# Week of July 15, 2013 July 04, 2013 ### Congratulations to the Class of 2013! Four doctoral students and twelve undergraduates received degrees from the Department of Linguistics this year. Congratulations, grads! ![fb-commencement-2013-1.jpg](/sites/g/files/omnuum5001/files/styles/hwp_1_1__960x960_scale/public/fb-commencement-2013-1.jpg?itok=QA29yglE) **[Hannes Fellner, Ph.D.](http://scholar.harvard.edu/fellner)**, is a post-doc researcher in the [Department of Linguistics at the University of Vienna](http://linguistik.univie.ac.at/) [](http://linguistik.univie.ac.at/)working on a project entitled '[A Comprehensive Edition of Tocharian Manuscripts](http://www.univie.ac.at/tocharian/)'. He has been busy transliterating, transcribing, and translating Tocharian manuscripts and providing philological and linguistic commentary, in addition to co-organizing the upcoming [Tocharian Texts in Context](http://www.univie.ac.at/tocharian/?conference) conference. Hannes is also working on Tocharian noun morphology, in preparation for publication of the major findings of his thesis ("Studies in Tocharian adjective formation"), and a manuscript on Indo-European compounding. His next major project will be research for his Habilitation thesis, which will center around nominal derivational morphology and its connection to verbal systems in the ancient Indo-European languages. With what time is left, he says, he's enjoying life in Vienna, but adds that this doesn't mean he isn't wholeheartedly missing his friends, colleagues, and teachers at the Harvard linguistics department. **[Hazel Pearson, Ph.D.](https://sites.google.com/site/hazelpearsonling/)**, completed her dissertation, "The Sense of Self: Topics in the Semantics of De Se Expressions" on the semantics of attitude reports, and is now a Research Associate at the Centre for General Linguistics (ZAS) in Berlin. Her research focuses on formal semantics and its interfaces, and draws on both English and cross-linguistic data. She also works in experimental semantics and pragmatics. **[Jacopo Romoli, Ph.D.](http://www.jacoporomoli.com/Home.html)**, is an associate investigator at the [ARC Center of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders](http://www.ccd.edu.au/), Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Australia. He is continuing his research at the semantics/pragmatics interface, strengthening the experimental side in particular by looking at language acquisition. His paper "A scalar implicature-based approach to Neg-raising" will be appearing in the journal Linguistics and Philosophy. **[Andreea Nicolae, Ph.D.](http://people.fas.harvard.edu/~nicolae/Andreea_Nicolae/Home.html)**, will be a College Fellow in the Harvard University Department of Linguistics, where she will teach introductory semantics courses both at the undergraduate and graduate level, in addition to a graduate-level seminar on the semantics of questions based on her dissertation "Any Questions? Polarity as a Window into the Structure of Questions". **Parker Crane, A.B. Raven Fisher, A.B. Ruthe Jane Foushee, A.B. Talia Fox, A.B.,** has been awarded the Benjamin Trustman Fellowship for 2013-2014 and will be heading to Brazil in the fall to study dance in Bahia and do sustainable development work with the government in the Amazonian state of Acre. **Ruth Goins, A.B. Nyamagaga Gondwe, A.B. Christopher Allen Hopper, A.B.,** will be applying to medical school for admission in the Fall of 2014, where will be pursuing a joint MD/MPH. Over the next year, he will continue volunteering at a hospital near his home and also be working for Kaplan preparing high school students for the ACT. **Sam Pokross, A.B.**, has kept busy taking the LSAT since commencement. Starting at the end of June, he will be working as a case assistant in the product liability practice at Foley Hoag, a law firm in the Seaport District in Boston. He plans to live in Cambridge, and hopes to keep in touch with the department. **Gabrielle Tandet, A.B., A.M.,** is working as a consultant at L.E.K. Consulting in Boston. She is moving to the North End with two roommates and is excited to live in another part of the city. She also hopes to continue work on her thesis topic (negation in Chontal Mayan) with her advisor, Maria Polinsky. In addition, she will be coaching for the Harvard Debate Council, Harvard's policy debate team. **Arun Viswanath, A.B.**, will be teaching English with Fulbright in Chennai, India, after graduation. He is also working on several language-related projects, including an online language-learning system for Yiddish, linguistic consulting work, and a [blog on heritage speakers](http://heritagespeaker.wordpress.com/), and hopes to continue this work when he returns to the U.S. **Qingqing Wu, A.B.**, will be joining The Ripples Group in Boston as a consultant, after which she hopes to attend professional or graduate school and eventually end up doing policy work in health care or international relations. **Colin Zwanziger, A.B.**, will be spending a year at the Institute for Logic, Language, and Computation at the University of Amsterdam before going on to pursue a Ph.D. in linguistics at Stanford. He is looking forward to continuing study in the world of linguistics, and coming back to visit the department as much as possible. ![tandet.jpg](/sites/g/files/omnuum5001/files/styles/hwp_1_1__960x960_scale/public/tandet.jpg?itok=qpiYMIVS) Gabrielle Tandet (center) shows off her diplomas. ![grad1.jpg](/sites/g/files/omnuum5001/files/styles/hwp_1_1__960x960_scale/public/grad1.jpg?itok=Gr-BzHkB) Graduates seated in Harvard Yard for Commencement ceremonies. (Photo by Rose Lincoln, Harvard Gazette) ### Keith Plaster at the Heritage Language Research Institute Keith Plaster and collaborator Olesya Kissilev (Portland State University) presented their work at the National Heritage Language Resource Center's [Seventh Heritage Language Research Institute](http://www.nhlrc.ucla.edu/events/institute/2013/) at the University of Illinois at Chicago last month. ![plaster.jpg](/sites/g/files/omnuum5001/files/plaster.jpg) ### Farewell to Departing Visitors The Department of Linguistics has been fortunate to have the following scholars with us for the 2012-2013 academic year: - Prof. **Roberta Pires de Oliveira** (Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianopolis, Brazil) - Senior Lecturer Dr. **George Tsoulas** (University of York) - Research Scientist Dr. **Kazuko Yatsushiro** (ZAS, Berlin) - Prof. **Ju Eun Lee** (Soongsil University, Korea) Farewell to all of you, and we wish you the best! ### Philosophy of Linguistics Reading Group [**Meeting #20**: Newmeyer, 1986. "Has There Been a Chomskyan Revolution in Linguistics?"](http://phil-ling.blogspot.com/2013/07/meeting-20-july-18-2013.html) Thursday, July 18 | 5:30-7pm | Boylston 303 All are welcome! Contact if you have any questions. ### Spell Out Form A static web form is now available for use by members of the department to share information they would like to be posted on Spell-Out. If you have news or announcements you want to share, please fill out the **[Spell-Out Entry Submission Form](https://docs.google.com/a/g.harvard.edu/forms/d/1pPixsa6xkpo2e6coD6xwbAu1VCzsUz32BWWKQS6Sjbo/viewform)**. Unless you specify otherwise, submissions received by the end of working hours on Friday will be reviewed and posted in the following week's issue. If you have any questions, please contact us at . Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#)