LAST REMINDER: Prof. James McCloskey speaks tonight (part of the Geddes lecture series) at 7:30pm in KCB 101. The abstract for this talk is below.
Prof. McCloskey will also be giving a talk tomorrow (sponsored by BULA), the abstract for which is also below.
TODAY (Thursday Apr 8)
"Sex and the Irish Language: The Cultural Politics of Language Attrition"
Lecture by James McCloskey, Professor and Chair of the Linguistics Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
A belief frequently expressed about the Irish language is that 'there are no words for sex in Irish'. This talk considers the veracity of this strange belief, tries to uncover its origins, and uses that exploration as a probe to better understand the mechanisms of language destruction.
A reception follows the presentation. The "Invited Lecture" is sponsored by the James Geddes, Jr. Lecture Series.
Thursday, Apr 8, 2010 7:30pm KCB Auditorium, 565 Commonwealth Avenue (KCB 101)
Open to General Public Admission is free
RSVP at
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=382245611264
TOMORROW (Friday Apr 9)
"Yes, No, and the Construction of Finite Verbs in a VSO Language"
Lecture by James McCloskey, Professor and Chair of the Linguistics Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Irish is one of those languages often said to lack works for 'Yes' and 'No'. Where other languages use such words, Irish instead uses so-called 'responsive forms of the verb'--single word sentences consisting only of an inflected verb. This talk addresses the following two related questions:
1. How does the grammatical device of the 'responsive' relate to the polarity particles (words like 'Yes' and 'No') found in other languages? Put differently, why is it possible to render with these single word sentences what other languages render by means of words like 'Yes' and 'No'?
2. How does this effect relate to, and interact with, the single most famous fact about Irish, namely that it is a Verb-Subject-Object language?
Sponsored by the BU Undergraduate Linguistics Association; event is partially funded by the undergraduate student fee. Admission is free and open to the University community.
Friday, April 9th 2010 3:30pm KCB Auditorium, 565 Commonwealth Avenue (KCB 101)*
RSVP at
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=383231800427
*This event will be in KCB 101 instead of the originally advertised KCB 106, but there will be a person or sign around KCB 106 pointing at KCB 101. So head for either one, you'll wind up in the right place.
YOUR VERY OWN POSTER
The poster advertising both of these events (as seen by the GSU entrance) is here:
http://www.bu.edu/linguistics/UG/McCloskey-lectures.pdf
KEEPING UP WITH FUTURE EVENTS
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Paul Hagstrom