From Canada to Guatemala: Connecting Knowledge and People through ICM

We're delighted to feature this posting by guest blogger Ilona Semchuk!

 

The Faculty Club

 A few linguistics profs get out together after a long week and brave the weather to participate in a Linguistics Review Panel. 

Graduation Lunch & Eclipse

 

How often do we have 2 such exciting things on the same day? 

On April 8, about 20 of our amazing undergrads joined us for a delicious lunch, a live feed to astronomical experts sharing their wisdom about eclipses, and we all got to see the sun disappear (behind the moon, behind the clouds, whatever...). 

Congratulations to our undergrads completing their Majors, Minor and Specialist POSts in linguistics!!!

Here are some highlights from the day:

the actual eclipse (Nathan's pic)

a cake eclipse -- watch the chocolate pass over the lemon, then disappear (Naomi's pic)

Nathan rocks his solar glasses

Picture-in-picture (Craig's pic)

And, if that's not enough, here's more from The Bulletin Brief <bulletin.brief@utoronto.ca>:

Skies darkened and temperatures dropped as the solar eclipse swept across U of T’s three campuses Monday, bringing community members together to marvel at the celestial spectacle. See how the day unfolded through the lenses of photographers at the university.

Prof. Naomi Nagy & MA alum Julia Petrosov published in Languages

Congratulations to Prof. Naomi Nagy and former MA student Julia Petrosov who have published a new paper entitled (Heritage) Russian Case Marking: Variation and the Paths of Change in the Journal Languages. The paper adjudicates between conflicting claims regarding the prominence of morphological levelling in Heritage Russian case marking.

We have included the abstract below: 

Russian’s six cases and multiple noun classes make case marking potentially challenging ground for heritage speakers. Indeed, morphological levelling, “probably the best-described feature of language loss”, has been substantiated. One study from 2006 showed that Heritage Russian speakers in the USA produced canonical or prescribed markers for only 13% of preposition+nominal sequences. Conversely, another study from 2020 found that Heritage Russian speakers in Toronto produce a 94% canonical case marker rate in conversational speech. To explore the effects of methodological differences across several studies, the current paper circumscribes the context to preposition+nominal sequences in Heritage Russian speech from the same Toronto corpus as used by the 2020 study but mirroring the domain investigated by Polinsky and including a Homeland comparison to consider changes in both the rates of use of canonical case marking and distributional patterns of non-canonical use. Regression models show more canonical case marking in more frequent words, an independent effect of slightly more mismatch by later generations, but less morphological levelling than reported by Polinsky. Lexicon size does not predict case marking rates as strongly as language usage patterns do, but generation, since immigration, is the best-fitting social predictor. We confirm (small) rate changes in Heritage (vs. Homeland) Russian canonical case marking but not in patterns of levelling.

Congratulations Naomi and Julia!

Congrats Karina!

Congrats to Karina Cheung! 

She presented her research at TULCON and then at Vic's Research Day. For the second, she won the Student Choice Research Award (Voted on by UofT Community) for her paper, "The effects of Heavy-NP Shift on Tagalog Word Order Preferences,"  based on work supervised by Dr. Ivan Bondoc.

Congratulations to Lex Konnelly!

The SGS Awards Committee has selected Lex Konnelly (PhD 2023) as the sole winner of the University of Toronto’s 2024 John Leyerle-CIFAR Prize for Interdisciplinary Research. This award recognizes outstanding doctoral dissertations with a strong emphasis on interdisciplinary research and significant contributions to both the academic community and to Canadian society. Note that the award is open to candidates from all SGS programs, not just Social Sciences and Humanities. Many thanks to Lex for putting Linguistics in the spotlight among all these disciplines!

 

Lex’s dissertation (committee members: Prof. Atiqa Hachimi, Prof. Susan Ehrlich and Prof. Derek Denis) explores the linguistic strategies employed by non-binary patients to negotiate medical expectations while expressing their gender identities authentically, highlighting the interplay between language, identity, and healthcare access. Lex’s work not only puts in conversation the fields of linguistics, (trans)gender studies,  and studies of health communication, but also identifies barriers to accessing competent, truly affirming healthcare [quoted from the dissertation].

 

Please join me in congratulating Lex for their distinguished work!

Thanks to Guillaume for the text.

Julien Carrier goes to Kentucky

Dr. Julien Carrier, who earned his PhD in our Department in 2021, and then held a postdoc position at UQAM (working with former UofT student Richard Compton), is excited to be starting a tenure-track position in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Kentucky.  

He says, "This is a great place for me because people there really like the fact that my research is in socio-syntax."

We wish him all the best in his new job!  Félicitations!

LGCU has started a new newsletter!

The LGCU has started a monthly newsletter to be sent out to members of the Department. If you are looking to advertise any events, post announcements, or simply share some linguistic fun facts or positivity, send it on over! Submissions for the next (April) newsletter close on March 28. Please submit to aliya.zhaksybek@mail.utoronto.ca.

Spring is coming (!) (?)

People, especially prospective students, often ask what the weather is like in Toronto. So here's some evidence. This week is the first day of Spring, according to the calendar. We had a very mild winter with little snow, but it's been coming this week. 

Please add your favourite shots from your commute!

Crocuses

Daffodils and irises

Forsythia

New paper by Prof. Samuel Akinbo in Glossa!

A new paper by Prof. Samuel Akinbo entitled "Iconicity as the motivation for the signification and locality of deictic grammatical tones in Tal" has recently appeared in Glossa. The paper presents evidence in favour of iconicity in the core morphophonological grammar.

Here is the abstract:

We present novel evidence for iconicity in core morphophonological grammar by documenting, describing, and analysing two patterns of tonal alternation in Tal (West Chadic, Nigeria). When a non-proximal deixis modifies a noun in Tal, every tone of the modified noun is lowered. When the nominal modifier is a proximal deixis, the final tone of the modified noun is raised. The tone lowering and raising are considered the effects of non-proximal and proximal linkers, which have the tone features [–Upper, –Raised] and [+Raised] as their respective exponents. The realisation and maximal extension of the non-proximal tone features are considered effects of morpheme-specific featural correspondence constraints. Similarly, the exponent of the proximal linker docking on the final TBU is due to the relative ranking of the proximal-specific correspondence constraints. The association of the tone features [–Upper, –Raised] and [+Raised] with non-proximal and proximal linkers, respectively, is in line with crosslinguistic patterns of magnitude iconicity. Given that the local and long-distance realisations of the proximal and non-proximal featural affixes respectively are perceptually similar to deictic gestures, the locality of the featural affixation is considered a novel pattern of iconicity. To motivate this pattern of iconicity, we extend the notion of perceptual motivation in linguistic theory to include the crossmodal depiction of sensory imagery. Consequently, Tal presents evidence for iconicity as a motivation for morphophonological grammar.

Congratulations Prof. Akinbo! 

Congratulations to Prof. Suzi Lima for her new paper in Language Documentation and Description

Congratulations to Professor Suzi Lima whose new article entitled "On Quotatives and Speech Verbs in Yudja" has recently appeared in the journal Language Documentation and Description. The article examines the argument structure of speech verbs in Yudja, an indigenous language spoken in Brazil.

Here is the abstract:

Much literature has debated the argument structure of speech verbs. For example, Munro (1982) has provided evidence to show that, in many languages, quotations do not pattern like the complements of transitive verbs. In this paper, I analyze the distribution of four speech verbs in Yudja (Juruna branch, Tupi), an Indigenous language spoken in Brazil, and compare them with bona fide transitive verbs. I provide morphosyntactic evidence to argue that direct quotations are not complements of speech verbs based on the distribution of such verbs both in quotative and non-quotative constructions.

Happy reading!

Colloquium Talk: Prof. Matt Wagers (UCSC), Friday March 15

Prof. Matt Wagers (University of California Santa Cruz) will be delivering a colloquium talk this Friday. Please find below the details for the meeting and the abstract:

Title: (Re-)encoding Interference

Presenter: Prof. Matt Wagers

Time: Friday, March 15, 3:30pm-5:00pm

Abstract:  

2024 IGNITE grant recipients

 Congratulations to Samuel Akinbo and Suzi Lima! 

They got a 2024 IGNITE grant which supports "interdisciplinary research led by Black faculty, librarians, post-doctoral scholars, clinical scientists and medical research fellows/residents at the University of Toronto." These funds will help support their "project to document the preparation of traditional foods and investigate the grammar of counting and measuring in Gã and Yoruba, two closely related languages spoken in Ghana and Nigeria, respectively. Collaborating with universities in Ghana and Nigeria, one of the project’s key goals is to preserve and revitalize stigmatized traditional foods."

See great photos and more about other winners here:
https://brn.utoronto.ca/announcing-the-2024-brn-ignite-grant-recipients/

New paper from Michela Ippolito in the Journal of Semantics!

Faculty member Michela Ippolito has recently published a new paper in the Journal of Semantics entitled "The Hell with Questions." The paper examines current approaches to wh-the-hell questions, and proposes a new theory based on the idea of doxastic dissonance.

Here is the abstract:

We discuss previous proposals for the semantics of wh-the-hell questions (domain widening theories and domain restriction theories), highlighting the challenges these accounts face in trying to explain the different properties of wh-the-hell questions and capture the contribution this expression makes to the semantics of the question. We review the semantic properties of wh-the-hell questions discussed in the literature and propose a new analysis according to which the hell signals doxastic dissonance. We argue that this proposal accounts for the semantic properties of this type of expletive question, and has the potential to extend to the class of wh-the-hell questions we see across languages.

Congratulations Michela! 

Linguistics Open House on Feb 26

On Monday Feb 26th we had an open house for all our undergraduates who will soon choose their Programs of Study. Students had the opportunity to chat with faculty, staff and current students about all things Linguistics at U of T. 

Program selection begins March 1st for students, if you have any questions about joining our program please email undergrad.linguistics@utoronto.ca

(Thanks to Kai Herzog-Hara for text and photo credit) 

New book about heritage languages

Cambridge University Press has just produced a fantastic collection of chapters about phonetics and phonology in a wide range of heritage languages. U of T is well-represented:

 

1 - Front Rounded Vowels of Heritage Korean in Northern China

By Yoonjung Kang, Na-Young Ryu, Jessamyn Schertz (and their co-authors  Sungwoo Han, Suyeon Yun) 

16 - Perception and Production of English and Portuguese Voiceless Stops by Heritage Learners

By Anabela Rato, Vanina Machado. (Dept. of Spanish & Portuguese)

as well as this output from the HLVC Project:

• 
  13 - Functional Load and Vowel Merger in Toronto Heritage Cantonese

  pp 280-301

• • By Holman Tse

Select 14 - Have Cantonese Tones Merged in Spontaneous Speech?

• 14 - Have Cantonese Tones Merged in Spontaneous Speech?

  pp 302-320

• • By Naomi Nagy, Holman Tse, James N. Stanford

Select 15 - Phonetics of Stop Voicing in Heritage and Homeland Polish

• 15 - Phonetics of Stop Voicing in Heritage and Homeland Polish

  pp 321-342

• • By Naomi Nagy, Paulina Łyskawa, Emily Moran, Mateusz Urban

Check out The Phonetics and Phonology of Heritage Languages on the CUP website. 

Huge thanks to Rajiv Rao for his amazing work editing this volume!

SLUGS hoodies are officially here!!

 

The Society of Linguistics Undergraduate Students is selling the linguistics hoodies pictured here! For just $45 you can finally rep your linguistics program and support TULCON! 

Hoodies will be sold in-person during SLUGS office hours (Tuesdays 19:00-20:00 or Wednesdays 17:00-18:00) in SS568, or you can reserve your order using the Stripe link (https://buy.stripe.com/5kA4hz9s28aYepGcMM) and pick it up during office hours. 

 

All proceeds fund TULCON and future SLUGS initiatives!

Alternate Location for meetings

 Research Group and Department meetings with a tropical flair as we met in an unusual location on January 26, 2024!

Alexei, Samuel, Suzi, Naomi

Cool Nathan & Naomi

Sun-lovers Pedro and Naomi

Thanks to Nathan and Alexei for the photos!

New paper by Prof. Pedro Mateo Pedro in Linguistic Variation

Congratulations Prof. Pedro Mateo Pedro and coauthors Philip T. Duncan (University of Kansas) and Harold Torrence (UCLA) for their new paper 'Indeterminate pronouns in Kaqchikel' in Linguistic Variation. The article examines the morphology, syntax, and semantics of certain non-interrogative structures involving wh-expressions in the Mayan language Kaqchikel.

Abstract:

This paper investigates the morphology, syntax, and semantics of five non-interrogative constructions that involve wh-expressions in Kaqchikel, a Mayan language of the K’ichean branch spoken in Guatemala. We focus on the properties of maximal free relative clauses, existential free relative clauses, ever free relative clauses, free choice items and negative indefinites. We show that the interpretive properties of these constructions are strikingly similar to those found in a number of unrelated languages.

Happy reading!

Congratulations Prof. Emily Atkinson for Publication in Languages

Congratulations to faculty member Emily Atkison who has coauthored a new paper with Akira Omaki (University of Washington) entitled 'Adaptation of Gap Predictions in Filler-Gap Dependency Processing during Reading' in the journal Languages.

Abstract:

Syntactic adaptation effects have been demonstrated for an expanding list of structure types, but the mechanism underlying this effect is still being explored. In the current work on filler-gap dependency processing, we examined whether exposing participants to a less common gap location—prepositional object (PO) gaps—altered their gap predictions, and whether these effects would transfer across tasks when this input was presented in a quasi-naturalistic way (i.e., by reading stories). In Experiment 1, we demonstrated that comprehenders dampened their direct object (DO) gap predictions following exposure to PO gaps. However, Experiments 2A and 2B suggest that these adaptation effects did not transfer when the quasi-naturalistic exposure phase was presented as a separate task (Experiment 2A) and when they also needed to generalize from a syntactic to a semantic measure of direct object gap predictions (i.e., filled gap vs. plausibility mismatch sentences; Experiment 2B). Overall, these experiments add filler-gap dependency processing, as well as the gap predictions associated with it, to the growing list of structures demonstrating adaptation effects, while also suggesting that this effect may be specific to a singular experimental task environment.

The article is published open-access so anyone is free to read it!