From Alex Williams:
Hello Fellow Linguists, In case you haven’t heard, the Linguistics Program is currently in the process of hiring two new professors. There is about to be a series of lectures from finalists for the position, and the Linguistics Program is asking undergraduates to attend this series of lectures so we can provide valuable feedback that will be used in the hiring process of these candidates! Now is the time for us to let the Linguistics Program hear our voice! There will also be a set of special meetings, at which we can meet the candidates and get to know them a little better. We hope to see you at as many of the events as possible and that you are able to provide the administration of Linguistics Program with some useful feedback! Below are descriptions of the upcoming lectures and the times for the individual meetings. 1. Neil Myler, PhD Candidate, NYU https://sites.google.com/site/neilmylerlinguist/ Monday, February 3, 5:15-6:45 PM, KCB 101. "Crack words, and you crack grammar: what morphology has to teach us about the language faculty" In this talk, I will use data from English, Quechua, and other languages to argue that morphology is not an independent component of the grammar. Instead, the phenomena we call ‘morphology’ emerge partly from syntax, partly from phonology, and partly from the interaction between these two. Far from belittling the importance of morphology as a subfield, I will show that this viewpoint places the study of morphology in a privileged position. Since the phenomena of morphology emerge from the interaction of different subcomponents of grammar, it follows that morphology has more to teach us about how these subcomponents fit together than any other subfield. 2. Laura McPherson, PhD Candidate, UCLA http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/grads/McPherson/Laura_McPhersons_Home... Thursday, February 6, 5:15-6:45 PM, in KCB 101. "Variable vowel harmony in Tommo So verbal morphology" This talk probes the question of morphological distance -- what makes a suffix an "outer" suffix, and how fine-grained can such distinctions be? I focus on the test case of Tommo So (Dogon, Mali) derivational verb morphology, which shows an interesting interaction with vowel harmony. Tommo So has three vowel harmony processes (Low, Backness, ATR) that may optionally apply to a stem or a stem+suffix combination. Suffixes on verbs appear in a strict linear order, which can be used to establish a hierarchy of "morphological distance" from the stem. This 7-step hierarchy is respected by all three vowel harmony processes, such that they apply with decreasing frequency moving away from the stem. If we plot these application rates across morphological structure, we find that the data form sigmoid, or S-shaped, curves. In this talk, I first give a description of vowel harmony rules and demonstrate how they derive allomorphs of each suffix. I then discuss similar cases in the literature, before suggesting an analysis with weighted constraints that predicts the S-shaped curves found in the Tommo So data. In sum, this talk supports the idea of a highly textured morphology and explores ways in which the phonology responds to that complexity. 3. Mark Norris, PhD Candidate, UC Santa Cruz http://people.ucsc.edu/~mnorris/ Monday, February 10, 5:15-6:45 PM, in KCB 101. "Refining the characterization of nominal concord: Evidence from Estonian" This talk is an investigation of what I will call nominal concord -- the kind of agreement seen between nouns and the elements that modify them (e.g., adjectives, demonstratives). Descriptively, nominal concord is often described as various elements "agreeing with the head noun." Theoretically, it has been proposed that nominal concord is in some sense the noun phrase correlate of subject-verb agreement (Baker 2008, Carstens 2000, among others). In this talk, I investigate the behavior of nominal concord in Estonian, ultimately arguing that both views need to be revised. I will propose that apparent "agreement with the head noun" is epiphenomenal and that there are a number of important differences between concord and subject-verb agreement that need to be taken seriously. Instead, I will propose that nominal concord is purely morphological: elements showing concord in Estonian must express case and number for morphological reasons, and they acquire those values from the closest (nominal) phrase that contains them. Time and Place for the Special Meetings for undergraduates to talk with each of the candidates: 1. Monday, February 3, 9:30-10 AM 621 Comm. Ave. room B02 2. Friday, February 7, 9:30-10 AM, 621 Comm. Ave. room B02 3. Monday, February 10, 9:30-10 AM, 621 Comm. Ave. room B02 As soon as possible after *each* visit, please send your comments to carol@bu.edu, so that they can be shared with the search committee. ______ PS If you don't want to receive these messages anymore, please unsubscribe from the mailing list, instructions should be below. THANKS.