Research Groups: Friday, February 5

10:00 AM - 11:30 AM: Cognitive Science of Language Group
Guest speaker: Ercenur Ünal (Özyeğin University): "Evidentiality in language and cognition."

It has long been recognized that language interacts with other aspects of cognition. However, the nature and extent of these interactions is widely debated. In this talk, I will focus on the linguistic encoding of sources of information (evidentiality) and how it relates to non-linguistic reasoning about information sources. In part one, I will examine how the acquisition of evidentiality is related to the development of source concepts in learners of Turkish - a language that grammatically encodes evidentiality. In part two, I will ask whether the way languages encode information sources affects source monitoring mechanisms in mature cognizers by comparing adult speakers of English and Turkish.

11:30 AM - 1:00 PM: Phonetics/Phonology Research Group
Group discussion led by Andrei Munteanu (Ph.D.) of a paper: Trecca et al. (2020). When too many vowels impede language processing: An eye-tracking study of Danish-learning children. Language and Speech, 63(4), 898-918.

1:00 PM - 2:00 PM: Syntax Group
Justin Leung (MA): "Selected issues concerning directional motion event expression in Cantonese."

The expression of directional motion events in the Chinese languages has been hotly debated in the literature surrounding Talmy’s (2000) framing typology of motion events. Different characterizations within the Talmyan typology hinge upon the syntactic analysis assumed by the linguist. In this paper, I evaluate previous syntactic accounts on directional motion events in Mandarin and English and propose modifications to account for the empirical data observed in Cantonese that could not be accounted for by previous accounts. I suggest that directional elements in Cantonese have two merge domains, each corresponding to different interpretations: the 'inner aspect' domain between v and V (Travis 2010; Sybesma, 2017) for a telic reading and the VP domain for an atelic reading (cf. Paul 2020). I also suggest a hierarchy of projections to account for strict ordering patterns.