Talk by Sebastian Bredemann, Tuesday 12th, 4-5 pm

We are very happy to announce the next talk in the GK Colloquium, which will take place on Tuesday, February 12, 4 – 5 pm in IG 3.104. Sebastian Bredemann (Goethe University) will present “Phonological agreement”. Abstract: Phonological agreement (PA) is a phenomenon under which agreement is determined by the phonological properties of a noun. Examples are given in (1) and (2) for the language Abuq (Nekitel 1986), where the final segment of the noun determines the agreement marking on adjectives and verbs. The noun almil ‘bird’ in (1) ends on [l] and accordingly the agreement morpheme on the verb and the adjective are realized as [l]. The noun ihiaburuh ‘butterfly’ in (2) has the final consonant [h], and thus the agreement on the verb and the adjective is realized as [h]. The final consonant of the noun can take any form allowed by the phonology in word-final position. Therefore, it must be assumed that noun-final consonants are not the exponents of a...
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Talk by Tom Fritzsche (University of Potsdam), Tuesday 12th, 2-4 pm

We are very happy to announce the next talk in the Recent Trends in Language Acquisition Colloquium, which will take place on Tuesday, February 12, 2 – 4 pm in IG 3.301. Tom Fritzsche will present "Data analysis with linear mixed models: A practical example from language acquisition". Abstract: Linear mixed-effects (LME) models have become the standard in analysing psycholinguistic and psychological data. Compared to t-tests and ANOVAs LME models offer numerous advantages but also require additional attention for specifying a model as each can (and needs to) be tailored to the structure (and the amount) of the data. Advantages and challenges will be discussed using a specific data set: Szendrői et al. (2017). The paper along with the code is available online (links below). The purpose of this presentation is to go through the analysis of this study in R and address questions regarding: - model specification - contrast coding - fixed & random components - factors & continuous predictors - model evaluation and selection - limits...
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Talk by Nancy Kula (U Essex), Wednesday 30, 16-18

We are happy to announce the next talk in the Phonology Colloquium, which will take place on Wednesday, January 30, 4 – 6 pm in IG 4.301. You are all cordially invited. On the interaction of tone and intonation in some Eastern Bantu Languages Nancy C. Kula, University of Essex This talk looks at the implementation and effects of boundary intonational tones in different contexts in four Eastern Bantu languages: Bemba, Shingazidja, Chichewa, and Tumbuka. The goal is to look at the contrast in intonational tone implementation in local and global contexts. Global intonational effects target whole constituents and are good diagnostics for identifying larger prosodic constituents like maximal intonation phrases. Local intonational effects target smaller constituents – minimal and intermediate intonation phrases – embedded within maximal intonation phrases. A key focus will be to establish whether we can identify any emerging areal (Eastern Bantu) features in intonation patterns and specifically whether the punctual versus non-punctual implementation of boundary tones correlate to specific discourse...
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Talk by Horst Lohnstein on January 24th, 4-6 pm

Horst Lohnstein will give a talk in the Semantics Colloqium on January 24th, 4-6 pm in IG 4.301. You are cordially invited! Title: (In-)Finitheit und die Konsequenzen Abstract: Finitheit ist eine grammatische Kategorie, die sich durch die Subkategorien Tempus, Modus und Agr konstituiert. Infinitheit weist diese Subkategorien nicht auf. Entsprechend werden infinite bzw. semi-finite (Imperative) Konstruktionen anders interpretiert als finite. In dem Vortrag geht es um die Charakterisierung selbstständiger Satztypen auf syntaktischer und semantischer Ebene und die entsprechenden flexionsmorphologischen Markierungen. Das Zusammenspiel der verschiedenen Komponenten führt zu einer Theorie der Verbzweit-Stellung und der linken Satzperipherie. Unter evolutionärer Perspektive deuten sich verschiedene Konsequenzen für die Entwicklung der Menschheit an....
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