Alternate Location for meetings

 Research Group and Department meetings with a tropical flair as we met in an unusual location on January 26, 2024!

Alexei, Samuel, Suzi, Naomi

Cool Nathan & Naomi

Sun-lovers Pedro and Naomi

Thanks to Nathan and Alexei for the photos!

New paper by Prof. Pedro Mateo Pedro in Linguistic Variation

Congratulations Prof. Pedro Mateo Pedro and coauthors Philip T. Duncan (University of Kansas) and Harold Torrence (UCLA) for their new paper 'Indeterminate pronouns in Kaqchikel' in Linguistic Variation. The article examines the morphology, syntax, and semantics of certain non-interrogative structures involving wh-expressions in the Mayan language Kaqchikel.

Abstract:

This paper investigates the morphology, syntax, and semantics of five non-interrogative constructions that involve wh-expressions in Kaqchikel, a Mayan language of the K’ichean branch spoken in Guatemala. We focus on the properties of maximal free relative clauses, existential free relative clauses, ever free relative clauses, free choice items and negative indefinites. We show that the interpretive properties of these constructions are strikingly similar to those found in a number of unrelated languages.

Happy reading!

Congratulations Prof. Emily Atkinson for Publication in Languages

Congratulations to faculty member Emily Atkison who has coauthored a new paper with Akira Omaki (University of Washington) entitled 'Adaptation of Gap Predictions in Filler-Gap Dependency Processing during Reading' in the journal Languages.

Abstract:

Syntactic adaptation effects have been demonstrated for an expanding list of structure types, but the mechanism underlying this effect is still being explored. In the current work on filler-gap dependency processing, we examined whether exposing participants to a less common gap location—prepositional object (PO) gaps—altered their gap predictions, and whether these effects would transfer across tasks when this input was presented in a quasi-naturalistic way (i.e., by reading stories). In Experiment 1, we demonstrated that comprehenders dampened their direct object (DO) gap predictions following exposure to PO gaps. However, Experiments 2A and 2B suggest that these adaptation effects did not transfer when the quasi-naturalistic exposure phase was presented as a separate task (Experiment 2A) and when they also needed to generalize from a syntactic to a semantic measure of direct object gap predictions (i.e., filled gap vs. plausibility mismatch sentences; Experiment 2B). Overall, these experiments add filler-gap dependency processing, as well as the gap predictions associated with it, to the growing list of structures demonstrating adaptation effects, while also suggesting that this effect may be specific to a singular experimental task environment.

The article is published open-access so anyone is free to read it!

Linguist Kathleen Wynne on Aging

 You might enjoy this article, written by former Premier and linguistics student, Kathleen Wynne.

UTism 2024 will be February 10-11

Imagination is boundless, knowing no limits or restrictions. It is able to take our minds beyond the norm, where strings of thought are spun together into a tapestry of ideas, innovations, questions and answers. While often undervalued when compared to testable knowledge, the impact of imagination in our everyday lives may be deeper than we expect. 

For the 20th anniversary of UTism (the University of Toronto Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Mind), CASA (the Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence Students Association) brings to you a conference which will aim to examine the interplay between imagination and the mind through various interdisciplinary fields. 

Admission for UofT students is 10$, and general admission is 15$. 

Save the date for February 10-11, 11am-5pm, 2024. 

This year's UTism invites you to imagine the possibility of imagination through contemporary research in philosophy, psychology, computer science, neuroscience, and linguistics.

Our own Myrto is a speaker!

 

Instagram: https://instagram.com/casa.uoft

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/uoftcasa/

Discord: https://tinyurl.com/casa-discord

 

First Winter in Toronto?

This year, we have quite a few people who have travelled a long way to join our Department and experience their first Toronto winter.  

Samuel, Suzi and Liam checked out Keith Haring at the AGO. 

I hear that the fortune cookies with the meal were a big hit, too!

Rhoda and Nathan had dinner at Si Lom Thai Bistro in the Village then took a stroll to look at the Christmas decorations along Yonge Street and at the Eaton Centre

TWPL Volume 46 Released

 The Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics recently released a new volume (their 46th!) featuring several members of the Toronto Linguistics community. The volume was edited by Gregory Antono and includes 11 papers that were presented at the 1st Toronto-Montreal Bantu Colloquium held at UTSC. 

Here is a summary of the contributions.

• David Shanks (McGill). Spelling out the Kirundi augment: Prosodic domains, epenthesis and weight
• Chase Boles (McGill). Getting the -ik: An anticausative structure in Kirundi
• Terrance Gatchalian (McGill). What's in a copula? The syntax of Kirundi's multiple copulas
• Claire Henderson (McGill). The antipassive in Kirundi What is going -an?
• Martin Renard (PhD Candidate). “Serial Verb Constructions” In Tshiluba
• Katya Morgunova (McGill), David Shanks (McGill). On the left periphery of the Kirundi noun phrase 
• Brandon Chaperon (McGill). Unravelling the Kirundi 'not': Left peripheral blocking of negation in Kirundi
• Christiana Moser (PhD Student). The morphosyntax of causatives and applicatives in Tshiluba
• Willie Myers (McGill). Unpacking -ish: a bimorphemic account of Kirundi causatives
• Lee Jiang (PhD Student). Noun Class and Classification in Tshiluba (L.31)
• Yixin Wang (MA Student). Exploring expressions for cardinal directions in Tshiluba

We thank all of the student volunteers and staff who helped make this edition possible.

Happy reading!

Holiday Cocktail Party 2023

Some scenes from our holiday party a few weeks ago. Students and faculty gathered to mark the end of the semester with good food, cocktails, fun party games, and live music.  

Thanks to everyone who helped clean up. 

Although Sahar didn't make it onto the board, we thank her too!

 

UofT @ LSA Meeting 2024

UofT will be well represented at this year's meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. Several of our faculty and graduate students will be presenting their individual and joint work in New York City. 

Here is the list of presentations:

Talks

• B. Elan Dresher (emeritus) & Alana Johns (emerita). “Phonetic Shortening in Labrador Inuttut.”

• B. Elan Dresher (emeritus), Daniel Currie Hall, William Idsardi, Eric Raimy. “Uyghur disharmony without diacritics (or, phonological representations are phonological).” 

• Christiana Moser (PhD Student), Bahar Tarakçı, Ercenur Ünal, Myrto Grigoroglou (Faculty). “Conceptual and language-specific syntactic influences on the description of instrument events in Turkish and English.” 

Posters

• Mechelle Wu (MA Student). “The children of globalization: Lexical and morphophonological behaviors of ThirdCulture Kids.”

• Christiana Moser (PhD Student). “Heterogeneous syntactic structure in Icelandic -st figure reflexives.

Additionally, several members of our community will be giving talks at SSILA and ADS, which are jointly held alongside the LSA meeting:

SSILA

• Pedro Mateo Pedro (Faculty). “The acquisition of ideophones in Chuj.” 

• Martin Renard (PhD Candidate). “Kanien’kéha Noun Incorporation: A Categorization and Excorporation Reanalysis.” 

• Sonya Bird, Maida Percival (PhD Candidate), Randeana Peter  & Henny Yeung “Hul’q’umi’num’ listening quizzes: Blending research and pedagogy.”

• Yanfei Lu (PhD Student). “Digital Tool for Revitalization of the Oneida Language: Verb Conjugator.”

ADS

• Sali A. Tagliamonte (Faculty), Bridget L. Jankowski (Postdoc). “What's the BIG deal? It's HUGE! The adjectives of largeness in North American English.”  

• Mechelle Wu (MA Student). “Is 'they wants' what they want? Contrasting ideologies about singular they and verb agreement on different media sources.”

See more: https://virtual.oxfordabstracts.com/#/event/public/4438/information?page=1813