Possible Seminar Topics 2024-2025

The following is a list of possible seminar topics for 2024-2-25. That is, each item below represents a different seminar topic. I need to choose one of them.

1.

Quotative Inversion

We will begin the semester reviewing the literature on quotative inversion written in the wake of Collins and Branigan (1997). We will try to systematically enumerate all known syntactic properties of quotative inversion in English. We will then develop a more modern account based on remnant movement and smuggling. Connections to related phenomena, such as locative inversion and subject-object inversion in Bantu, will be explored. Students will be encouraged to look at quotative inversion cross-linguistically for course papers and presentations.

2.

Merge, MERGE and Workspaces.

Recent work on the foundations of minimalism, by Chomsky and others, has focused on the role of the workspace in syntactic derivations. In this seminar, we will review work on workspaces, starting with Collins and Stabler 2016. We will evaluate Chomsky’s arguments for MERGE over Merge. Emphasis will be on developing empirical predictions of the various theoretical formulations. Depending on the interest of the students, other possible topics may include labelling and copies versus repetitions.

3.

Morphology as Syntax: Spelling out Syntactic Structure

In this seminar, we will review various proposals in the morphology literature for spelling out syntactic structure, including proposals based on spans, DM (Vocabulary Insertion), Nanosyntax and MaS (Collins and Kayne 2023). We will discuss the theoretical foundations of each of these approaches. Then we will present various case studies from the literature, and compare them.

4.

Topics in Argument Structure

The purpose of this seminar will be to investigate a small range of topics (e.g., adjectival passives, unaccusatives) from the perspective the Merge-based approach to argument structure developed in Collins 2023 (see also Collins 2005). In the first two weeks, we will review the main results of Collins 2023, and then quickly branch off into unknown territory. The topics investigated will be decided jointly by the participants in the seminar.

Reply by Kenneth Wexler ("On Realizing External Arguments")

The following post is a reply by Prof. Kenneth Wexler to Chris Collins' blog post reviewing Koring et. al. ("On Realizing External Arguments", Linguistic Inquiry, forthcoming).

The article is found here:

Koring et. al. ("On Realizing External Arguments")

The review is found here:

Review of Koring et. al. (forthcoming)

Review of "On Realizing External Arguments" by Koring et. al. (to appear, Linguistic Inquiry)

Review of “On Realizing External Arguments: A syntactic and implicature theory of the disjointness effect for passives in adult and child grammar” by Loes Koring, Eric Reuland, Nina Sangers and Ken Wexler. (to appear, Linguistic Inquiry)

(https://direct.mit.edu/ling/article-abstract/doi/10.1162/ling_a_00520/117701/On-Realizing-External-Arguments-A-Syntactic-and?redirectedFrom=fulltext)

Summer Reading 2023

Continuing with the tradition I started last summer, I post my summer reading for 2023. These books cover roughly the time period between June 1, 2023, and August 31, 2023. If anybody wants to discuss these books with me, let me know.

How to Syntax 1 (the now that-Construction)

This is the first of a series of blog posts showing how I think about a syntax problem when I first notice it. I will occasionally choose phenomena that I notice, and talk about them in an informal fashion, breaking down the process of preliminary syntactic exploration. That is, I am just thinking off the top of my head (brainstorming), with few or no revisions. The focus of the discussion will be on process. I am not trying to come up with a polished analysis. Of course, if people suggest references for me to look at, I will look at them later, but that would be a second stage of thought, not the preliminary exploration.

Summer 2023 Fieldwork by the Numbers

During June and July of 2023, we (Olivia and I) did fieldwork on Cua, an endangered central Khoisan language spoken in southeastern Botswana. We did the fieldwork in Gaborone (one week) and Diphuduhudu (one month). The goals were to finish a rough draft of the grammatical sketch, bring the number of lexical entries up to at least 1,000, and to continue working on oral texts. We were successful in these goals.

MaS3 (Morphology as Syntax 3)

 Morphology as Syntax 3

LinguistList Announcement

Short Title: MaS3

Date: 15-Sep-2023 - 16-Sep-2023

Location: Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada

Contact: Tom Leu

Contact Email: leu.thomas@uqam.ca

Linguistic Field(s): Linguistic Theories

Meeting Description:

The purpose of this workshop is to investigate the relationship between morphology and syntax, and in particular to investigate the extent to which morphological generalizations can be accounted for in terms of purely syntactic operations and conditions. Can morphology and syntax be unified under purely Merge based theories with the same principles? If so, what does this tell us about the type of syntactic theory we should pursue?

Invited speakers (in alphabetical order):

Léna Baunaz (University of Geneva)

Vicki Carstens (University of Connecticut)

James Crippen (McGill University)

Peter Kondwandi Msaka (University of Malawi)

Neil Myler (Boston University)

Sandhya Sundaresan (SUNY Stony Brook)

Peter Svenonius (University of Tromsø)