Edward Flemming Colloquium
Edward Flemming
MIT
The role of distinctiveness constraints in phonology
Friday, May 12, 3:30 pm, Machmer W-26
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Other Ling Newsletters
04:15 (2006-05-11)
May 11, 2006
Second-Year Miniconference
This year's Second-Year Miniconference will take place on Friday, May 18, from 9:00-12:00. It will probably be on Floor 9 of the Campus Center. Check WHISC next week for the precise and unhedged details.
| 9:00-9:30 | Mike Key | Metrical attraction and Bantu imbrication |
| 9:30-10:00 | Andrew McKenzie | On the attraction of universal quantifiers |
| 10:00-10:30 | Leah Bateman | Sandhi domains in Shanghai Chinese |
| 10:30-11:00 | break | |
| 11:00-11:30 | Cherlon Ussery | Case transmission in Icelandic control |
| 11:30-12:00 | Elena Innes | Learning interacting phonological alternations |
[Thanks Joe!]
End-of-Semester Luncheon: Now in the Math Lounge
The End-of-Semester Luncheon wil take place on Friday, May 19, at 12:30, in the Math Lounge (floor 16 of the Grad Research Center).
Lisa Selkirk writes:
The End-of-Semester Lunch is a time for celebrating the end of a year of hard work and accomplishment, and is especially the time to honor the undergraduate Linguistics majors who are graduating this semester. We urge the graduating seniors to come, and hope that other Linguistics majors be there as well. The faculty will be there, as will the graduate students.
This year the End-of-Semester Lunch will also be the occasion to honor Lee Edwards, who is retiring this year from her position as Dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts. Lee Edwards has been a enthusiastic supporter of the Linguistics Department and we hope she will enjoy the assembled crowd of linguists at this end-of- semester festivity.
Hope to see you there!
Lisa Selkirk
Head of Department
Syntax-Phonology Interface in the Northeast 2
The second SPINE (Syntax-Phonology Interface in the Northeast) will take place on Saturday, May 20, starting at 1:00 pm in the new lounge. The program boasts three young scholars from the Northeast (broadly speaking):
| 1:00-2:15 | Shin Ishihara | Major phrases, focus intontation, multiple spellout |
| 2:30-3:45 | Marjorie Pak | Modelling the structural conditions on two types of phrasal rules |
| 4:00-5:15 | Arsalan Kahnemuyipour | Sentence stress: Phonology or syntax |
The talks will be 45 minutes long, followed by a half hour of discussion and a 15 minute coffee break.
Notes:
- Shin is currently a researcher in the Information Structure Research Program in the Linguistics Department at the University of Potsdam. His PhD is from MIT (2002).
- Marjorie is working on her syntax-phonology interface dissertation at UPenn.
- Arsalan is Assistant Professor in the Linguistics Department at Syracuse. He received his PhD from the University of Toronto in 2004.
[Thanks Lisa!]
Experiment Sign-Up Database Signs up its 1000th Guinea Pig
From John Kingston:
Colleagues,
The 1000th person has signed up!!!
We hit 1000 just now (17.15:01 Thursday 4 May 2006) for the number of people who've signed up to run in experiments for course credit through the experimental sign up database. This began less than two years ago, so it's been a real success. On behalf of all experimenters, I'd like to thank everyone who's been willing to grant course credit to students who participate in experiments, and I'd like to thank Youri for creating the web-based signup procedure we've been using.
John
Undergrad Linguistics Club
The Undergrad DARLings meet today (May 11) at 6:30 pm in South College 301.
In preparation for Edward Flemming's talk on Friday, Lisa Shiozaki will present on contrast and perceptual distinctiveness -- the topic of Flemmings' upcoming colloq and his most recent paper. Lisa will be talking about phonetically-based phonology and discussing the content of his paper with us. The abstract of this paper is available here.
No prior knowledge is assumed, and Lisa will be providing all necessary background to understand the paper.
Phonology Group Yesterday
PhG met yesterday to discuss some work by Gaja Jarosz, who will be our 2006-7 Visiting Professor in Phonology.
Semantics Reading Group: Special Edition [updated with an AMT slideshow]
The SRG is contemplating a special Sunday, May 21, meeting, to celebrate the end of the semester.
From Florian Schwarz:
Dear SRG-people,
once upon a time there was no SRG. There only were poor lonely semanticists sitting in their respective armchairs trying to understand the meaning of things on their own. Occasionally, they would whine about their lonely efforts, and after doing so for quite some time, the whinees were getting sick of all the whining. 'You don't want to face all these lambdas and formulas alone anymore', said one of the whinees, 'so why don't you get together with other poor souls like you and do that stuff together?' But the semanticists were dragging their feet, and wouldn't get anywhere with these plans. So the whinee, not one to turn down any organizational challenges, took things in her own hands, and told the semanticists to come to her house every once in a while to talk about their problems. And, knowing their weaknesses, she wisely provided an additional incentive by offering to serve martinis at these meetings. Thus was the birth of SRG.
Surprising as it may seem, this is not so terribly long ago. Indeed, the woman with the martinis is still amongst us - but just barely; all attempts to lure her into the world of lambdas failed, as she has accepted a phonology job (yes, the woman with the martinis is a phonologist). It therefore has been concluded that a post-ultimate meeting of SRG has to take place to honor the brave efforts of our founder.
I'm slowly coming to the point:
A final meeting for the semester. Maybe Sunday (the 21st)? If you are at all considering joining us for this historical event, could you drop me a line and tell me whether or not you're still around on the 21st?
Florian
PS: The woman with the martinis does like a little semantics to chew on with her martini, so we should come up with suitably light and digestible topics (maybe some of Krifka's puzzles?)
Update from the woman with the martinis
Dear semanticists etc.,
This morning on the way to campus I was informed by Florian that he had spent the previous evening writing what he described "Semantics Reading Group eulogies". It has since come to my attention that what one might term a bonus SRG meeting has been scheduled for Sunday, May 21st, in my very own living room at 3 Hampton ave, apt. #27. I would therefore like to add my two cents to the all-call for this event quickly, before you stop reading any more emails on the subject. (Next slide.)
1. First: reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. I am not actually scheduled to die thus summer; I am merely moving considerably north. Although I can perhaps see the source of the confusion, I assure all concerned SRGers that central Alberta lies this side of the river Styx, and while sometimes it does freeze over in a hell-like way, it can also become very mild for a few weeks during what the locals call "summer". (Next slide.)
2. For anybody keeping track: Semantics Reading Group wasn't really and truly my own original idea... in the sense that it wasn't my idea even a little bit. From what I've been told, it has been around for many years -- just with varying amounts of vigor, cross-talk, and/or liquor. I therefore feel compelled to point out that while history is a little hazy, I am pretty sure that the original anguished whining which Florian evoked so masterfully was in fact a thinly-disguised attempt to make me throw parties, and in fact that some of those long-ago lambda woes were just a sign of people itching for a good semantics brawl. (Next slide.)
3. So, without getting too squishy or sacchrine about the whole thing -- um, I do hope you'll come have one more SRGe, because I honestly think there's a lot of academic merit in sitting around provoking people and plying them with martinis until they try to explain to you what dogtastic* modality is, and the tiny part of me that's a semanticist is very happy to think you'll all keep meeting in the living room and doing this when I am gone (see 1). (Next slide.)
... Very well. As you were. See you soon, see you on the 21st, and special thanks for Florian for arranging my death so well. Yours as usual,
AMT.*Before you write in -- okay, okay, I now know this isn't really the term, but shouldn't it be?