A New Look for WHISC
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- Workshop on Locating Variability
- NSF Grant to Rajesh Bhatt and Co.
- CHFA Outstanding Teaching Award to John Kingston
- Visioning Grant to Green, Velleman, Roeper, and Selkirk
- Matt Wolf Accepts Georgetown Visiting Assistant Professor Position
- Amy Rose Deal Paper to Appear in Syntax
- Talks by Rajesh Bhatt and Shoichi Takahashi
- Chris Potts at Cornell
- Career Connections Reception
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Other Ling Newsletters
06:14 (2008-04-24)
April 24, 2008
Workshop on Locating Variability
Today (April 24) is the first day of the Workshop on Locating Variability, a three-day workshop sponsored by the Center for the Study of African American Language, the College of Humanities and Fine Arts, and the Linguistics Department. The schedule is posted at the CSAAL website. Here's the description:
Recent trends in linguistic theory have led to increased interest in the role of features and formal grammar in language variation, its expression as dialectal difference, and speakers' choices of forms within dialects. While it is true that research on dialects of English has focused mainly on the impact that social factors have on the use of linguistic constructions, variation in dialects of languages such as Italian, German, Dutch, and Flemish have been productively analyzed using variation models developed within theoretical syntax. This workshop will bring together researchers from the US and abroad for a discussion of the treatment of variation within current formal linguistic theory. Participating researchers will address the following themes:
- The status of linguistic features in grammar and their relation to the way languages and dialects vary
- Intra-speaker variability due to selection of multiple grammars or parameters
- Patterns of variation in language acquisition
Participants:
- David Adger (University of London)
- Sjef Barbiers (The Meertens Institute, KNAW)
- Lisa Green (UMass Amherst)
- Randall Hendrick (UNC - Chapel Hill)
- Alison Henry (University of Ulster)
- Richard Kayne (New York University)
- William Labov (University of Pennsylvania)
- Karen Miller (Calvin College)
- Andrew Nevins (Harvard University)
- Jeffrey Parrott (LANCHART Center, University of Copenhagen)
- Joe Pater (UMass Amherst)
- Thomas Roeper (UMass Amherst)
- Cristina Schmitt (Michigan State University)
- William Snyder (University of Connecticut)
- Joseph Paul Stemberger (University of British Columbia)
- J. Michael Terry (UNC - Chapel Hill)
- Christina Tortora (CUNY (College of Staten Island and The Graduate Center))
- James Walker (York University)
- Jessica White (University of Texas at Austin)
- Charles Yang (University of Pennsylvania)
NSF Grant to Rajesh Bhatt and Co.
Rajesh Bhatt is a Co-PI on a recently-awarded National Science Foundation grant to build a Hindi Treebank. The title of the project is A Multi-Representational and Multi-Layered Treebank for Hindi/Urdu. The team is headed by Martha Palmer and also includes Nianwen Xue and Fei Xia. Congratulations!
CHFA Outstanding Teaching Award to John Kingston
Congratulations to John Kingston, winner of a CHFA Outstanding Teacher Award this year!
Visioning Grant to Green, Velleman, Roeper, and Selkirk
Lisa Green, Shelley Velleman, Tom Roeper, and Lisa Selkirk were awarded a CHFA Visioning Grant. It will fund Tracy Connor to do a project involving AAE and children in
linguistics and communication disorders. Congratulations!
So that makes two Visioning Grants to Linguistics!
Matt Wolf Accepts Georgetown Visiting Assistant Professor Position
Matt Wolf has accepted a Visiting Assistant Professorship at Georgetown. Congratulations, Matt!
Amy Rose Deal Paper to Appear in Syntax
Amy Rose Deal's paper The origin and content of expletives: evidence from "selection" has been accepted for publication in the journal Syntax. Congratulations, Amy Rose!
Talks by Rajesh Bhatt and Shoichi Takahashi
Rajesh Bhatt is newly back from a sort of world tour. He and Shoichi Takahashi gave a joint talk at GLOW 31 on March 31, and he gave a UCLA colloquium based on joint work with Shoichi on April 18. Both talks reported on their ongoing joint work on the variation found in phrasal comparatives focusing on English, Hindi-Urdu, and Japanese.
Chris Potts at Cornell
Chris Potts is giving a talk on expressive content at the Cornell Workshop on Philosophy of Language for Meta-Ethicists, April 26. Sally McConnell-Ginet is the commentator on his paper.
Career Connections Reception
From UG Advisor Rajesh Bhatt:
This evening (April 24), there will be a career related event organized by the College of Humanities and Fine Arts from 3:00 pm-6:00 pm in the Fine Arts Center Lobby. Linguistics will be represented by two of our undergraduate alumni (see below). In addition to meeting these interesting people, you could also win an iPod Touch.
- Dan Bodah, 1999 B.A. magna cum laude, Linguistic Major
- Job Title and description: Law Clerk to Hon. Joan M. Azrack, Magistrate Judge, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York: draft judicial opinions, prepare legal research memos, assist judge with hearings and trials.
- Julia Hanley, May 2004, B.A., Linguistics Major
- Job Title/ Description: Peace Corps Volunteer Leader - Liaison between Peace Corps Kenya staff and volunteers. Provided support for staff and volunteers, including technical, administrative, and counseling support as well as budgeting, managing office staff and conducting volunteer site visits. Assisted in project selection, evaluation and preparation including recommending potential host country organizations.
HUMDRUM April 26
HUMDRUM (the UMass Amherst–Johns Hopkins–Rutgers OT workshop) takes place at Rutgers, April 26. The workshop has a website, but most of the crucial information is being kept under wraps. See Wendell Kimper if you'd like details (or if you just want to know what HUMDRUM stands for).
[Thanks Wendell!]
UUSLAW on May 17
The date for UUSLAW (the UMass Amherst–UConn–Smith Language Acquisition Workshop) is now set for May 17. Tanja Heizmann writes, "it is really informal, so it's a nice platform to discuss experimental ides or interim data!"
[Thanks Tanja!]
Undergrad Linguistics Club
The Undergrad Linguistics Club met yesterday. The meeting included some brainstorming about an end-of-semester bash.
[Thanks Tea!]
Special Lecture by David Adger
David Adger (University of London) gave a special lecture called 'Intrapersonal Variability and Agreement' in Lisa Green and Rajesh Bhatt's Syntactic Variation Seminar yesterday.
[Thanks Rajesh!]
Semantics Reading Group
From Aynat Rubinstein:
SRG meets today (April 24) for a final reading related to the theme of events that has guided us this semester.
The reading: parts of Robert Truswell's 2007 dissertation, Locality of Wh-movement and the Individuation of Events, especially section 3.2.
The place: Jan and Aynat's place, Northampton.
The time: 8:00 pm, Thursday, April 24.
[Thanks Aynat!]
Gillian Gallagher in Phonology Group
Gillian Gallagher (UMass Amherst Linguistics BA; now a PhD candidate at MIT) presented in PhG yesterday (April 23). Her talk was called 'The role of contrast in laryngeal cooccurrence restrictions'.
[Thanks Michael!]
Choose Your Own Career in Linguistics
Jonah Katz on the Virtues of UMass Amherst
Jonah Katz (2003 UMass Amherst BA; now in the Linguistics graduate program at MIT) had a letter published in the Boston Globe on the advantages of choosing UMass Amherst. Thanks for this, Jonah!
[Thanks Lisa S!]
Gennaro Chierchia Reads Aloud from his Dissertation
From his recent Century of Scholarship lecture:
[Thanks Amy Rose!]