CLA/ACL 2019

The annual meeting of the Canadian Linguistic Association/Association canadienne de linguistique is taking place at the University of British Columbia from June 1 through 3.

Elaine Gold (faculty), the recipient of this year's National Achievement Award, will be giving a plenary talk as her acceptance speech: "How a posting on Linguist List changed my life."

Yves Roberge (faculty) will be contributing a few words to the session being held in memory of Michael Rochemont (University of British Columbia), who passed away in July 2018 at the age of 68.

Talks include those by:

Philip Monahan (faculty), Alejandro Pérez (postdoc), and Jessamyn Schertz (faculty):
"Abstract phonological features: EEG evidence from English voicing."

Arsalan Kahnemuyipour (faculty) and Sahar Taghipour (Ph.D.):
"Hybrid alignment in Laki agreement and the special status of clitics."

B. Elan Dresher (faculty) and Iryna Osadcha (Ph.D. 2018):
"Mobile lexical parentheses in metrical grids."

Koorosh Ariyaee (Ph.D.):
"The need for indexed markedness constraints: Evidence from spoken Persian."

Kinza Mahoon (Ph.D):
"Nominal modification in Hindi-Urdu."

Virgilio Partida Peñalva (Ph.D.):
"Little-v agreement and Split-S in Mazahua."

Andrew Peters (Ph.D.):
"Mongolian converbs and the macro-event property."

Heather Stephens (Ph.D.):
"Yep, indeed: The certainty of polarity particles yep and nope."

Sahar Taghipour (Ph.D.):
"Definiteness in Laki: Its contributions to the DP structure."

Angelika Kiss (Ph.D.), with colleagues Roger Yu-Hsiang Lo (University of British Columbia) and Maxime Tulling (New York University)
"The prosody of Cantonese information-seeking and negative rhetorical wh-questions."

Mihaela Pirvulescu (faculty, Department of French) and Rena Helms-Park (faculty), with colleagues Virginia Hill (University of New Brunswick), Nadia Nacif (Ph.D., Department of French), and Maria Petrescu (Ryerson University):
"The acquisition of adverbs in trilingual children."

Gloria Mellesmoen (MA 2016, now at the University of British Columbia) and Marianne Huijsmans (University of British Columbia):
"Pluractionality in ʔayʔaǰuθəm."

Will Oxford (Ph.D. 2014, now at the University of Manitoba):
"The Algonquian inverse: Syntax or morphology?"

Avery Ozburn (MA 2014, now at the University of British Columbia):
"An analysis of ATR harmony in Alur."

David Heap (Ph.D. 1997, now at the University of Western Ontario) and Adriana Soto Corominas (University of Alberta):
"Recycling in Catalan clitic acquisition: Underspecification and frequency effects."

Jila Ghomeshi (Ph.D. 1996, now at the University of Manitoba) with Hanadi Azhari (Umm Al-Qura University):
"Emergent participles in Makkan Arabic."

Neil Banerjee (BA 2016, now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology):
"Inward sensitive allomorphy in Bengali negation."

And among the posters are:

Arsalan Kahnemuyipour (faculty) and Andrew Peters (Ph.D.):
"Separating concord and Agree: The case of Zazaki Ezafe."

Nicholas LaCara (faculty):
"The timing of head movement: Evidence from predicate clefts."

Koorosh Ariyaee (Ph.D.) and Ali Salehi (Stony Brook University):
"Does Persian prefer Arabic to French and English?"

Kazuya Bamba (Ph.D.)
"Topic -wa vs. subject -ga: Sentence-final particles and their sensitivities."

Radu Craioveanu (Ph.D.)
"Asymmetries in aspiration."

Xiaochuan Qin (MA):
"Paths and place: Spatial adpositions in Mandarin Chinese."

Martha McGinnis (MA 1993, now at the University of Victoria):
"The Voice/v distinction is configurational: Evidence from Georgian causatives."

Naomi Francis (MA 2014, now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology):
"Free choice any in imperatives."

Wladyslaw Cichocki (Ph.D. 1986, now at the University of New Brunswick):
"Variation in prosodic rhythm in regional varieties of New Brunswick French."

Rachel Soo (MA 2018, now at the University of British Columbia):
"Lazy consonant perception in Cantonese heritage and homeland speakers."

Anabela Rato (faculty, Department of Spanish and Portuguese) Owen Ward (Ph.D., Department of Spanish and Portuguese):
"Predicting difficulty in the perception of non-native consonants: The use of cross-linguistic perceptual similarity measures."

Guest speaker: Susanne Vejdemo (QualiTest/College of Staten Island, CUNY)

The Language, Cognition, and Computation (LCC) group welcomes Susanne Vejdemo (QualiTest/College of Staten Island, CUNY), who works on empirical approaches to semantics and the lexicon across languages and across time. She will be giving a talk on Friday, May 31, at 10:00 AM, in room 266 of the Pratt Building (note the updated location): "Processes of lexico-semantic birth, death and zombie-hood in the color domain: Cross-linguistic and intergenerational data." She will also discuss computational approaches to the detection of semantic change in diachronic corpora.

How does lexico-semantic change proceed? The color domain is an excellent arena for studies of lexico-semantic processes: the lexical battles that happen when a new concept emerges in a language; the way a new concept can make older concepts shift in semantic space as it grows; the way a dying concept loses both denotational reference area and collocational ability.

I will combine cross-linguistic data from seven Germanic languages, with inter-generational data from two generations of Swedish speakers. I will chart the birth and subsequent lexical and semantic upheaval for two young color categories (PINK and PURPLE) that did not exist a few centuries ago in the languages. The two perspectives help elucidate different part of the process. Lexicosemantic change often starts and ends in category peripheries, as 'defeated' color terms get marginalized and die - or remain as shadows of their former selves.

Canadian Language Museum exhibit on lexicography in Indigenous communities

Under the continued steady direction of founder Elaine Gold (faculty), the Canadian Language Museum's new exhibit, 'Beyond Words: Dictionaries and Indigenous Languages', will be on display for the first time at the 2019 annual meeting of the Canadian Linguistic Association, being held at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver from June 1 through 3. The exhibit will be free to view for all and is located in the Level 2 Foyer of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre.

This exhibit highlights the complex relationship between Indigenous languages and dictionaries over several centuries, from word lists and dictionaries developed for exploration, colonization, conversion, and assimilation purposes, to online language materials being developed by Indigenous communities to transmit the elders' language knowledge to today's youth.

For more details, see the Facebook page.

Research Groups: Week of May 27-31

Wednesday, May 29, 11:00 AM-1:00 PM in SS 2127 (note irregular location).
Syntax Group
Julianne Doner (Ph.D.) on what happens when null subjects are lost; Andrew Peters (Ph.D.): on Mongolian converbs.

Public lecture: Monika Molnar (University of Toronto)

Monika Molnar (faculty) of the Department of Speech-Language Pathology is giving a free public lecture on Thursday, May 30, from 6:30 PM to 7:30 PM in room 132 of the Rehabilitation Sciences Building (500 University Avenue) as part of the May Month events aiming to draw attention to speech and hearing awareness: "Childhood bilingualism from the perspectives of research and clinical practice."

Many children across Canada and the globe grow up learning more than one language in their homes. Parents and educators often wonder whether bilingual children follow typical developmental patterns. Speech-language pathologists also struggle to identify language disorders in this group of children because the assessment tools aren’t specifically designed for multi-language settings. In this talk, we will share recent research findings on bilingual language acquisition and how it is informing caregivers and speech-language pathology practice today.

Report from NACIL 2

The Second North American Conference on Iranian Languages took place at the University of Arizona from April 19 to 21. Unfortunately, the American border is currently closed to those who have only an Iranian passport, so some of those taking part (including two members of our department) had to join in via Skype. Given the situation, Noam Chomsky (University of Arizona/Massachusetts Institute of Technology) addressed the attendees twice: once on syntax and once on current U.S.-Iranian relations.

Arsalan Kahnemuyipour (faculty) presented a keynote speech: "The CP-vP parallelism: Evidence from (some) Iranian languages." Note that a recording of Arsalan's talk can be found here. Thanks to the NACIL2 photographers for taking and sharing this image!

Also notably, Breanna Pratley (BA) presented "The importance of methodological choices in the typology of uncommon phenomena: A Gilaki case study."

Well done to the organisers and to everyone who participated – whether on-site or from a distance.

Guest speaker: Paul Kerswill (University of York)

The Department of Language Studies at the Mississauga campus is pleased to welcome Paul Kerswill (University of York), a sociolinguist whose research has centered on dialect contact. His talk, "Demography in the formation of Multicultural London English: The Jamaican component", will be taking place at 11:00 AM on Wednesday, May 29, in room 3180 of the New North Building. Note this updated location.

Congratulations, Julie!

Congratulations to Julie Goncharov (Ph.D. 2015, currently at the University of Göttingen), who has been awarded a three-year postdoc at the University of Tromsø! Wonderful news, Julie, and a fantastically well-earned opportunity.

ACAL 50

The fiftieth Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL 50) is taking place from May 23 through 25 at the University of British Columbia. We have several alumni taking part:

Monica Irimia (Ph.D. 2012, now at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) and colleague Patricia Schneider-Zioga (California State University, Fullerton):
"Differential object marking in Kinande."

Sharon Rose (BA 1990, now at the University of California, San Diego), and University of California, San Diego colleagues Michael Obiri-Yeboah and Sarah Creel:
"Perception of ATR vowel contrasts by Akan speakers."

Keffyalew Gebregziabher (former postdoc, now at the University of Calgary):
"Clitics and agreement affixes: A view from Tigrinya possessive, modal necessity, and copular constructions."

Research Groups: Week of May 20-24

Note that there is no meeting of the Syntax Group this week.

Friday, May 24, 10:00 AM-11:30 AM, in SS 4043
Psycholinguistics Group
Shir Givoni (Tel-Aviv University): "Marking ambiguity."

Language is ambiguous but, contra received wisdom, ambiguity need not always be resolved in order to arrive at a single intended meaning. In fact, interlocuters may mark ambiguous utterances when more than one meaning is called for. Consider the following example (ambiguous utterance underlined and marking in bold for convenience):

"Octopus Garden was conceived in 2005 as a sacred space for intentional relationships and transformation through yoga, meditation and complementary therapies. This month we are bending over backwards (pun intended) to make the diverse practices of yoga more accessible than ever before" (Octopus Garden newsletter, May 9, 2019).

This talk presents the Low-Salience Marking Hypothesis (Givoni, Giora, and Bergerbest 2013), according to which marking ambiguity boosts awareness of less-salient meanings (i.e., less frequent, less familiar, less conventional, and less prototypical meanings) and facilitates their activation. Couched in the Graded Salience Framework (Giora 1997, 2003) this hypothesis is the first to address the phenomenon of ambiguity marking and its implications with regard to processing of ambiguity. Results from offline questionnaires, a lexical decision task, and an online reading task, all conducted in Hebrew, support the Low-Salience Marking Hypothesis. Results are discussed with respect to alternative lexical access models.

AFLA 26

The 26th meeting of the Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association is taking place from May 24 through 26 at the University of Western Ontario.

One of the invited speakers is Becky Tollan (Ph.D.):

"Effects of case and transitivity in anaphora resolution in Niuean."

Diane Massam (faculty) along with Lisa Travis (McGill University) will be presenting:

"What moves, why and how: The contribution of Austronesian."

Yining Nie (MA 2015, now at New York University):
"Raising applicatives in Tagalog."

Maayan Abenina-Adar (BA 2013, now at the University of California, Los Angeles), with James Collins (Univeristy of Hawai’i at Manoa):

"How modal and non-modal implications of Tagalog free relatives emerge."

REP course in Brazil

Octavia Andrade-Dixon (BA), Greg Antono (BA), Guilherme Teruya (BA), Rildo Dias (faculty, Universidade Estadual de Roraima), Suzi Lima (faculty), Carlos Borges (faculty, Universidade Estadual de Roraima), and Isabella Coutinho (faculty, Universidade Estadual de Roraima)

Suzi Lima (faculty) is currently leading a REP (Research Excursion Program) course, 'Brazilian Indigenous Languages: Documentation, Language Maintenance, and Revitalization', in Boa Vista, Roraima, Brazil. The enrolled undergraduate students are receiving hands-on training in language documentation (working on indigenous languages of Roraima) and collaborative research under the direction of Suzi and colleagues at the Universidade Estadual de Roraima (UERR). Check out their blog to learn more about their adventures!

27th Manchester Phonology Meeting

The 27th Manchester Phonology Meeting is taking place at the University of Manchester, England, from May 23 through 25. Current department members and alumni presenting are:

Elan Dresher (faculty) and Iryna Osadcha (Ph.D. 2018):

"Mobile lexical parentheses in metrical grids."

Aleksei Nazarov (faculty):

"Formalizing the connection between opaque and exceptionful generalizations."

Heather Yawney (Ph.D.):

"Derived environment effect of the velar and uvular voicing restriction in Kazakh."

Nicholas Rolle (MA 2010, now at Princeton University):

"The scope of dominant grammatical tone in Izon."

Shay Hucklebridge (MA 2016, now at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst):

"Slave coalescence as gradual coda reduction."

There is also an associated pedagogy workshop, 'Teaching Phonology: The State of the Art', taking place on the 22nd. Christina Bjorndahl (MA 2008, now at Carnegie Mellon University) and colleague Mark Gibson (Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona) are presenting "Laboratory phonology in the classroom."

Congratulations, Barend!

Congratulations to Barend Beekhuizen (faculty), who is the recipient of a Connaught New Researcher Award for 2019-2020 from the U of T's Connaught Fund!

SCULC 10

The tenth annual Southern California Undergraduate Linguistics Conference (SCULC 10) is taking place at the University of California, Los Angeles, on May 18. Several of our undergraduates will be presenting!

Kristen Wing Yan Wong (BA):
"Sound symbolism of gender in Cantonese first names."

Andrea Michelle Leung (BA):
"The effect of visual integration of pitch contour in Mandarin tone perception."

Stephanie Deschamps (BA) and Shanthos Thirunavukkarasu (BA):
"Cross-modal noise compensation in audiovisual words."

Parameters Workshop in Honour of Lisa Travis

The Department of Linguistics at McGill University is holding a workshop on May 17 and 18 on the theme of syntactic parameters in order to celebrate faculty member Lisa Travis, who is retiring at the end of this academic year.

Julianne Doner (Ph.D.) is presenting:
"How to organize parameters: Accounting for alternations in EPP type

Yining Nie (MA 2015, now at New York University) is also presenting:
"Applicatives and the parameters of promotion."

Chicago Linguistic Society 2019

The 55th annual meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society is meeting at the University of Chicago from May 16 through 18.

Aleksei Nazarov (faculty) and Shay Hucklebridge (MA 2016, now at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst) are both part of a large group project with their University of Massachusetts, Amherst colleagues Brandon Prickett, Kaden Holladay, Rajesh Bhatt, Gaja Jarosz, Kyle Johnson, and Joe Pater: "Learning syntactic parameters gradually and without triggers."

Research Groups: Week of May 13-17

Wednesday, May 15, 11:00 AM-1:00 PM in SS 560A
Syntax Group
1. Julianne Doner (Ph.D.): "How to organize parameters: Accounting for alternations in EPP type."
2. Arsalan Kahnemuyipour (faculty) and Sahar Taghipour (Ph.D.): "Hybrid alignment in Laki agreement."

ABRALIN 50

The 50th meeting of the Associação Brasileira de Linguística (ABRALIN 50) took place from May 2 through 9 in Maceió, Brazil. Suzi Lima (faculty) gave a talk: "Oficinas de linguística em comunidades indígenas e pesquisa colaborativa" at the special session 'Languages and peoples threatened: Political impacts of linguistic work' organized by Bruna Franchetto (UFRJ/Museu Nacional). She also co-organized the session 'Complex structures in Brazilian languages' along with Tonjes Veenstra (Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft). (Photos, video, and captions courtesy of Suzi.)

Participants in the symposium 'Complex structures in Brazilian languages'.

Participants in the symposium 'Languages and peoples threatened: Political impacts of linguistic work'.

Brazilian languages specialists: Kris Stenzel (UFRJ), Ana Vilacy Galucio (Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi), Suzi Lima (faculty), Mara Santos (UNIFAP), Bruna Franchetto (UFRJ/Museu Nacional), Denny Moore (Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi), and Luciana Storto (USP).

Suzi celebrated her birthday with her colleagues in Brazil and reports that she had a fabulous time!

WSCLA 24

The 24th Workshop on the Structure and Constituency of the Languages of the Americas is taking place from May 9 through 11 at the University of Maryland. We are represented by presentations by one faculty member and a number of alumni, all on different indigenous languages of North and South America.

Guillaume Thomas (faculty):
"Switch-reference and discourse anaphora."

Will Oxford (Ph.D. 2014, now at the University of Manitoba)
"The Algonquian inverse: What’s voice got to do with it?"

Michael Barrie (Ph.D. 2006, now at Sogang University)
"Cayuga and Contiguity Theory: The role of default agreement."

Shay Hucklebridge (MA 2016, now at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst):
"Associative plural in two Northern Dene languages."

Michelle Yuan (MA 2013, now at the University of Chicago):
"The morphosyntax of participle-incorporating existentials in Inuktitut."