# Week of October 28, 2013 October 23, 2013 ### Department of Linguistics Open House Monday, November 4 | 5:15-6:30pm | Boylston Hall 3rd floor The Department of Linguistics Open House will take place next Monday. If you are interested in concentrating in linguistics or simply curious about the field, please come and join us. Refreshments will be served. Sort5:15 Meet & Greet 5:40 Why I chose to concentrate in linguistics (Prof. Jay Jasanoff & members of `14 & `15) 6:00 Concentration tracks in linguistics 6:15 Q&A ### ![logo_universals.png](/sites/g/files/omnuum5001/files/styles/hwp_1_1__100x100_scale/public/linguistics/files/logo_universals_1.png?itok=CKM5kxMv) Universals Reading Group/Polinsky Lab Meeting **Liwen Hou** *Agent Focus in Chuj reflexive constructions* Wednesday, October 30 | 5:15-7pm | Boylston 303 > Two-thirds of Mayan languages make use of an “Agent Focus” (AF) verbal marker, which is generally found in clauses where a transitive subject is focused, questioned, or relativized. Among the languages that have the AF marker, however, there is great variation in where it appears. Based on original fieldwork data, I will present the contexts in which the AF construction is found in the Mayan language Chuj, focusing on two kinds of clauses with reflexive objects, as these clauses form an exception in many Mayan languages. Although the topic of AF in reflexive constructions has been discussed in the literature with respect to various other languages, none of the existing analyses are able to directly account for my observation that Chuj optionally allows AF in both kinds of reflexive clauses. ### ![logo_ie.png](/sites/g/files/omnuum5001/files/styles/hwp_1_1__100x100_scale/public/linguistics/files/logo_ie.png?itok=bWXE-Qs1) GSAS Indo-European and Historical Linguistics Workshop: [Hannes A. Fellner](http://scholar.harvard.edu/fellner) (University of Vienna) [Agree to Disagree: The origin of the Tocharian third gender and its ambigeneric concord](/event/indo-european-hannes-fellner) Friday, November 1 | 4:30pm | Boylston 103 ### MIT Colloquium The referenced media source is missing and needs to be re-embedded. **[Eric Reuland](http://www.uu.nl/gw/medewerkers/EJReuland)** (Utrecht) [Why reflexivity is (not) so special](http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/events/colloquia/) Friday, November 1 | 3:30-5pm | [32-141](http://web.mit.edu/philos/www/32-141.html) ### Department on Facebook and Twitter The Linguistics Department now has an official [Facebook page](http://www.facebook.com/harvardlinguistics) and a [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/harvardling) account. Both pages will be used to share event announcements, news, and photos, including those not shared on Spell-Out. Please LIKE and FOLLOW! For questions and concerns, please contact [Dorothy Ahn](/people/dorothy-ahn). Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#)