The primary aim of LFRG is to give you an opportunity to have informal discussions of your own and other people's ideas without having to worry about saying something wrong. Thus, practice talks and presentations of works in progress (or in regress) or papers that you find interesting are especially welcome.
The range of possible topics include semantics, syntax, their interface, and whatnot having a connection to either syntax or semantics. The idea is that a lot of research does not fit into the straight jacket of a narrow area - though it is by no means required to have any interdisciplinary interests to attend LFRG.
Meetings this semester are:
Fridays from 11:30-1pm in 32-D461
Please see schedule for more details.
There are basically four main kinds of meetings: 1) presentations of one's own work, including in progress and in regress; 2) a genuine reading group meeting: everyone reads, or at least browses, some interesting paper, and we discuss it; 3) a tutorial-like meeting where the persons in charge tell everyone something about not so widely known things - like cool experimental techniques, math tools, new empirical results, etc., and then optionally people say what they think about that; and 4) brainstorming sessions: the persons in charge provide a topic and the necessary background, and the point is to generate some ideas about what one can do about the topic.
Meetings and changes in the schedule are announced here and by email to interested people. If you want to receive the email announcements, want to be in charge of a meeting, or have any other comments about the Syntax-Semantics Reading Group, email Mia Nussbaum or Edwin Howard. An incomplete list of previous meetings: Fall 2012 Spring 2012 Fall 2011 Spring 2011 Fall 2010 Spring 2010 Fall 2009, Spring 2009, Fall 2008, Spring 2008, Fall 2007, Spring 2007, Fall 2006.
Claiming an LFRG slot is not scary at all - so don't hesitate to do that!
Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine and Isaac Gould
"Domain Readings of Japanese Head Internal Relative Clauses"
Practice talk for WCCFL 31
The structure and interpretation of Head-Internal Relative Clauses (HIRC) differ from head-external variants, and these differences are not yet well understood. We present a study of the interpretation of Japanese HIRC with quantificational heads, and show novel evidence that the HIRC corresponds to the domain of the quantifier, rather than its witness set. We propose that HIRC denote the maximally informative set which can be the domain of the HIRCís head quantifier. Sources of inter-speaker variation will also be discussed.
Ayaka Sugawara, presenting work in collaboration with Martin Hackl, Su Lin Blodgett (Wellesley college), and Ken Wexler.
"Scalar Presupposition and the Generation of Alternatives in the Acquisition of Only"
This talk presents a novel account of a curious and ill understood phenomenon of L1-Acquisition concerning only (Crain et al. 1992, 1994 a.o.). Our account is based on the assumption that only always triggers a scalar presupposition (in addition to presupposing the prejacent) as well as on Fox & Katzirís (2011) mechanism for generating the set of alternatives relevant for the interpretation of only. In support, we present new data from ongoing experiments indicating that the factors identified by our account modulate childrenís success in interpreting sentences with only.
Paolo Santorio (University of Leeds)
"Exhaustified Counterfactuals"
Wataru Uegaki
"Question-answer congruence and (non-)exhaustivity"
Ciro Greco (University of Milan-Bicocca)
Date/Time: Wed 24 April, 11:30 am (note special time!)
Location: 32-D831 (note special location!)
“Are subject islands just subject islands? Experimental evidence from Italian”
Edwin Howard
"Superlative Degree Clauses: evidence from NPI licensing"
Practice talk for SALT 23, abstract here: http://babel.ucsc.edu/lrc/events/salt/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Howard_Superlative_Degree_Clauses.pdf
