Research Groups: Friday, January 10

Note that since Fridays are going to be very busy in our department throughout the semester, our research group schedule will be decidedly irregular.

10:00 AM - 12:00 PM in SS 4043: Psycholinguistics Group

Ella Rabinovich (postdoc, Department of Computer Science): "Say anything: Automatic semantic infelicity detection in L2 English indefinite pronouns."

Computational research on error detection in second language speakers has mainly addressed clear grammatical anomalies typical to learners at the beginner-to-intermediate level. We focus instead on acquisition of subtle semantic nuances of English indefinite pronouns by non-native speakers at varying levels of proficiency. We first lay out theoretical, linguistically motivated hypotheses, and supporting empirical evidence, on the nature of the challenges posed by indefinite pronouns to English learners. We then suggest and evaluate an automatic approach for detection of atypical usage patterns, demonstrating that deep learning architectures are promising for this task involving nuanced semantic anomalies.

11:45 AM - 1:15 PM in SS 560A: Syntax Group

Yadira Álvarez López (Ph.D., Department of Spanish and Portuguese): "From meteorology to linguistics: Re-examining precipitation verbs in English (and beyond)."