Talk by Ahmad Al-Bitar (GU Frankfurt)

by Lennart Fritzsche Comment Closed
We are happy to announce a talk by Ahmad Al-Bitar (GU Frankfurt) at the Semantics Colloquium. Please register beforehand (s.walter@em.uni-frankfurt.de) to receive the access data to zoom on Thursday shortly before the talk starts. Title: 'Average': A unique modifier Date: December 17 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Abstract: The modifier average has interestingly different uses, among which the ‘abstract’ use is the most well-studied. Carlson & Pelletier (2002), Kennedy & Stanley (2009) and Morzycki (2016) provide analyses of the famous example in (1-a). This sentence can be true without there being an individual with the impossible property of having 2.3 children. Hence the naming ‘abstract’. (1) a. The average American has 2.3 children. (Abstract use)       b. The average age of the students is 21. (Abstract use) This use is differentiated from another use called the ‘concrete’ use as in (2). While this use is compatible with both the definite and indefinite articles, the abstract use seems to (always) prefer the definite article; see (3-a) and (3-b). This preference can be unambiguously observed in Arabic...
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Talk by Viola Schmitt (Wien)

by Anke Himmelreich Comment Closed
We are very happy to announce the next talk in our syntax colloquium this term. Viola Schmitt (Wien) will talk about "Distributive conjunctions and plurality — two cross-linguistic asymmetries", presenting joint work with Nina Haslinger (Göttingen), Eva Rosina (Vienna), Magdalena Roszkowski (Budapest) and Valerie Wurm (Vienna). The talk will take place online, please see the information below on how to participate. Title: Distributive conjunctions and plurality — two cross-linguistic asymmetries Time : 14.12.2020, 4pm Place: Zoom (If you are not a regular member of the syntax colloquium and if you would like to listen to this talk, please contact Katharina Hartmann. You will be sent a link / ID to Zoom.) You are all, as always, cordially invited! Abstract: We argue that the conjunctive coordinating morpheme COORD denotes a plurality-forming operation cross-linguistically and across categories. We first present two cross-linguistic generalizations which strongly suggest that the basic meaning of COORD in individual conjunctions (e.g.`Ada and Bea’) is not intersective, as in `classical' analyses of conjunction, but...
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Talk by Kathryn Davidson (Harvard University)

by Lennart Fritzsche Comment Closed
We are happy to announce a talk by Kathryn Davidson (Harvard University) at the Semantics Colloquium. Please register beforehand (s.walter@em.uni-frankfurt.de) to receive the access data to zoom on Thursday shortly before the talk starts. Title: Domain selection and the role of sign language loci Date: December 10 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Abstract: In the study of the formal semantics of sign languages, significant attention has been given to the analysis of sign language loci, or the use of signing space to keep track of discourse referents. Notably, within formal frameworks, sign language loci have been used as evidence in favor of dynamic semantics as a case of overt variable indices, and they also share several properties in common with phi features. In this talk, I will focus on their pragmatic behavior, notably their low frequency in sign language corpora and production studies, and argue that the role of loci in contextual domain selection (for quantification, focus alternatives, and questions) has been overlooked. I will suggest an analysis...
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Talk by Christiane Ulbrich (U Konstanz)

by Anke Himmelreich Comment Closed
We are very happy to announce the next talk in our phonology colloquium this term. Christiane Ulbrich (U Konstanz) will talk about "Speech accommodation in L2" The talk will take place online, on Zoom. Please register beforehand (Kuegler@em.uni-frankfurt.de) to receive the access data to zoom! Christine Ulbrich: Title: Speech accommodation in L2 Time: 09. December 2020, 4 pm ct Abstract: In this talk, I am presenting the results of a series of experiments on speech accommodation to address two issues. (i) Even though research has dealt with such accommodation effects since the 1970s, the mechanisms behind the process(es) are still not very well understood. Some believe that accommodation is a dynamic process that speakers strategically apply to gain social approval and to attain communicational efficiency. Others proposes accommodation to be largely automatic. The question is how these two mechanisms can be observed in non-native speech. In other words, provided that a desire of non-native speakers to archive a high level of intelligibility can be assumed, does...
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Talk by Eva Zimmermann (U Leipzig)

by Anke Himmelreich Comment Closed
Dear colleagues, we are very happy to announce the next talk in our phonology colloquium this term. Eva Zimmermann (U Leipzig) will talk about "Gradient Symbolic Representations and the Typology of Phonological Exceptions". The talk will take place online. Title: Gradient Symbolic Representations and the Typology of Phonological Exceptions Time: 02. December 2020, 4 pm ct Place: Zoom Abstract below: Gradient Symbolic Representations and the Typology of Phonological Exceptions The assumption of Gradient Symbolic Representations that phonological elements can have different degrees of activity (Smolensky and Goldrick, 2016; Rosen, 2016; Zimmermann, 2018, 2019) allows a unified explanation for the typology of phonological exceptions. Exceptional (non)triggers and (non)undergoers of otherwise regular phonological processes are predicted from gradient constraint violations: The activation of a phonological element in an underlying morpheme representation determines 1) how much the element is preserved by faithfulness constraints and 2) how much it is visible for markedness constraints. I argue that this simple mechanism predicts the attested typology of phonological exceptions and that the predictions made...
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