Talk by Zorica Puškar-Gallien (ZAS Berlin) in the Syntax Colloquium

We are happy to announce a talk by Zorica Puškar-Gallien (ZAS Berlin) in the Syntax Colloquium. The talk will take place on campus in IG 4.301. Titles: On the theoretical and empirical challenges of multiple agreement with subjects and objects Date: October 24 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Abstract: This talk will focus on languages in which a finite verb agrees with the subject (S) and object (O), and in which O-agreement is argued to be conducted by a head high in the syntactic structure, such as T/Infl. Of particular interest are the verbal morphological templates in which O-agreement is realised by affixes closer to the verbal stem than S-affixes (Hungarian, Trommer 2003, E Kiss 2019; Tundra Nenets, Nikolaeva 2014; Khanty, Mansi, Mordvin, E Kiss 2019, Quechuan, Myler 2017, Nez Perce Deal 2017). Under Mirror Principle, this indicates that O-agreement applies before S-agreement, which is problematic for the standard Minimalist view of agreement, under which the subject should act as an intervener. The puzzle will...
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Talk by Julien Foglietti (Frankfurt)

We are happy to announce a talk by Julien Foglietti (Frankfurt) in the Semantics Colloquium. The talk will take place on campus in IG 4.301. Title:The first name/last name asymmetry – Observations and Experimental investigation Date: July 14 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Abstract: In my research I adopt the assumption that proper names are no different than common nouns. This assumption bears the name predicativism in the literature on proper names. For predicativists, proper names enter the syntax as property denoting expressions (Geurts 1997, Fara 2015, Matushansky 2008) (e.g. ⟦NPJohn⟧ = λxe. x is called John) and they get their referential interpretation by combining with covert elements. I believe that predicativism can provide potential insight into the way in which proper names interact with determiners in some languages, and into the structure of complex proper names and of proper names below the word level. The focus of this presentation will be to present some observations related to complex proper names (i.e., full names) and to propose an experiment to...
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Talk by Max Berthold (Frankfurt)

We are happy to announce a talk by Max Berthold (Frankfurt) in the Semantics Colloquium. The talk will take place on campus in IG 4.301. Title: On Eventive Nouns Date: July 7 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Abstract: Nominals contribute temporal information to the utterance. This information may or may not be independent from the verbal predication time denoted by the matrix verb with which the nominal appears. Available theories in semantic literature establish the parameters that govern the nominal predication time: the type of determiner, the tense on the verb, or the context. While this covers most of the empirical landscape, there are examples that have been unaccounted for. In this talk, I will advocate for an extension to the existing theories which aims to capture the lexical temporal properties of nouns. I will argue that nouns separate into two classes: eventive and state nouns. Eventive nouns are characterized by having a hidden event argument that can be anaphoric to contextually supplied events. This allows us to explain...
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Talk by Anna Volodina (IDS Mannheim)

We are happy to announce a talk by Anna Volodina (IDS Mannheim) in the Historical Linguistics Colloquium. The talk will take place in IG 2.201. It will be held in German. Title: Sprachgebrauch vs. Sprachbewusstsein: Genus und Sexus in Fragen und Antworten  Date: Friday, July 8 Time: 10-12 c.t. Location: IG 2.201   If you want to participate via Zoom, please register via email to Melanie Hobich at hobich AT lingua.uni-frankfurt.de.   Abstract: pdf  ...
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Two talks by Melissa Jeckel (Frankfurt) and Nelly Kerezova (Frankfurt) in the Syntax Colloquium.

We are happy to announce two talks by Melissa Jeckel (Frankfurt) and Nelly Kerezova (Frankfurt) in the Syntax Colloquium. The talk will take place on campus in IG 4.301. Titles: Towards a unifying analysis for (varieties of) the Person-Case-Constraint (Melissa Jeckel)             Factors for null object resolution in European Portuguese. (Nelly Kerezova) Date: July 04 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Abstract: Jeckel: Towards a unifying analysis for (varieties of) the Person-Case-Constraint In this talk I present the mechanics and typology of the Person-Case-Constraint (PCC). The PCC is a phenomenon that occurs in many languages that are genetically unrelated, for instance Spanish, Classic Arabic, Shambala, Maltese, Basque, Greek, Southern Tiwa and many more. The restriction of the PCC is given in (1) and illustrated in (2). (1) (Strong) PCC (Bonet, 1991: 182) In a combination of a phonologically weak direct and indirect object, the direct object has to be third person. (2) Je le/*te lui ai présenté.     I  3.SG.ACC/*2.SG.ACC 3.SG.DAT have introduced     'I introduced him /*you...
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