NYU Linguistics

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:

Chris Kennedy (U Chicago) will be giving a colloquium on Friday, Oct 30th at 4pm in the 1st floor classroom of 10 Washington Place. His talk is titled "Aspectual composition and scalar change". A reception will follow on the second floor.

Abstract:

Norbert Hornstein (Maryland) will be giving a colloquium on Friday, Nov 6 titled "Speculations on a Minimalist Approach to Pronoun Binding". All colloquia take place in the first floor classroom of 10 Washington Place at 4:00pm.

Abstract:

Christine Mallinson (UMaryland, Baltimore County) will present a talk entitled "Bridging Professional and Public Linguistics" in the colloquium on Friday, October 9 in 10 Washington Place (first floor classroom). A reception will follow in the second floor.

Abstract:

Katherine Demuth (Brown) will present her talk titled "Phonological Constraints on Morphological Development" in the colloquium on Friday, Sept. 25th in 10 Washington Place (first floor classroom). A reception will follow in the second floor.

Abstract:

John Hale (Cornell) will be giving a colloquium talk next Friday, September 18th titled "What a rational parser would do". The talk will be in the linguistics building at 10 Washington Place, 1st floor. A reception will be held afterwords right upstairs on the 2nd floor.

Abstract:

Please save these upcoming dates for colloquium lectures this fall and spring. We have an exciting lineup this year!

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FALL 2009
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John Hale (Cornell) 9/18

Katherine Demuth (Brown) 9/25

Christine Mallinson (U. Maryland, Baltimore County) 10/9

Chris Kennedy (Chicago) 10/30

Norbert Hornstein (Maryland) 11/6

Halldór Sigurðsson (Lund University) 11/20

Elisabeth Selkirk and Angelika Kratzer of UMass Amherst will be giving a colloquium talk on Friday April 24th at 4pm in Silver room 509.

Title: Distinguishing contrastive, new and given information

Abstract:
The question of how linguistic theory should break down the dimension of “information structure” that includes contrastiveness, newness and givenness continues to be a subject of debate. This paper defends the three-way distinction between given, new, and focus of contrast originally proposed in Chafe 1976. Phonological and phonetic data are presented from English which support this three-way contrast. The paper argues that the status of a constituent as new is unmarked in the grammar, while constituents which are given or are a focus of contrast are marked as such in the syntactic representation which mediates between sound and meaning. This proposal echoes a recent proposal by Féry and Samek-Lodovici 2006.

We will show that a system which gives morphosyntactic representation to focus of contrast (FoC-marking) and to givenness (G-marking) but which leaves newness morphosyntactically unmarked has the right consequences for theories of the interfaces of syntax with sentence prosody on the one hand and semantics on the other. On the semantics side, renditions of the Rooth 1992 theory of alternatives focus and the Schwarzschild 1999 theory of givenness
are combined with a set of syntax/semantics interface constraints to provide the interpretation and distribution of sentences whose constituents are FoC-marked, G-marked, and/or unmarked for either. On the phonology side, it is shown that all-new sentences receive a phonological interpretation that is based on general phonological principles, without any appeal to the morphosyntactic feature make-up of the sentence.

We will also explore some of the typological predictions of our proposal: whether FoC-marking or G-marking are expressed in sentence prosody varies (independently) from one language to the next. Some languages show no prosodic reflexes of these morphosyntactic contrasts at all, instead defaulting to the types of unmarked sentence prosody found in all-new sentences.

Yoad Winter (Technion and Utrecht University)

"Typicality Effects and the Logic of Reciprocity"

Friday, March 27th at 4pm
Silver Center, Room 705
Followed by a reception at 726 Broadway, 7th floor

Abstract:

Joint work with Nir Kerem and Naama Friedmann

This talk will introduce a significant revision of the Strongest
Meaning Hypothesis on reciprocal expressions like "each other" and
"one another" (Dalrymple et al 1998). A more powerful hypothesis
will be presented, connecting the logical semantics of reciprocals
to the meaning of everyday concepts in natural language.
The talk will report experimental results supporting the proposed
generalization.

We argue that the logical semantics of reciprocals are directly
derived by the *relational concept* within their scope: the
concept representing the meaning of the relational expression
combining with the reciprocal, e.g. a transitive verb.
We make new observations on typicality effects (cf. Osherson and
Smith 1997) with verbs, and extend the SMH into a new principle,
called the Maximal Typicality Hypothesis (MTH).
This principle respects meanings of verbs like "know", "pinch" or
"hug" better than Dalrymple et al's assumptions, and accounts for
their effect on the reciprocal meaning.

We report on experiments testing typicality with relational
concepts, and its correlation with the interpretation of reciprocal
sentences that refer to these concepts. The observed correlations
are unexpected by the SMH but systematically support the MTH.

Selected References
Dalrymple et al. 1998: "Reciprocal expressions and the concept of
reciprocity", L&P 21.
Osherson & Smith 1997: "On typicality and vagueness", Cognition 64.

Friday, March 6 in Silver 509. Reception to follow in the linguistics department.

Title: The projection problem for pragmatic inferences

Abstract

Emmanuel Chemla will be giving a colloquium on Friday, March 6, in Silver 509.

Due to a scheduling conflict, Professor Corinne McCarthy will not be giving a colloquium talk on March 13.

Vera Gribanova (UCSC) will be giving a talk titled "Ellipsis and the syntax of verbs in Russian" on Tuesday morning at 9am in the linguistics department conference room.

Abstract:

Robert Podesva (Georgetown) will be giving a colloquium talk on Friday Jan. 30 titled "Linking phonological variation to discourses of race and place in Washington, D.C." The talk will be in room 414 810 of the Silver Center at 4pm, with a reception in the linguistics department following.

An abstract for the talk can be found here (pdf)

updated Feb 13, 2009

Unless otherwise noted, colloquia are held on Fridays at 4:00pm in the Silver center. All colloquia are followed by a reception and dinner with the speaker.

Robert Podesva
"Linking phonological variation to discourses of race and place in Washington, D.C."
January 30, Siler 810

Emmanuel Chemla
TBA
March 6, Silver 509

Corinne McCarthy, CANCELLED
TBA
March 13, Silver 509

Yoad Winter
TBA
March 27, Silver 705

Jairo Nunes
TBA
April 17, Silver 509

Elisabeth Selkirk
TBA
April 24, Silver 509

Click here for more information

Janet Pierrehumbert (Northwestern University)

"Northern Cities Vowels and Dialect Contact"

Friday, December 5 at 4pm
Silver Center, Rm 414

Abstract:

The Northern Cities Chain Shift has created substantial differences between the Northern Cities vowels and those in nearby speech communities. Most speakers lack conscious awareness of these differences. However, they have consequences for speech processing. In this talk, I will review recent results (with collaborators Cynthia Clopper and Ken Konopka) on the Northern Cities vowel system in contact with the Midland dialect and the Chicago Mexican Heritage dialect of English. The results indicate that indexical information interacts with phonological information in speech perception, speech production, and phonological acquisition.

Lisa Matthewson (University of British Columbia)

"Moods vs. Modals in St'át'imcets and Beyond" Abstract

Friday, October 24 at 4pm
Silver Center Room 414

Michael Becker (Reed College)

"The role of markedness in generalizing over lexical exceptions"

Friday, October 10 at 4pm
Silver Center Room 414

Joint work with Lena Fainleib (Tel Aviv University)

Lexical exceptions have been repeatedly shown to influence speakers’ treatment of novel items (Bybee & Moder 1983 and many others since), which was taken to mean that lexical exceptions have an impact on the grammar. With the advent of Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993/2004), lexical exceptions have been modeled using markedness constraints (Zuraw 2000, Albright & Hayes 2003, Hayes & Londe 2006, Pater 2006, Becker 2008, among others). These OT accounts share the prediction that speakers will generalize over the output properties of lexical exceptions, since by definition, markedness constraints only assess output forms. I claim that this prediction is correct, and show that Hebrew speakers prefer output-based generalizations to input-based generalizations even in the absence of evidence for it in the source language.

In Hebrew, masculine nouns regularly take the suffix [-im]. Of the irregular nouns that take [-ot], most have [o] in their stem, i.e. the affix agrees with the stem vowel. Since the stem [o] stays unchanged, speakers can’t tell whether [-ot] agrees with the singular stem [o] or the plural stem [o].

In an artificial input-output mapping experiment, 60 Hebrew speakers were assigned to learn one of two artificial languages. In both languages, singulars were the same plausibly native novel nouns. In the plural stems, [o] was switched with [i] (1) and [i] with [o] (2) — changes that are absent from real Hebrew. In the “surface” language, the plural suffixes [-im] and [-ot] were selected to agree with the vowel in the plural stem, whereas in the “deep” language, the plural suffixes were selected to agree with the vowel in the singular stem.

Singular_____“Surface” language plural_____“Deep” language plural
(1) apóz____________apiz-ím___________________apiz-ót
_____agóf_____________agif-ím___________________agif-ót
(2) amíg_____________amog-ót_________________amog-ím
_____axís______________axos-ót__________________axos-ím

When asked to generate plurals for novel items, the “surface” language participants were significantly more successful in applying the required vowel changes and affix selection, demonstrating a universal bias toward output-based generalizations.

I show that the results follow nicely from a model in which speakers assign an Optimality Theoretic grammar to the artificial languages, using the same constraints they use in real Hebrew. Models that make input-based generalizations by learning from input-output mappings fail to capture the results. Interestingly, models that rely on raw phonotactics of the language, without deriving these phonotactics from universal principles, fail as well.

Joan Bresnan (Stanford University)

"Predicting syntax: Processing dative constructions in American and
Australian varieties of English"

Friday, October 3 at 4pm
Silver Center, 414

Joan Bresnan (Stanford University & Marilyn Ford (Griffith
University, Australia)

Traditionally, linguistic variation within different time scales has
been the province of different disciplines, each with a distinctive
suite of techniques for obtaining and analyzing data. For example,
historical linguistics, sociolinguistics and corpus linguistics study
variation between different speaker groups over historical time and
across space, while psycholinguistics, phonetics, and computational
speech recognition and synthesis study the dynamics of producing and
comprehending language in the individual on a scale of milliseconds.
Yet there is evidence that linguistic variation at these different
time scales is linked, even in the domain of higher-level syntactic
choices. This is a primary finding in the present study of dative
constructions, illustrated by (1a,b), in Australian and American English.

1a) Who gave you that wonderful watch? (V NP NP)
b) Who gave that wonderful watch to you? (V NP PP)

We use a very accurate multilevel probabilistic model of corpus dative
productions (Bresnan, Cueni, Nikitina, and Baayen 2007) to measure the
predictive capacities of both American and Australian subjects in
three pairs of parallel psycholinguistic experiments involving
sentence ratings (Bresnan 2007), decision latencies during reading
(Ford 1983), and sentence completion. The experimental items were all
sampled together with their contexts from the database of corpus
datives, stratified by corpus model probabilities.

We find that the Australian subjects share with the American subjects
a sensitivity to corpus probabilities. But they also show covarying
differences, notably a stronger end-weight effect of the recipient in
the ratings task and the absence of a dependency-length effect of the
theme argument in the decision latency task (cf. Grodner and Gibson
2005). A unifying explanation for these differences is that decision
latencies for `to' are reduced and naturalness ratings are increased
when a PP is consistent with expectation. The Australian group would
then be predicted to have a higher expectation of PP than the US
group. This prediction is borne out by the sentence completion tasks,
which showed that the Australians produced NP PP completions more than
the American subjects in the same contexts. These findings suggest
that subtle variations in the experiences of the dative construction
by historically and spatially divergent speaker groups can create
measurable differences in internalized expectations in individuals
at the millisecond level.

Bresnan, Joan, Anna Cueni, Tatiana Nikitina, and R. Harald
Baayen. 2007. Predicting the dative alternation. In
_Cognitive Foundations of Interpretation_, ed. by G. Boume,
I. Kraemer, and J. Zwarts. Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy
of Science, pp. 69--94.

Bresnan, Joan. 2007. Is syntactic knowledge probabilistic?
Experiments with the English dative alternation. In _Roots:
Linguistics in search of its evidential base. Series: Studies in
Generative Grammar_, ed. by Sam Featherston and Wolfgang
Sternefeld, pp. 75--96. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Ford. Marilyn. 1983. A method for obtaining measures of
local parsing complexity throughout sentences. Journal of
Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 22: 203--218.

Friday Colloquium Series
Friday, September 19, 2008 @4pm
Norma Mendoza-Denton (University of Arizona)
Silver Building, Room 414

Entrainment in the vocalic system and in speech breathing: Evidence
from conflictive speech.

Entrainment is the phenomenon of synchronization/imitation of action on
the part of separate agents (in the physical sciences:
entrainment=sharing periodicity, either on- or off-phase). For
instance, lexical entrainment means that speakers who routinely talk
about the same topic come to share the same vocabulary for it. This
presentation examines vocalic and speech breathing entrainment in
congressional town hall meetings (THMs) held by Republican Congressman
Jim Kolbe (R-5th district, AZ). Kolbe agreed to be taped as part of a
nonpartisan research project, and allowed the presence of our cameras
at 10 THMs over a period of 14 months during 2000-2001. I focus
specifically on the sociophonetic aspects of entrainment in the context
of face-threatening behavior by constituents. Face-threatening behavior
comes in the form of opinions, challenges or questions that
constituents deliver which threaten Kolbe's control of the structure
of the THM. Gestural, intonational, and vocalic as well as speech
breathing evidence are joined with conversational analysis to address
questions of convergence and divergence in linguistic behavior.

Jen Hay
Coronal Stop Deletion Revisited
Friday, September 12 @ 4pm
Silver Center 414

Abstract:

Final coronal stop deletion (as in, e.g. jus(t) yesterday or ol(d) man) has perhaps received more attention in the literature than any other sociolinguistic variable. This talk takes a new look at the phenomenon by exploring a data-set drawn from early New Zealand English. We have explored a number of potential predictive factors which are not traditionally considered. This talk focuses on three in particular: lexical frequency, phonological neighbourhood density, and the force exerted by the complete distribution of environments in which a given lexical item tends to occur. The resulting picture lends strong support to exemplar-based models of the lexicon. It also casts important new light on factors which previous studies have identified as robust predictors of deletion rates.

Colloquia will be held in Silver 414 at 4pm on Fridays. Reception at the linguistics department follows. Click here for up to date information.

Norma Mendoza-Denton, University of Arizona: Sept. 19
Michael Becker, Reed College: Oct. 10
Joan Bresnan, Stanford University: Oct. 3
Lisa Matthewson, University of British Columbia: Oct. 24
Norbert Hornstein, University of Maryland: Oct. 31
Janet Pierrehumbert, Northwestern University: Dec. 5

Click on the links below for schedules and abstracts for the NYU Linguistics Department Friday Colloquia

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