Talk by Nelli Kerezova (GU) in the Syntax Colloquium

by Anke Himmelreich Comment Closed
We are happy to announce a talk by Nelli Kerezova (GU) in the Syntax Colloquium. The talks will take place in person. Room IG 4.301 Date: November 20, 2023 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Title: "Indefinite null objects in European Portuguese” Abstract: Indefinite null objects in European Portuguese The work of Keller and Lapata (1998) is fundamental for the discussion of indefinite null objects. They argue that languages like Greek permit object omission when the omitted objects take a referent with a kind interpretation and are not anaphorically linked to it. Their framework introduces a rule for such languages: an object pronoun must be overt when introducing an object-anaphor but can be omitted when introducing a kind-anaphor. Furthermore, it predicts that certain languages may exhibit the reverse pattern to Greek, where the object pronoun is overt when introducing a kind-anaphor and can be omitted when introducing an object-anaphor. Brazilian Portuguese aligns with this pattern, providing empirical support for Keller and Lapata's theory. However, European Portuguese...
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Talk by Andrew Murphy (Universität Potsdam) in the Syntax Colloquium

by Anke Himmelreich Comment Closed
We are happy to announce a talk by Andrew Murphy (Universität Potsdam) in the Syntax Colloquium. The talks will take place in person. Room IG 4.301 Date: November 13, 2023 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Title: "Case-Conditioned Allomorphy in Bidhaawyeet” Abstract: Case-Conditioned Allomorphy in Bidhaawyeet Much previous work on contextual allomorphy has focused on the question of locality: How structurally distant may the target and trigger of a 'special form' (or allomorph) be? A claim that emerges from Bobaljik's (2012) seminal study of suppletion in comparative constructions is that the complex word (maximal X0) is the delimiting domain for allomorphy. This is motivated by the absence of root suppletion in periphrastic comparatives. This claim has proven controversial, however, as it has been argued that this domain is insufficient for allomorphy that is apparently conditioned by an argument (Toosarvandani 2016; Bobaljik & Harley 2017; Weisser 2019). In this talk, we present novel data from the Cushitic language Bidhaawyeet (also known as Beja), spoken in Sudan, Egypt and...
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***ONLINE*** Talk by Maximilian Berthold (Frankfurt) in the Semantics Colloquium

by Lennart Fritzsche Comment Closed
*** The talk is now taking place virtually via Zoom. Please contact Lennart Fritzsche <fritzsche@em.uni-frankfurt.de> for the link. *** We are happy to announce a talk by Maximilian Berthold (Frankfurt) in the Semantics Colloquium. The talk will take place on campus in IG 4.301. Title: On nominal tense and aspect Date: November 16, 2023 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Abstract: Nominals contribute temporal information which may be independent from that of the verb phrase. Some languages, such as Paraguayan Guaraní, offer an inventory of morphological markers on argument nouns which encode a temporal meaning that affect the temporal interpretation of the noun phrase with which they appear. This gives rise to the question whether there are instances of tense or aspect within the nominal domain. Previous research states that nominal aspect markers exist in Paraguayan Guaraní as well as English; although, the degree of grammaticalization varies between the languages. In contrast, it has been claimed that, to date, no reliable evidence for the existence of a nominal tense...
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Talk by Nina Adam (Uni Potsdam) in the Historical Linguistics Colloquium

by Melanie Hobich Comment Closed
We are happy to announce a talk by Nina Adam (Uni Potsdam) in the Historical Linguistics Colloquium. The talk will be in German. Date: Tuesday, November 14, 2023 Room: IG 2.301 Time: 2 pm – 4 pm ct Title: "Typische VO- und OV-Sprachen und die Rolle des Subjekts ” Abstract: Untersuchungen zu Korrelaten der Grundordnung von Objekt und Verb werden diskutiert, seit Greenberg (1963) feststellte, dass die Reihenfolge von Kopf und Dependent über verschiedene Phrasentypen hinweg tendenziell einheitlich ist (Biberauer & Sheehan 2013). Weiterführende Studien haben dann gezeigt, dass es auch Korrelationen mit der VO/OV-Dichotomie gibt, die nicht durch eine harmonische Kopf-Dependent-Abfolge beschrieben werden können. So wurde z.B. für die Alignment-Typologie festgestellt, dass OV-Sprachen eher overte Kasusmarkierung aufweisen (Sinnemäki 2010). Dabei handelt es sich um eine Oberflächeneigenschaft, die durch Sichtung einer großen Menge typologisch unterschiedlicher Sprachen bestimmt werden kann. Im Gegensatz dazu lassen sich andere potentielle Korrelate nur durch eingehende Analyse bestätigen: Z.B. schlägt Haider (2013) vor, dass SVO-Sprachen eine obligatorische strukturelle Subjektposition (EPP) aufweisen, die OV-Sprachen nicht...
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