Week of Oct 14
Svenonius in the Harvard Linguistics Colloquium Talk Series
The second talk in the Harvard Linguistics Colloquium Talk Series was given by Peter Svenonius (University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway) on Friday Oct 11th. The title of the talk was 'Cyclic spell-out and biclausal words'. Thanks so much for giving such a wonderful talk, Peter!
GSAS Indo-European & Historical Linguistics Workshop
The second GSAS Indo-European & Historical Linguistics Workshop talk this semester will take place this Friday! Spiridon-Iosif Capotos will be presenting research on Friday October 18 @ 5 PM in Boylston 335. The talk will be followed by a small reception. Please find all details below.
Speaker: Spiridon-Iosif Capotos (Boston University)
Time: Friday October 18 @ 5 PM
Location: Boylston 335 (Linguistics department, third floor)
Title: "Odysseus’s Gandharva marriage and Sanskrit heroines: (Reversed) gender roles in traditional epic"
Abstract: In this paper I will explore the thorny issue of the nature of Odysseus’s captivity in Ogygia and of his relationship to Calypso (lover, master, sexual servant?) by looking at comparable passages from the Sanskrit epic tradition, especially the Mahābhārata. I will depart from some of the acquisitions of Gresseth’s (1979) influential article on the narrative structure of the Odyssey and the Nalopakhyana, as expanded and corrected in more recent works and especially in Jamison’s articles on the shared Greco-Aryan motifs. The focus will be on the representation of gender roles in traditional “return stories” and “chastity motifs” of Indic epic connected to the “heroic institution” of the Gāndharva marriage such as those of Damayantī, Sītā, and Sukanyā, as extensively portrayed in the Vana Parva. Within the corpus of ancient Greek epic, the Hymn to Demeter and the reverse similes of the Odyssey will also provide important comparative material for the Ogygia episode (cf. Crane 1988). My aim will be that of reconstructing the archetypical narrative functions attributed to hero and heroine in episodes about bereft lovers and often immortal suitors, in order to underline the differences and peculiarities of the two traditions. From the systematic comparisons of the Sanskrit and Greek episodes, a paradoxical Odysseus will emerge: one who has more in common with the cunning and faithful female figures of Indic epic (see Jamison 1996), and with Penelope, than with their male counterparts (cf. however Purūravas in RV 10.95). I suggest that Odysseus and Penelope share in the Odyssey inherited formulaic vocabulary normally assigned to the lovers “in separation”. The results will shed more light on the Calypso episode and on the overarching structure of the Homeric poem which seems to revolve even more than previously observed around the like-mindedness and interchangeable role of husband and wife. A leading narrative thread which we can appreciate at a linguistic, thematic, and structural level in the poem.
LangCog
The next LangCog meeting of the semester will be on Tuesday, October 15th from 5:30-7:00pm! It will take place in William James Hall, Room #1550. Our speaker next week is Simge Topaloglu (Harvard), and the title and abstract of her talk can be found below. Food will be available at the meeting, and you can find the schedule for the remainder of the semester on their website.
Title: Number Sense and Number Nonsense: Children's Understanding of the Structure of Number Words
Abstract: Counting constitutes an important learning milestone for young children (Geary et al., 1992; Gelman & Gallistel, 1978). Counting fluency and a conceptual and procedural knowledge of counting in kindergarten have also been found to be correlated with math achievement in the elementary school years, as children tend to solve some arithmetic problems (e.g., simple addition) by leveraging their knowledge of the count list (Siegler & Shrager, 1984; Duncan et al., 2007).
One aspect of the count list that may influence counting fluency and the ease with which young children learn numbers is the morphological regularities in the composition of the number words. For instance, in English, the number words between 20-99 are a combination of a decade (X-ty) and a single-digit number. The numbers between two decades always follow the X-ty + {one,..., nine} structure and while the decades do not perfectly reflect the underlying Base-10 logic, they always end in the suffix {-ty}. Can children make abstract generalizations about the way English number words are generated by utilizing these cues? If so, does this abstraction correlate with their counting fluency and their understanding of how the count list implements the counting procedure?
In this talk, I will report on the findings of a study that tested 105 5-to-6-year-old English-speaking children on their (1) verbal counting ability, (2) their understanding of the relationship between the count list and set size changes, and (3) the structure and organization of the count list. The latter two were tested using both real and novel number words, to see whether the children had an abstract, generalized knowledge of the number word patterns, which they could then use to generate hitherto-unheard-of number words to describe new quantities.
Halloween Social
There will be a very SPOOKY and very FUN department HALLOWEEN PARTY on October 31! Please make sure that you have added this event to your calendar and recall that costumes are highly encouraged!
To reiterate the details again:
WHAT: department Halloween party with costume contest
WHEN: Thursday October 31 @ 5pm
WHERE: Boylston Hall, 3rd floor
WHY: fun!