NYU Linguistics

Roni Katzir will be giving a syntax brown bag on Friday Nov 6 at 1:30pm.

Title: On the roles of context and structure in the theory of alternatives
(Joint work with Danny Fox, MIT)

Abstract:
We present an argument for revising the theory of alternatives for Scalar Implicatures and for Association with Focus. We argue that in both cases, the alternatives are determined in the same way, as a contextual restriction of the focus value of the sentence, which, in turn, is defined in structure-sensitive terms. We provide evidence that contextual restriction is subject to a constraint that prevents it from discriminating between alternatives when they stand in a particular logical relationship with the assertion or the prejacent, a relationship that we refer to as symmetry. Due to the constraint on contextual restriction, discriminating between alternatives in cases of symmetry becomes the task of focus values. This conclusion is incompatible with standard type-theoretic definitions of focus values, motivating our structure-sensitive definition instead.

Three cheers to Arthur, who has filed his dissertation entitled "The Microparametric Syntax of Resultatives in Chinese Languages". Committee Co-chairs: Chris Collins and Richard Kayne. Committee Members: Mark Baltin, Alec Marantz and C.-T. James Huang.

The dissertation is posted at Arthur's home page.

Cheers to Kara Becker, whose article on "/r/ and the construction of place identity on New York City's Lower East Side" has appeared in Journal of Sociolinguistics 2009, 13.5: 634-658. Here is the link to the on-line article.

Cheers to Mike Taylor, whose article with David Eddington on "T-glottalization in American English" has just come out in American Speech 84(3): 298-314 (2009).

Halldor Sigurdsson, from Lund University, will give a talk in the NYU
Linguistics Colloquium Series this Friday 11/20 at 4:00pm. The title
of the talk is "Natural Nulls," abstract included below.

Abstract:

Cheers to Eytan Zweig (PhD January 2008), whose article on "Number-neutral bare plurals and the multiplicity implicature" has just appeared online in Linguistics and Philosophy; read here; doi: 10.1007/s10988-009-9064-3 .

Co-incidentally, Eytan is in town this week, and tomorrow he is giving a talk related to this article in the Semantics Group (10am -- meet at 9:45 for coffee).

As a reminder, the schedule of the Semantics Group presentations is to be found here.

Maria will be giving a colloquium at her undergraduate alma mater, Eastern Michigan University, on Friday the 20th of November.