Week of September 16, 2013

MIT to Hold M@90 to celebrate Morris Halle's 90th birthday

The MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy will hold M@90, a 2-day workshop on Friday, September 20 and Saturday, September 21, on the topic of Metrical Structure: Stress, Meter and Textsetting, to celebrate Professor Morris Halle’s 90th birthday.

Professor Kevin Ryan is among the invited speakers, his talk entitled "Against final indifference."

Polinsky Lab Meeting

Ken Mai, Edwin Tsai, Greg Scontras, Masha Polinsky
Scope in Mandarin, Heritage Mandarin and English
Wednesday, September 18 | 5:15pm | Boylston 303

The current study tests the status of Chinese inverse scope by focusing on the interpretations available for sentences where the quantifier 'one/a' scopes over 'every' at surface structure. By comparing the responses from native speakers of Chinese (N=40) and native speakers of English (N=30), we show that Chinese in fact does not allow inverse scope in doubly-quantified sentences(contra Zhou & Gao, 2009). Further, our results 1) suggest that the Chinese prohibition on inverse scope does not straightforwardly emerge from numeral semantics or bi-clausal structure, 2) demonstrate that in English the numeral one competes with the indefinite article a and yields a strong specificity inference, and 3) confirm the permissibility of reconstruction in English relative clauses (cf. Aoun & Li, 2003), therefore providing support for a head-raising analysis of these constructions.

Memorial for Calvert Watkins,Victor H. Thomas Professor of Linguistics and the Classics, Emeritus

There will be a memorial observance for Calvert Watkins, Victor H. Thomas Professor of Linguistics and the Classics, Emeritus, on Friday, October 4, at 2:00 PM in Loeb House, 17 Quincy Street. Professor Watkins, a giant figure in Indo-European linguistics and poetics, was a past president of the Linguistic Society of America and for many years chair of the Department of Linguistics.

Department of Linguistics Fall Reception

All undergraduates, graduates, faculty, and visitors are invited to the Department of Linguistics Fall Reception on Thursday, September 19, 5:00 PM. The reception will take place in Boylston 303, and food and beverages will be provided.

Harvard at IWoBA 2013

Gašper Beguš will be presenting his work "The circumflex advancement in Prekmurje Slovenian and Bednja Kajkavian" at the International Workshop on Balto-Slavic Accentology 9, Juraj Dobrila University, Pula, Croatia, September 19-21.

Circles Colloquium Speakers for the Academic Year

  • October 11: Philippe Schlenker
  • February 28: Mark Hale
  • March 28: Sharon Inkelas (joint event with the MIT Colloquium)
  • April 18: Alec Marantz

Please note that there may be additional speakers (details forthcoming), and the schedule is subject to change. For further information, please contact Laurence B-Violette and Alex Klapheke.

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