#  Week of September 16, 2013 

 





September 14, 2013

 

 

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

[The MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy](http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/) will hold [M@90](http://m90.mit.edu/), 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](http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/faculty/halle/index.html)**’s 90th birthday.

Professor **[Kevin Ryan](http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~kevinryan/)** 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 observanc](/event/memorial-calvert-watkins)e for **[Calvert Watkins](http://www.pies.ucla.edu/cwatkins.html)**, 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.

- [Harvard Gazette Obituary](http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/03/calvert-watkins-dies-at-80/)
- [Inaugural Whatmough Lecture](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao8GQVUPQj0) on April 19, 2006   
    Calvert Watkins: "The Golden Bowl. Thoughts on the new Sappho and its Asianic Background"

## 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](http://independent.academia.edu/IWoBA), 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](/people/laurence-b-violette)** and **[Alex Klapheke](/people/alex-klapheke)**.



 

 

 



 

 

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