NWAV 44 Update

NWAV 44 abstracts have been reviewed and registration is open. We will have 7 training/professionalization workshops, 7 invited plenary speakers, a workshop on Intersections between sociolinguistics and other fields, ~90 posters and ~140 oral presentations.  See details and (register early for a discount) at http://linguistics.utoronto.ca/NWAV44.

U of T will be represented in presentations by:

Aaron Dinkin
Anne-Jose Villeneuve
Bridget Jankowski
Darcie Blainey
Derek Denis
Emilia Melara
Emily Blamire
Heather Burnett
Jack Chambers
Julien Carrier
Marisa Brook
Matt Hunt Gardner
Michael Iannozzi
Paulina Lyskawa
Ruth Maddeaux
Sali Tagliamonte
Shayna Gardiner
Yoonjung Kang

Questions can be addressed to any of the organizers:
Philipp Sebastian Angermeyer, York University
Aaron Dinkin, University of Toronto
Michol Hoffman, York University
Naomi Nagy, University of Toronto
Sali A. Tagliamonte, University of Toronto
Anne-José Villeneuve, University of Alberta
James Walker, York University

Canadian Language Museum exhibits at the Pan-Am Games

Three portable exhibits created by the Canadian Language Museum (with faculty member Elaine Gold at the helm) are now being shown one at a time at the Aboriginal Pavilion of the 2015 Pan-American Games:

July 21-22: French
July 23-24: Inuit
July 25-26: Cree

They will be available to see between 10 AM and 5 PM at the Fork York Visitor Centre atrium, as part of a greater celebration of First Nations cultures.

Research Groups: Week of July 20-24

Wednesday, July 22 - 10 AM to 12 PM in SS 2111
Syntax/Semantics Group
Elizabeth Cowper will be presenting a practice version of her talk for ICHL: "Illusions of transitive expletives in Middle English" (co-authored with Bronwyn Bjorkman, Daniel Currie Hall, Rebecca Tollan, and Neil Banerjee).

ICHL 22

The 22nd International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL) is being held in Naples, Italy, from July 27th to 31st.

Sali A. Tagliamonte (faculty) is presenting a plenary talk:
"Roots and branches in the variation of English."

Elizabeth Cowper (faculty), Bronwyn Bjorkman (postdoc), Daniel Currie Hall (Ph.D. 2007), Rebecca Tollan (Ph.D.) and Neil Banerjee (BA) are giving a presentation:
"Illusions of transitive expletives in Middle English."

Clarissa Forbes (Ph.D.) is also giving a presentation:
"Acquiring accentual (un)predictability in morphological domains: Root stress in Gitksan."

Alumna Monica Irimia (Ph.D. 2011, now at the University of York) is part of a presentation with colleagues Andrea Ceolin (University of York), Aaron Ecay (University of Pennsylvania), Cristina Guardiano (Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia), Giuseppe Longobardi (University of York), Dimitris Michelioudakis (University of York), and Nina Radkevich (Harvard University):
"Sic transeunt parametri mundi."

Marisa Brook in The Stranger

Ph.D. student Marisa Brook was interviewed for a story in Seattle weekly The Stranger on why everyone - and women in particular - seems to be using the hedge phrase "I feel like" all the time.

Research Groups: Week of July 13-17

Wednesday, July 15 - 10 AM to 12 PM in SS 2111
Syntax/Semantics Group
Clarissa Forbes (Ph.D.): "Connect Four! The morphosyntax of argument marking in Tsimshianic" (collaborative work with Henry Davis, University of British Columbia).

In this talk, we propose a new analysis for the argument-introducing connective morphemes in Interior Tsimshianic. Our proposal moves away from the prevalent case-based analysis (Hunt 1993) to one which attributes connective alternations to an ultimately morphophonological process, given a proper analysis of agreement. We extend this proposal to Coast Tsimshian, where minor differences in connective marking predict interesting variation in agreement patterns between the two systems.

Goodbyes and hellos for 2015-16

As the 2015-16 academic year approaches, we have a lot of personnel turnover!

Our department bids adieu to:

• Bronwyn Bjorkman (postdoc), who is taking up a tenure-track position in morphosyntax at Queen's University.
• Walter Pedersen (faculty), finishing a one-year contract-limited term appointment in semantics.
• Anne-José Villeneuve (faculty, Department of French), who has accepted a tenure-track position at the University of Alberta.
• Derek Denis (Ph.D. 2015), who is moving to the University of Victoria to do a postdoctoral fellowship with fellow alum Alexandra D'Arcy (Ph.D. 2005).
• Liisa Duncan (Ph.D. 2015), who is now teaching at York University.
• ...and those completing the MA program. Several are moving immediately into Ph.D. programs: Frederick Gietz is staying on for ours, Paulina Lyskawa is going to the University of Maryland, Yining Nie is heading to New York University, and Luke West is off to UCLA.

We welcome back Sali A. Tagliamonte (faculty), who has spent the last two years as a Killam Fellow.

And we welcome:

• Heather Burnett (postdoc), a new Banting postdoctoral fellow; she will be working with Sali.
• Guillaume Thomas (faculty), our new semanticist (and also instructor in syntax).
• Finally, we have 25 new graduate students: 9 in the Ph.D. program and 16 MAs. Welcome, all!