Welcome the Guru Event: Monday (tomorrow!) March 21

There will be a welcoming event for the Semantics Guru, Malte Zimmermann on
MONDAY, March 21 at 7:00 PM at Angelika and Lisa's place.

Note the new time!

Angelika writes:

There will be fake champagne and a cake. Please drop me a quick note if you are coming so that I know how big the cake needs to be. I am also still soliciting requests for appointments with Malte. This is the first year we have semantics gurus. It's a way to make up for our unfilled semantics position. Gurus don't teach classes since they are only here for a short time, but they give a couple of talks and are there to advise graduate students and faculty about their work in semantics - whatever it may be.

Anne-Michelle Tessier visits

John McCarthy writes:

Anne-Michelle Tessier, who received her doctorate from our department in 2007, will be visiting over the next two weeks. She is eager to talk with our current students. Below I've pasted a summary of her research interests from her web page, http://www.ualberta.ca/~annemich/.

To set up a meeting, please contact her directly at amtessier@ualberta.ca

From her webpage:

Research Interests

Note that all my papers and most of my handouts are downloadable in some 
way on the Downloadable Papers page.

My research focuses for the most part on issues of formalism and 
learning in phonological theory, usually in Optimality Theory. Here are 
some of the research questions I am most interested in:

Phonological Acquisition and Grammar
:: What kinds of learning algorithms cn model attested intermediate 
stages of acquisition? at what costs?
:: More generally, how does the choice of grammar affect the options for 
learning?
:: Relatedly, what properties of observed language acquisition reveal 
the nature of the grammar vs. the nature of learning mechanisms?
:: For example: is variation in child phonology a result of a variable 
grammar, or a variable learner?
:: What about lexical exceptions, apparent regressions, and other quirky 
data?
:: How does children's morphological awareness affect their phonological 
acquisition?

Other Aspects of My Research
:: How and when do speakers generalize in artificial learning?
:: How are phonological speech errors related to phonological grammar - 
conceptually, causally or otherwise?
:: How does or should a theory of phonological grammatical competence 
make predictions about phonological performance?

Malte Zimmermann talks on Friday, March 25

Semantics guru, Malte Zimmermann will give the department colloquium on Friday, March 25 at 3:30 in Machmer E-37. The title and abstract of his talk are:

Focus Realisation and Association with Focus in Ngamo (West Chadic) (with Mira Grubic)

In this talk, I discuss the realisation of focus in Ngamo, which like many (West) African languages does not require the explicit marking of focus on non-subjects in terms of absolute prominence (pitch, movement, markers). I discuss various analyses of the realisation of focus in Ngamo and show that only two are compatible with the observable facts: (i) Analysis I assumes that focus in Ngamo is consistently marked on all constituents, but not in terms of absolute prominence, but in terms of alignment with major prosodic phrases(Féry , submitted); (ii) Analysis II assumes an asymmetry in the focus marking system of Ngamo in that only subject foci must be marked. In the final part of the talk, I show that the association behaviour of focus-particles (exclusive 'only' vs additive 'also') provides us with evidence in favour of analysis I.

St. Petersburg summer Institute for linguistics undergraduates

From John Bailyn at SUNY Stony Brook:

I am writing now to let you know about NYI (the NY-St. Petersburg
Institute of Linguistics, Cognition and Culture) - the ongoing St.
Petersburg summer institute I have co-directed since 2003 which will be
held this year from July 18-August 5, 2011 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
NYI's website is http://www.nyi.spb.ru

NYI is a phenomenal way for advanced undergraduates and beginning
graduate students to have an eye-opening overseas experience, while
continuing their focus on Linguistics and Cognitive Science.

*The school is a 3-week Institute, held in beautiful St. Petersburg, Russia, at
which students choose 4 seminars in a range of fields, especially
Linguistics.

*Faculty are from a wide range of US institutions, and this year's Linguistics program features, among others:

*Caroline Heycock (Edinburgh)

*Nina Kazanina (Bristol)

*Roumyana Pancheva (USC)

*Maria Polinsky (Harvard)

*John F. Bailyn and Julie Weisenberg (Stony Brook)

*All classes are in English.

* NYI is a superb way to spend 3-4 weeks of summer 2011!

There are two ways US students can participate:

(i) *For credit* through Stony Brook's 4-wk Study Abroad program to St.
Petersburg, for which they get 6-9 transferrable credits and pay SUNY
(low) tuition and a program Fee. For this option, which includes study
of beginning Russian and group excursions, a cultural program and so on,
the deadline is April 1, and interested students should go to the Stony
Brook Study Abroad website for application details.
http://www.stonybrook.edu/studyabroad/shorts_russia.html

(ii) Students can *attend NYI directly*, without receiving any US-side
credit (just our Certificate of Completion) and without paying US
tuition for the program, just a reduced Program Fee. For this option
interested students should contact me directly
at jbailyn@notes.cc.sunysb.edu. 

Richard Heck: "What is Context Dependence?"

Richard Heck is giving a talk to the Philosophy department on Friday, March 25 at 3:30 in Bartlett 206 entitled "What is Context Dependence?."

The paper can be found at:

http://www.umass.edu/philosophy/events/papers/Heck%20-%20Context%20Dependence.pdf

(Thanks Gary Hardegree .)

Call for Posters: LSA Summer Institute Workshop on Testing models of Phonetics and Phonology

Workshop at the Linguistic Institute 2011: Language in the WorldUniversity of Colorado at Boulder Wednesday, July 13th, 2011

Co-sponsored by

Northwestern Department of Linguistics

Stanford Department of Linguistics

National Science Foundation

Workshop website

http://groups.linguistics.northwestern.edu/lsa2011-workshop/

This single day workshop aims to build connections between computational, experimental, and grammar-based research on phonetics and phonology. Studies using each of these general methodologies often have similar goals and produce mutually informing results, but they are usually presented in distinct journals and conferences, creating a barrier to their integration. The workshop brings together researchers in the areas of speech production, speech perception, and modeling of language acquisition.

**Spoken sessions**

*The balance between the gradient and the discrete in language production*

Gary Dell (U Illinois Urbana Champaign)

Implicit learning of artificial phonotactic patterns in the production system:

Connections to the perceptual system and to real phonotactic knowledge

Matt Goldrick (Northwestern)

Gradient symbol processing in speech production

*Listener adaptation to variation*

Jennifer Cole (U Illinois Urbana Champaign)

Modeling listener variability in prosody perception using transcription and

imitation as indirect measures of linguistic processing

Meghan Sumner (Stanford)

Variation-driven speech perception

*Acquisition biases and typological patterns*

Andrew Wedel (U Arizona)

Extending computational models into the laboratory:

Usage biases and the development of contrastive phoneme inventories

Joe Pater (U Massachusetts Amherst)

Formally biased phonology: Complexity in learning and typology

**Call for poster submissions**

In addition to the spoken session, a poster session will be held during the workshop.  We invite submission of abstracts reporting computational, experimental, and grammar-based research on phonetics and phonology.

Abstracts should be a one-page .pdf file, formatted at minimum 12-point single-spaced with 1 inch margins.  Tables, graphs and references can be on a separate page.  Abstracts must be submitted electronically to lsa2011-workshop@ling.northwestern.edu.  Deadline for submissions: May 1, 2011.

Accepted abstracts will be posted to the workshop website.

Note: Participants may also be interested in the workshop on "Information-based approaches to linguistics" to be held the following weekend (July 16-17). See https://verbs.colorado.edu/LSA2011/workshops/WS5.html for more details.

Call for papers: workshop on argument structure Call for papers: An interdisciplinary workshop on argument structure September 2011 Paris

A  multidisciplinary workshop on the mental representation of verbal argument structure

Location: Paris
Dates: 5-7 of september 2011 (following Amlap)

website: http://www.umr7023.cnrs.fr/Structuring-the-Argument.html

Location: CNRS,  Centre pouchet Paris 75017

Invited speakers:
John Beavers (University of Texas, http://comp.ling.utexas.edu/~jbeavers/)
Alec Marantz (NYU, http://homepages.nyu.edu/~ma988/)
Josep Quer (ICREA, http://www.icrea.cat/Web/ScientificStaff/Josep-Quer-Villanueva-131)
Jesse Snedeker (Harvard, http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~lds/index.html?snedeker.html)
Cynthia Thompson (Northwestern, http://www.communication.northwestern.edu/faculty/?PID=CynthiaThompson )

Call for papers:
The aim of this workshop is to bring together scientists working in different fields and with different methodologies to discuss the mental representation of verbal argument structure. This topic has been addressed by work in a variety of fields (language and conceptual development, theoretical syntax and semantics, lexicology, linguistic typology, psychology, cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychology, etc.). In this workshop we hope to create a cross-disciplinary  platform to discuss ongoing research. We believe that an open exchange between scientists using different methods, working with different populations and within different theoretical frameworks will be of great benefit to the community. To this end we have invited speakers from different fields (language acquisition, neuro-imagery and aphasiology, theoretical syntax, theoretical semantics, sign language), each to be commented upon by a researcher from another discipline. A selection of papers presented in the workshop will be published in a special issue of Recherches linguistiques de Vincennes (RLV). 

We invite submissions for 30min talks. We especially encourage submissions reporting  inter-disciplinary (or inter-disciplinary motivated) work but will consider any submission (from any field) dealing with verbal argument structure. Sign language (LSF, BSL, ASL) interpreters will be available. Participation in the workshop is free.


Abstracts should be not longer than 500 words
Submissions:https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=strucarg2011
Abstract submission deadline: May 20th  2011
Notification: by june 15th 2011

Organizers:

Asaf Bachrach (umr 7023, CNRS) asaf,bachrach@sfl.cnrs.fr
Isabelle Roy  (umr 7023, CNRS & Paris 8) isabelle.roy@sfl.cnrs.fr
Linnaea Stockall (Queen Mary, University of London) .stockall@qmul.ac.uk

__._,_.___

CUNY Conference meets this week

The 24th annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing will be held March 24-26 at Stanford University. The schedule is full of papers from past and present members of the linguistics department, including:

papers:
"Pragmatic Constraints Influence the Restoration of Optional Subjects" by Jennifer Mack, Charles Clifton, Jr. and Lyn Frazier

"Processing contrast versus implicature: the role of intonation and discourse" by Heeyeon Y. Dennison and Amy J. Schafer

posters:

Aging effects and working memory in garden-path recovery

Hyunsoo Yoo and Michael Walsh Dickey

Contrasting interference profiles for agreement and anaphora: Experimental and modeling evidence

Brian Dillon, Alan Mishler, Shayne Sloggett and Colin Phillips

Processing and Domain Selection: Quantificational Variability Effects

Jesse Harris, Charles Clifton, Jr. and Lyn Frazier

Does semantic focus influence lexical processing? Evidence from eye movements

Ashley Benatar, Charles Clifton and Adrian Staub

Parallelism and the Incremental Processing of Ellipsis

Masaya Yoshida, Katy Carlson and Michael Dickey

The where and when of anticipatory eye movements in the visual world paradigm

Adrian Staub, Matthew Abbott and Richard Bogartz

Malte Zimmermann: Semantics Guru

Malte Zimmermann, professor of linguistics at Potsdam University, will be visiting the department for a couple weeks in his capacity as Guru of Semantics.

Here's what Angelika says about his stay:

Our semantics guru Malte Zimmermann will arrive on March 20 and will be with us until April 1st. Malte will give a department colloquium on March 25, and a seminar-style, more specialized, talk on Thursday, March 31st, from 4:00 to 6:00. Please consult the department website for information about the room for the seminar. The titles and abstracts of the talks are below. There will be a 'Welcome the Guru' event at our place with cake and fake champagne on March 20th, a reception after his March 25 colloquium in the department, and a dinner party at our place after his seminar on  March 31.

I am coordinating Malte's schedule during his stay here. Please e-mail me if you want to make an appointment with Malte, indicating your time constraints. Being a guru, Malte will not only enlighten us collectively, but will attend to our individual needs and look at whatever we may be working on in his area of expertise and beyond.  Malte is an expert on information structure, discourse particles, quantification, and pluractionality, and has worked on languages ranging from Low German to Chadic. Check out his website:

Homepage von Malte Zimmermann

Department Colloquium on March 25 at 3:30 in Machmer E-37.

Focus Realisation and Association with Focus in Ngamo (West Chadic) (with Mira Grubic)

In this talk, I discuss the realisation of focus in Ngamo, which like many (West) African languages does not require the explicit marking of focus on non-subjects in terms of absolute prominence (pitch, movement, markers). I discuss various analyses of the realisation of focus in Ngamo and show that only two are compatible with the observable facts: (i) Analysis I assumes that focus in Ngamo is consistently marked on all constituents, but not in terms of absolute prominence, but in terms of alignment with major prosodic phrases(Féry , submitted); (ii) Analysis II assumes an asymmetry in the focus marking system of Ngamo in that only subject foci must be marked. In the final part of the talk, I show that the association behaviour of focus-particles (exclusive 'only' vs additive 'also') provides us with evidence in favour of analysis I.

Seminar-style talk on March 31 from 4:00 to 6:00 PM (room to be announced)

The Expression of Indefiniteness in Hausa

In this talk, I discuss the two ways of expressing indefiniteness in Hausa, namely by means of bare NPs or the structurally more compelx wani-DPs. I argue that the two kinds of indefinite NPs involve different modes of semantic composition, i.e. RESTRICT (Chung & Ladusaw 2004) and choice functions plus existential closure at various levels. The Hausa data would thus seem provide evidence in favour of Reinhart's (1997) flexible choice function approach, as opposed to the 
more restricted choice function accounts in Kratzer (1998) and Matthewson (1999). The final part of the talk looks in more detail at how the Hausa data fare
with respect to these alternative analyses and other criticism levelled against the flexible choice function approach by Schwarz (2001).

 

 

Call for Linguistics projects for Lavine's class

Anne Pycha writes:

I received the following message from Michael Lavine, professor of  
mathematics and statistics. If you have a project that could benefit  
from a semester's worth of work by statisticians, please contact  
Michael directly:
lavine@math.umass.edu

-----------------------------

...let me tell you about a course in my department.  We find research  
projects from around campus, and even further, that would benefit from  
a semester's work by a couple of stat students.  During the course, a  
team of students is assigned to each project, and work on it for the  
entire semester, guided by a faculty statistician.  I'd love to have a  
linguistics project.  Do you know of any that might be suitable?

Lisa Green: Outstanding Teacher Award

Lisa Green has been selected as one of two recipients of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts Outstanding Teacher Award for 2010-2011.

Congratulations Lisa!

Is it a good time for Semantics?

http://www.vimeo.com/20664367

SNEWS call: deadline March 21

Jesse Harris writes:

Just a reminder about SNEWS (Southern New England Workshop in Semantics) -- the local graduate student workshop on semantics, which is being held at UConn on April 16th this year. It's a great venue to present your work and an excellent opportunity to meet fellow grad students in neighboring departments. Presentations on semantics research at all stages are welcome. The workshop is meant to encourage the development and exchange of ideas through friendly interaction between students and faculty from different universities in the area. Please email me or, better yet, Lyn Tieu directly at lyn.tieu@gmail.com if you're interested in presenting. The organizers would like a list of presenters by March 21st.

Updated information about the workshop will be posted at: http://homepages.uconn.edu/~lst08001/SNEWS2011.html

Lyn Frazier: Outstanding Accomplishments in Research and Creative Activity

Lyn Frazier has been selected as one of two recipients of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts Award for Outstanding Accomplishments in Research and Creative Activity. She will be honored at the CHFA Awards Ceremony on May 3 at 4:00PM (location to be announced).

Congratulations Lyn!

Texas Tech University awards Min-Joo Kim tenure

We're delighted to announce that Min-Joo Kim, awarded the PhD from our department in 2004, has just been promoted to Associate Professor of Linguistics with tenure at Texas Tech University in Lubbock Texas.

Congratulations Min-Joo!

Pre-registration for CLS open

Pre-registration for the 47th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society is now open on the CLS website. Prices are $20 for pre-registered students and $40 for pre-registered faculty and other attendees. After March 31, prices will go up to $25 and $50.

For those traveling, travel information is also now posted on the website to help you plan your trip. We hope to see you there!

CLS is April 7-9 at the University of Chicago and features Angelika Kratzer, who will be giving one of the invited main session talks.

Post-Bac Research Positions at University of Maryland

The Department of Linguistics at the University of Maryland, College Park, is looking to fill up to FOUR full-time positions for post-baccalaureate researchers. Starting date for all positions is Summer or Fall 2011. 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 lab as preparation for a research career. Applicants must be US or Canadian citizens or permanent residents, and should have completed a BA or BS degree by the time of appointment. Previous experience in an area related to the positions is required, and relevant research experience is preferred.

Applicants may request to be considered for all four positions. Review of applications for all positions will begin immediately, and will continue until the positions are filled. For best consideration for positions #1-#3, completed applications should be received by April 21st.

Positions #1-#2: Baggett Research Fellowships 2011-2012

One-year Baggett Fellowships are full-time positions intended for individuals with a BA or BS degree who are interested in gaining significant research experience in an active interdisciplinary environment before pursuing graduate study in some area of linguistics or cognitive science. Fellows can pursue research with one or more faculty mentors in linguistics, cognitive (neuro-)science of language, or computational modeling of language. One or two fellowship positions are available for the 2011-2012 year. Positions are for one year and are not renewable. Salary is competitive, with benefits included.

Contact person: Dr Naomi Feldman, nhf@umd.edu. Further details, including faculty mentor list, at: http://www.ling.umd.edu/baggett

Position #3: Research Assistant in Psycholinguistics/Cognitive
Neuroscience

This person will take a leading role in research projects in psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience of language. The person will be involved in all aspects of the design, testing and analysis of studies of language comprehension in adults, using behavioral and neuroscientific techniques, including ERP and MEG brain recordings (training provided). The person will also play a key role in the management of an active lab group and will contribute to Maryland's IGERT training program in Language Science (http://languagescience.umd.edu). Previous experience in linguistics and/or psycholinguistics is preferred. The ability to interact comfortably with a wide variety of people (and machines) is a distinct advantage. The position is for a one year initial appointment, with the possibility of extension beyond that time.

For more information contact Dr Colin Phillips,  colin@umd.edu, http://www.ling.umd.edu/colin. Application requirements
are the same as for the Baggett Fellowships.

Position #4: MEG Laboratory Manager

This person will play a leading role in the operation of a magnetoencephalography (MEG) facility that is housed within the Dept of Linguistics and serves researchers from many departments, for studies on language, vision, memory, reading, audition, and kinesiology. The person will be trained as an expert user of the facility, will help to guide and train other users, will coordinate and enhance resources for the experimental paradigms in use in the lab, and will manage the smooth daily operation of the lab. The person
will also have opportunities to participate in and/or lead research projects, and participate in a range of other intellectual activities in language and cognitive neuroscience. Previous laboratory experience is preferred, and the ability to interact comfortably with a wide variety of people and technologies is strongly preferred. Prior experience with MEG or other electrophysiological techniques is NOT required. The position is for a one year initial appointment, with the possibility of extension beyond that time. For more information contact lab co-directors Dr Colin Phillips (Linguistics, colin@umd.edu) or Dr Jonathan Simon (Electrical Engineering, jzsimon@umd.edu). Applicants are the same as for the Baggett Fellowships.

Applicants for any of the 4 positions should submit a cover letter outlining relevant background and interests (including potential faculty mentors), a current CV, and the names and contact information for 3 potential referees. Letters are not needed as part of the initial application. Applicants should also send a writing sample. All application materials should be submitted electronically.

Positions #1-#2 - Naomi Feldman (nhf@umd.edu). NOTE: Put "Baggett Fellowship" in the subject line.

Positions #3-#4 - Colin Phillips (colin@umd.edu).
NOTE: Put "Research Assistantship" in the subject line.

Prospective applicants should feel free to send a preliminary letter of interest to
Dr Feldman or Dr Phillips.

LSA's Linguistic Institute

UMass will be present at the Linguistic Society of America's Linguistic Institute, held this July in the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Emmon Bach and Wynn Chao will be giving a joint course on Semantic Universals and Semantic Typology.

Joe Pater will be giving a class on Harmonic Grammar and running a workshop (with Matt Goldrick and Meghan Sumner) on Testing Models of Phonetics and Phonology.

Chris Potts (recent faculty member) will be giving a class on Computational Pragmatics.

Alice Harris will be giving an Institute Lecture on July 19 entitled "Agreement Puzzles: The Explanatory Power of Historical Linguistics." She will also be participating in the workshop "Challenges of Complex Morphology to Morphological Theory," on July 27th.

Rajesh Bhatt will be running a workshop on July 23 and 24 on using the Hindi-Urdu Treebank. He will also be teaching "Treebanking and the Theoretical Linguist," with Fei Xia of the University of Washington.

 

Linguist List Fund Drive

Barbara Partee writes:

The Linguist List fund drive is up and running, and the hard economic times mean they need our help more than ever. I've been urging and helping Russian linguists to donate, but just now realized that as of today (March 9) I don't see any donations from UMass! (I'm one of the Linguist List "Advisors", so I have to save my donation for the "Advisors' Challenge" at the end.) Remember that students can and should donate too! Everyone should! You can choose what university to give credit to with your donation -- it can be your undergraduate school, your graduate school, your employer, where you're visiting right now -- up to you! (Hint: UMass is not a bad choice if you have any connection to it at all, and if you're reading WHISC, then you do!) The "Graduate School Challenge" is just a friendly philanthropic competition, but I would love to see us do well in it! Linguist List is doing more and more, and the fund drive money ALL goes to support E.M.U. graduate students who work on Linguist List -- they deserve our thanks and support!

Emmon Bach elected VP of SSILA

The Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas recently elected Emmon Bach its Vice President and President Elect.

For more information about SSILA, go to: http://www.ssila.org/