MUMM 1
The first meeting of MUMM (The MIT-UMass Meeting in Phonology) is
taking place this Saturday, May 6, in the Stata Center (Building 32,
D461), from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm.
| 11:00-11:45 |
Michael Becker (UMass Amherst) |
Tone licensing and categorical alignment in Serbo-Croatian |
| 12:00-12:45 |
Gillian Gallagher (MIT) |
Coalescence and marked faithfulness in West Greenlandic |
| 1:00-2:00 |
lunch (some bagels and beverage will be provided) |
| 2:00-2:45 |
Shigeto Kawahara (UMass Amherst) |
Half rhymes in Japanese rap songs |
| 3:00-3:45 |
David Hill (MIT) |
Variable obstruent-liquid syllabification inLatin |
| 4:00-4:45 |
Matt Wolf (UMass Amherst) |
Morphologically-governed labialization in Chaha: A challenge to anti- faithfulness |
| 5:00-5:45 |
Sunny Kim (MIT) |
On initial devoicing in Korean |
| 6-??? |
interested participants go out to dinner to one or more local dives |
[Thanks John!]
A Warm Thanks from Sarah
Here I am standing next to just some of the flowers I received this week. Thank you to all the faculty and grad students who remembered me on my birthday, Valentine's Day, Christmas and other holidays this past year. Working with such kind, thoughtful and warm-hearted people is a real pleasure. I hope you know how much I appreciate your generosity throughout the year.
Sarah
2006 Graduating Seniors
We're pleased to announce that we have 9 graduating Linguistics Majors this year:
| Paula Aden |
Diana Hennessey |
| Eve Brenner-Alsop |
Patrick Houghton |
| Ginger Buckbee |
John Jackson |
| Robert Chase |
Emily Silgard |
| Jennifer Driscoll |
|
A special part of the End-of-Semester Luncheon (May 19, 12:00, new lounge) will be devoted to honoring this group.
Undergrad Linguistics Club
The Undergrad DARLings meet today (May 4), at 6:30 pm, in SC 301.
Paula Aden will present her recent work on ternary stress. She will
discuss her theory of ternary rhythm in the context of five languages
that exhibit an iterative stress pattern:
Ripura Bangla,
Cayuvava,
Estonian,
Chugach Yupik, and
Winnebago. No prior knowledge of
stress, phonology, or Optimality Theory is assumed. All are welcome.
[Thanks Paula!]
Semantics Reading Group
Today (May 4) is the final meeting of the SRG for this semester. The group will gather at Amy Rose's house at 8:00 pm. Andrew McKenzie is slated to report on his work on quantification in French and other languages. Check out
the abstract below.
The group will also do some planning for the future, by asking:
- What do we want to do in the future? (Perhaps address some of the puzzles for Krifka.)
- Who would we like to invite for future semantics colloqs?
Continue reading "Semantics Reading Group" »
Syntax Reading Group
The Syntax Reading Group meets today at 4:30, for a brief discussion of who to nominate for colloqs for next year. Things will probably wrap up at about 5:00 pm.
[Thanks Cherlon!]
Proceedings of NELS 35 Now Available
The Proceedings of NELS 35 are now available from BookSurge:
Leah Bateman and Cherlon Ussery, eds. 2006. Proceedings of the Thirty-Fifth Annual
Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society: Volume 1 [$18.99] and Volume 2 [$20.99]
Many thanks to Leah and Cherlon for editing, and to Jan for resolving a daunting succession of font problems.
[Thanks Matt!]
HUMDRUM Photo: Another PARTEE
There was yet another PARTEE license plate sighting. Like the last one, this one happened on the way back from HUMDRUM. Karen Jesney sent in the new one:
And long-time WHISC readers might remember this one, which was spotted by
Kathryn Flack,
Michael Becker,
Shigeto Kawahara,
Tim Beechey,
just before a toll at the GW Bridge:
[Thanks Karen!]
WCCFL Photo
Much of the UMass Amherst crowd at WCCFL 25 this past weekend: Jan, Ilaria, Marcin, Anne-Michelle, Ania, Alexandra Teodorescu (UT Austin), and Kylito.
[Thanks Ilaria!]
South College in Olden Days When there were Horses
Kathy found some wonderful old photos of South College, inside and out, at the DuBois Library's website:
News from Barbara and Volodja
Barbara and Volodja are as busy as ever.
On April 3, they gave a departmental colloquium at the University of Canterbury: 'Puzzles of predicate possessives'.
On May 9, Barbara will give a colloquium in the Philosophy Department at Canterbury: 'Negation and intensionality: A puzzle in the logic of natural language revised'. That's a revised and updated version of her Smith talk.
Finally (for this month), on May 18, Barbara and Volodja will visit Victoria University of Wellington, for a Linguistics Deptartment colloquium called 'The semantics of Russian genitive of negation: The nature and role of perspectival Structure'.
Barbara also sends news of her extra-curricular adventures, the latest with
Morriss and Sean and David and Carol, who came over from the US, and indulging in hot springs and wine-tasting and bird-watching and exotic-tree-identifying
And I must close with a shocking confession: next Wednesday I have cancelled my class because we ran into a recursive conflict with air and boat schedules while trying to book an overnight cruise in Doubtful Sound in Fiordland (a spectacular part of South Island), and given a choice between (a) not going on that cruise at all and forfeiting the cost of our non-refundable airplane tickets, and (b) cancelling class [!], I asked my department head if cancelling class was thinkable and she said it was so I did! And then we had some discussion in class of various words for "playing hooky" (in the North Island it's 'wagging' and in the South Island it's 'bunking', if I remember right). First time in my life I've done it! Well, better late than never!
[Thanks Barbara!]
Between 40 and 60 Puzzles for Krifka
There's a new and novel festschrift for Manfred Krifka on the Net:
Between 40 and 60 Puzzles for Krifka
[Thanks semantics etc.!]
