies of language comprehension using behavioral and neuroscientific techniques, including electrophysiological brain recordings (training provided). The person will also contribute to Maryland's Language Science program. Previous experience in (psycho)linguistics preferred. 1 year initial appointment, possibility of extension.Contact: Dr. Colin Phillips (colin -at- umd -dot- edu) Application requirements
Position #4: Research Assistant in Syntax and Morphology
This person will be involved in all aspects of syntactic analysis of several languages, some of which are new to the study of linguistics, using methods of morpho-syntactic analysis and corpus construction (training provided). The person will also assist in bibliographical research and website construction.The person will also contribute to Maryland's Language Science program. Previous experience in linguistics preferred. 1 year initial appointment, possibility of extension.Contact: Dr. Maria Polinsky (mpolinsky -at- gmail -dot- com) Application Requirements
Call for papers: Sinn und Bedeutung
Sinn und Bedeutung 21 will take place in Edinburgh, from Sun 4th-Tues 6th September 2016.
Confirmed invited speakers:
-Sigrid Beck (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen)
- Paul Elbourne (Magdalen College, Oxford)
We invite abstract submissions for oral presentations or posters, devoted to natural language semantics, pragmatics, philosophy of language, and psycholinguistic investigations related to meaning. Oral presentations will be scheduled for 40 minute slots (30 minutes talk + 10 minutes discussion).
Abstracts should contain original research that, at the time of submission, has neither been published nor accepted for publication. One person can submit at most one abstract as sole author and one abstract as co-author (or two co-authored abstracts).
Abstracts must be anonymous, in PDF format, 2 pages (A4 or letter), in a font size no less than 12pt, and with margins of 1 inch/2.5cm. Please submit abstracts via EasyChair (see link below) no later than March 31, 2016.
Abstracts should be submitted via EasyChair, using the following link:
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=sub21
For further information, please contact Rob Truswell (rob.truswell@ed.ac.uk).
Call for papers: IATL
We are pleased to announce the 32nd annual conference of the Israel Association for Theoretical Linguistics (IATL), which will take place at the Language, Logic and Cognition Center at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, October 25-27, 2016. The conference will consist of a general session as well as a special session on experimental and historical approaches to semantics.
General Session:
We invite submissions of abstracts for 30 minute presentations of previously unpublished research in all areas of theoretical linguistics.
Special Session – Experimental and historical approaches to semantics:
Research into issues in natural language semantics from experimental, on the one hand, and historical perspective, on the other hand, has been gaining in prominence in recent years, not least because it provides new ways of evaluating extant linguistic hypotheses as well as impetus for the development of new ones. We invite submissions of abstracts on experimental and historical studies that will expand the empirical domain of, and be informed by, formal semantic theory.
Invited Speakers:
Cleo Condoravdi (Stanford)
Uli Sauerland (ZAS)
Abstract Submission Guidelines:
Abstracts should be no longer than two pages, including examples and references. Page format: A4, 2,54cm (one inch) margins on all sides, 12-point font, single line spacing. Submissions are restricted to at most one single-authored and one co-authored abstract.
Please submit abstracts to the IATL EasyChair site:
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=iatl32
Please register at the site as an author, and when you receive a password, you can enter the site and submit your abstract. The abstract should be submitted in PDF format through the 'Upload Paper' section near the bottom of the page. (Note: Higher up on the page, in the 'Title and Abstract' section, there is a box for a plain-text abstract. Since we do not require a shorter abstract, you may simply retype the title of the paper in the abstract box and the intended session.) When submitting your abstract, please indicate on the top of the abstract whether you intend your paper to be considered for the general session or the special session (or both) (say, in parentheses following the title).
Deadline: March 31, 2016
Important Dates:
March 31, 2016: Abstract submission deadline
Late May, 2016: Notification of acceptance to authors
October 25-27, 2016: IATL 32 Conference
IATL 32 web site: http://www.iatl.org.il/?page_id=970
If you have questions or encounter any problems, please contact Elitzur Bar-Asher Siegal ebas@mail.huji.ac.il or Luka Crnic luka.crnic@mail.huji.ac.il.
Call for papers: NISM 2016
NISM 2016: New Ideas in Semantics and Modeling
Paris, September 7-8 2016
http://nism2016.sciencesconf.org/
We are very pleased to announce the first edition of the new series New Ideas in Semantics and Modeling 2016 (NISM2016), which will take place in Paris, September 7 and 8, 2016.
The conferences New Ideas in Semantics and Modeling resume the Journées de Sémantique et Modélisation (JSM 2003-2010), targeting the renewed community in Formal Semantics and Pragmatics. Papers from any theoretical framework are welcome, granted that new empirical data are clearly complemented with a formal analysis.
This year, the conference will feature a thematic session on definites, indefinites, demonstratives and referential terms, in honor of Francis Corblin, founder of the JSM.
Talks will be 35 minutes, followed by 10 minutes for discussion.
In addition to the general session, submissions are also invited for the special session on definites, indefinites, demonstratives and referential terms.The conference will also feature a poster session.
Invited Speakers
Elizabeth Coppock (Gothenburg University & Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study)
Henriette de Swart (Utrecht University)
Paul Portner (Georgetown University)
François Recanati (Institut Jean-Nicod, ENS-EHESS-CNRS)
Abstract submission:
Papers in formal semantics and pragmatics are welcome. Experimental papers are welcome, granted that they provide a formal analysis of the data.
Abstracts (neither submitted nor published elsewhere) are limited to two per author, with at most one paper being single-authored.
Abstracts, including references and data, should be limited to two single spaced pages (A4 or US Letter) with one inch margins, minimum font size 12pt (Times New Roman). They must be in PDF format. Examples should be interspersed throughout the text.
Abstracts can be submitted in English or French, but the language of the conference will be English.
Anonymous abstracts must be submitted online at http://nism2016.sciencesconf.org, by March 31, 2016.
Abstracts will be triply blind-reviewed.
Proceedings:
We plan to publish the proceedings of the conference.
Organizers
Claire Beyssade (Structures Formelles du Langage, Paris 8 University)
Alda Mari (Institut Jean-Nicod, ENS-EHESS-CNRS)
David Nicolas (Institut Jean-Nicod, ENS-EHESS-CNRS)
Schedule:
Deadline for abstract submission: March 31, 2016
Notification of acceptance: May 31, 2016
Conference : 7-8 September 2016
Computational Phonology position at NYU
VISITING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF COMPUTATIONAL PHONOLOGY
Department of Linguistics
Graduate School of Arts and Science
New York University
The Department of Linguistics at New York University invites applications for a one-year visiting assistant professor position in computational phonology, beginning September 1, 2016 (pending administrative and budgetary approval). Applicants should have a strong research record and a demonstrated ability to teach. We seek outstanding scholars who employ computational methods in investigating phonological questions, phonological learning, and/or the psycholinguistics of speech processing or perception. Responsibilities include teaching undergraduate and graduate courses, and supervising student research.
Applicants should submit an application including a description of their research program; a teaching statement; curriculum vitae; three references; and work samples. Linguists that work on endangered languages and/or under-researched languages are encouraged to apply.
An application is "complete" as soon as all required documents have been uploaded and the required number of referees have been identified. Note that files can still be updated even after an application is complete.Review of application materials will begin on April 1, 2016, and any recommendation letters received by April 15, 2016, will receive full consideration.
https://www.nyuopsearch.com/applicants/jsp/shared/position/JobDetails_css.jsp
For further information about this position, please contact Professor Chris Barker (chris.barker@nyu.edu).
UMass at PLC 40
The University of Pennsylvania hosted the 40th meeting of the Penn Linguistics Conference this weekend. UMass was represented by:
Alumna Gillian Gallagher, who gave the invited talk “Categorical Phonotactics and Language Universals"
Alumnus Martin Walkow, who gave the poster “Syntactic Parallels between Verbal and Nominal phi-Morphology in (Classical) Arabic."
Alumna Anne-Michelle Tessier who gave the talk “Weigh(t)ing the Evidence: Avoidance and Constraint Interaction in Phonological Development."
and
Brian Dillon, who gave the Keynote Address: “Grammatical Illusions in sentence processing: At the interface of performance and competence."
You can learn more here.
13 March 2016
ACAL 47
The 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics is being hosted by the University of California, Berkeley on March 23-26. UMass is represented by:
Rodica Ivan and Deniz Ozyildiz who are giving the paper “The Somali microscope: pronouns, determiners and possession.” (Their abstract is here,)
William Bennett, Kristine Yu and alumnus Wendell Kimper with Christopher Green who are giving the paper “Acoustic correlates of harmonic classes in Somali."
Alumna Rose-Marie Déchaine, who is giving the paper “Shona root classes: implications for the lexicon and beyond,” and, with Herman Keupdjio, “Compound pronouns in Bamileke Medumba"
Lisa Selkirk who is giving the paper “Edge-sensitivity in Bantu sentence topology: Luganda, Xitsonga, Bemba"
Leland Kusmer who is giving the paper “Prosody and the conjoint/disjoint alternation in Tshivenda"
Alumna Meredith Landman who is giving the paper “Quantification in Kipsigis"
Alumnus Ken Safir gives the paper “Actual clauses in Lubukusu and what they mean for a symmetric theory of clausal complementation."
You can learn more about the conference here.
Julianne Chaloux gets internship in the SCALE workshop
Former Linguistics RA Julianne Chaloux has been offered a summer internship position in the annual SCALE workshop hosted by Johns Hopkins University's Human Language Technology Center Of Excellence. Congratulations, Julianne!
Berezovskaya at MIT
UMass visitor Polina Berezovskaya will present “ `Small Degrees’: Degree Modification in Nenets” at the MIT LingLunch on March 17th.
TESOL Teacher Training course this summer at Hampshire
TESOL Teacher Training Course
Summer 2016 @ Hampshire College JUNE 6—July 1, 2016
tesol.hampshire.edu [2]
Teaching ESL/EFL (English as a Second Language/English as a Foreign Language) has become a growing field as cultures and economies globalize. The ultimate goal of this course is for participants to be prepared for actual teaching situations and be confident as TESOL instructors/tutors. Acquiring a TESOL certificate can lead to teaching opportunities around the world.
Now in its fourth year, the TESOL TEACHER TRAINING COURSE AT HAMPSHIRE COLLEGE is a proven training ground for students and professionals interested in global education. Through the course, you'll develop a philosophy of teaching values and practices, learn from peer teaching and peer feedback, plan lessons and other teaching materials, and practice action research skills to understand what goes on in the foreign language classroom. Our practice-based approach is grounded in a comprehensive overview of the history of methods for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, along with a critical examination of the underlying principles of these methodologies.
TUITION AND FEES
Tuition: $2,500
Room: $904
MEALS
Participants can chose to purchase meals daily in our dining commons
and/or chose to prepare their own meals in their condo-style living
quarters.
APPLY NOW! Applications are accepted on a rolling basis
IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER
April 3 / Priority Deadline for all applications
April 11 / Tuition Discount Deadline (all payments must be received in
order to receive 15% tuition discount)
May 1 / Application Deadline (application materials must be submitted)
May 15 / Payment Deadline (all payments must be submitted)
QUESTIONS? Email tesol@hampshire.edu
Why you should make UMass your destination abroad
An article about UMass by visiting student Alberto Moron Hernandez has appeared in Manchet — the newsletter of the Department of Linguistics and English at the University of Manchester.
SALT 26 program announced
The University of Texas at Austin, who is hosting the Twenty-Sixth meeting of Semantics and Linguistics Theory in early May, has just released the program and UMass is well-represented:
Alumnus Florian Schwarz, with Jérémy Zehr, Cory Bill, Lyn Tieu and Jacopo Romoli will present the paper “Presupposition projection from the scope of `none’: universal, existential, or both?"
Alumnus Chris Davis who, with Eric McCready, will present the paper “Expressives and Alternatives"
Alumnus Luis Alonso-Ovalle is presenting the paper “Are All Concessive Scalar Particles the Same? Probing into Spanish “Siquiera."
Jon Ander Mendia will present the paper “Reasoning with Partial Orders."
Alumna Suzi Lima will present the paper “On object denoting nouns: defining atoms"
Alumnus Kyle Rawlins, with Aaron Steven White, will present the paper “A computational model of S-selection” and, with Justin Bledin, the paper “Epistemic resistance moves."
For more information, go here.
Call for papers: ESSLLI
*ESSLLI 2016 STUDENT SESSION*
Held during the 28th European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information
Bolzano, Italy, August 15-26, 2016
*EXTENDED Deadline for submissions: March 15th, 2016*
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=essllistus2016
*ABOUT:*
The Student Session of the 28th European Summer School in Logic, Language, and Information (ESSLLI) will take place in Bolzano, Italy, August 15th to 26th (http://esslli2016.unibz.it). We invite submissions of original, unpublished work from students in any area at the intersection of Logic & Language, Language & Computation, or Logic & Computation. Submissions will be reviewed by several experts in the field, and accepted papers will be presented orally or as posters and selected papers will appear in the Student Session proceedings by Springer. This is an excellent opportunity to receive valuable feedback from expert readers and to present your work to a diverse audience.
*ORAL/POSTER PRESENTATIONS:*
Note that there are two separate kinds of submissions, one for oral presentations and one for posters. This means that papers are directly submitted either as oral presentations or as poster presentations.
Reviewing and ranking will be done separately. We particularly encourage submissions for posters, as they offer an excellent opportunity to present smaller research projects and research in progress.
*SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:*
Authors must be students, and submissions may be singly or jointly authored. Each author may submit at most one single and one jointly authored contribution. Submissions should not be longer than 8 pages for an oral presentation or 4 pages for a poster presentation (including examples and references). Submissions must be anonymous, without any identifying information. More detailed guidelines regarding submission can be found on the Student Session website:
http://www2.sfs.uni-tuebingen.de/esslli-stus-2016/.
*SPONSORSHIP AND PRIZES*
As in previous years, Springer has kindly agreed to sponsor the ESSLLI student session. The best poster and best talk will be awarded Springer book vouchers of 500€ each.
*FURTHER INFORMATION:*
Please direct inquiries about submission procedures or other matters relating to the Student Session to marisa.koellner@uni-tuebingen.de and rziai@sfs.uni-tuebingen.de.
ESSLLI 2016 will feature a wide range of foundational and advanced courses and workshops in all areas of Logic, Language, and Computation. For further information, including registration information and course listings, and for general inquiries about ESSLLI 2016, please consult the main ESSLLI 2016 page: http://esslli2016.unibz.it.
Frana gets the De Vincenzi prize
Ilaria Frana has received the Marica De Vincenzi prize for best paper by an Italian researcher selected for IGG (Incontro Grammatica Generativa). The paper was “Mica as a Common Ground Management operator” (collaborative work with Kyle Rawlins). The prize is offered by “Fondazione Marica De Vincenzi Onlus”. WHISC as acquired the celebratory group picture from the event (from left to right: Nino Grillo, Francesca Foppolo, me and Carlo Gerace.)
EvoLang 2016
For the first time in 12 years the Evolution of Language (EvoLang) conference is taking place in the United States. There is still time to register, so don’t let this unique opportunity pass you by. EvoLang 2016 is organized by the University of Southern Mississippi and will take place March 21st-24th in New Orleans, LA at the Lavin-Bernick Center on the Tulane University campus. A wide variety of disciplines
will be represented, including: linguistics, psychology, anthropology, primatology, biology, animal behavior, and computer science. The conference opens with a variety of workshops and there is an opening night reception at Mardi Gras World with food and an open bar that is included in your registration. Some notable attendees include Simon Kirby, Tecumseh Fitch, and Terrence Deacon, as well as our plenary speakers. If you are interested in attending please visit our website http://www.usm.edu/gulfcoast/evolang-2016 to register and see the schedule of speakers. Make sure you sign up for the banquet at the Audubon Tea Room on Thursday night. There will be live music and amazing food. Registration is closing soon, so make sure to register ASAP.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)