BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Department of Linguistics - UCLA - ECPv6.17.3.1//NONSGML v1.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH X-WR-CALNAME:Department of Linguistics - UCLA X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Department of Linguistics - UCLA REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H X-Robots-Tag:noindex X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Los_Angeles BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20190310T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20191103T090000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20200308T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20201101T090000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20210314T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20211107T090000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20220313T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20221106T090000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20230312T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20231105T090000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20240310T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20241103T090000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231208T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231208T130000 DTSTAMP:20231202T002941Z CREATED:20231005T173356Z LAST-MODIFIED:20231202T002941Z UID:137284-1702033200-1702040400@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Alexis Wellwood: Temporal constitution in language and mind DESCRIPTION:Location – Dodd 146 \nTemporal constitution in language and mind \nSemanticists posit at least two categories of dynamic entity—event and process—in their explanations of the semantic properties of different classes of verbs and verb phrases. I consider the event-process distinction as a case study in the interface between linguistic and extralinguistic cognition. In a series of experiments\, we tested whether different sorts of subtle differences in “temporal shaping” across different types of dynamic displays would be sufficient to predict preference for resolving a novel verb as event-y or process-y. For example\, a circle moves continuously back-and-forth across the screen\, with movement broken up into equi-sized temporal portions separated by brief pauses (event-y) or not (process-y). In forced choice tasks\, we asked whether people would differentially choose deverbal count syntax (The circle did some gleebs) versus mass (The circle did some gleebing) to describe such scenes. In quantity estimation tasks\, we tested whether they would differentially track natural number versus some continuous dimension for verbal comparatives (The circle gleebed more than the square did). Indeed\, we found preference for count syntax and number-based quantification with event-y scenes\, but no categorical preference for process-y scenes. In the talk\, I suggest how to make sense of such findings on the linguistic and nonlinguistic sides. Specifically\, I suggest that semantic description combines (linguistic-)syntactic and conceptual(-syntactic) information\, with functional meanings directing binding relations across distinct core knowledge domains. URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-alexis-wellwood/ CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231201T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231201T130000 DTSTAMP:20231117T232420Z CREATED:20231005T172622Z LAST-MODIFIED:20231117T232420Z UID:137281-1701428400-1701435600@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Morgan Sonderegger: New perspectives on speech variability from large-scale studies DESCRIPTION:Location – Dodd 146 \nNew perspectives on speech variability from large-scale studies \nI present two studies which aim to understand the structure and sources of variability in speech production\, enabled by novel quantitative methods. I also discuss several open-source tools for automatic analysis of speech which enable such large-scale studies by speeding up or replacing manual processing. \nThe first study asks how much “the same” phonetic effects vary across languages\, and what their distributions can tell us. It is well known that vowel F0 tends to be higher for high vowels compared to low vowels (VF0) and F0 following voiceless obstruents tends to be higher than F0 following voiced obstruents (CF0). These “intrinsic F0” effects have been extensively investigated\, but largely in lab speech in individual languages\, making it difficult to settle the long-standing questions of to what extent they are “automatic” versus “controlled”\, and whether cross-linguistic variation can be systematically explained (e.g. smaller VF0/CF0 in tone languages). We map out the distribution of intrinsic F0 effects across 20 languages\, using large corpora of read speech. We find that both VF0 and CF0 effects are robust across languages in terms of effect direction\, but that languages vary greatly in VF0 and CF0 effect size. Most of this variability appears to be unexplained by phonological properties of the language (e.g. tone). Finally\, we find that the CF0 effect is larger than the VF0 effect in almost every language\, and the CF0 effect is more variable across languages. These patterns suggest a possible explanation for the cross-linguistic tendency for CF0 effects to lead to sound change (“tonogenesis”) much more often than VF0 effects. (Joint work with Connie Ting & Meghan Clayards) \nA second study is part of the SPeech Across Dialects of English (SPADE) project\, which examined existing datasets of Old World (British) and New World (North American) English spanning 100+ years\, to gain an improved understanding of stability and variation in a spoken language across space and time. We consider variability in English sibilants in 5k speakers from 27 geo-social-ethnic regions. We analyse spectral peak measures using a Bayesian statistical model which explicitly models token\, speaker\, and region- level variability. Following previous phonetic and sociolinguistic research we expected English /s/ to be more variable than /sh/\, and for both sounds to look broadly similar across dialects. The results\, however\, differ according to the level at which we consider variability — for example\, /s/ is more variable within-speaker than /sh/\, but not more variable across  regions. Our results likely reflect physical and social-indexical sources of variation\, and connect to basic issues in sociolinguistics and sound change. (Joint work with Jane Stuart-Smith\, Jeff Mielke) URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-morgan-sonderegger/ CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231027T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231027T130000 DTSTAMP:20231016T172853Z CREATED:20231005T172540Z LAST-MODIFIED:20231016T172853Z UID:137279-1698404400-1698411600@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Meredith Tamminga: Language users' expectations shape phonetic flexibility DESCRIPTION:  \nLocation – Dodd 146 \n\n\nLanguage users’ expectations shape phonetic flexibility \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLanguage users show considerable flexibility in their phonetic perception and production. Phonetic flexibility phenomena such as convergence and perceptual learning are of broad interest because of their connections to questions in language learning\, sociolinguistic variation\, and diachronic change. In this talk I will present two case studies on how phonetic flexibility is influenced by language users’ expectations. The first case study is on expectation-driven convergence\, which is when speakers converge toward a regional accent feature that they expect\, but crucially do not hear\, from an interlocutor. In work with Lacey Wade and Dave Embick\, we show that people with different dialect backgrounds exhibit expectation-driven convergence triggered by different kinds of sociolinguistic expectations. The second case study is on cross-talker generalization in perceptual learning\, which is when listeners shift a perceptual category boundary based on input from one talker and then\, under some circumstances\, extend that expectation to a different talker. In work with Wei Lai\, we propose that perceptual learning involves learning both a bias toward identifying a particular phonological category and a new phonetic boundary between two phonemes\, and that listeners will generalize the shift only when those two aspects of what they have learned match. I conclude with reflections on the thematic parallels between these two case studies and potential implications for understanding larger-scale phenomena like language change. URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-meredith-tamminga/ CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230526T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230526T130000 DTSTAMP:20230601T211837Z CREATED:20220919T182031Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230601T211837Z UID:38403-1685098800-1685106000@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium: Ellen Lau DESCRIPTION:Representing individuals\n\n\n\n\n\nIn this talk I will consider what is known about how the human mind and brain represents individuals non-linguistically\, and what the implications are for our theories of linguistic interpretation. In standard model-theoretic semantics\, individuals are simply taken for granted as part of the world model; and I too will assume that the world itself contains individual entities. But if we take seriously the goal of developing a theory of the natural language semantics that is instantiated in the human mind\, we need to know something about how the mind manages to *approximate* the world in mental representation\, because it is this mental representation of the world to which natural language has to be mapped. As Bach (1989) noted\, this is as challenging for individuals as for anything else. Although cognitive neuroscience is still in its infancy\, today some rough outlines of how the brain represents individuals are becoming clearer. There appear to be multiple\, redundant\, non-linguistic representations of individuals in circuits that evolved for different purposes and which differ in format and temporal continuity. Some of our representations of individuals are fleeting\, serving the purpose of helping us to accurately represent the structure of a current situation or interaction while it is happening. Others\, supported by different brain circuits\, are designed to last a longer period of time\, allowing us to re-identify a recently encountered individual and successfully integrate new knowledge about them with prior knowledge. Yet a different form of representation for known individuals is included within the semi-permanent long-term knowledge base that also supports generalized knowledge. Evidence from neuropsychological patients implies that we cannot rely on introspection to tell us which of these circuits we are drawing on in any given instance of thought or reasoning. The diversity of individual representation formats suggested by cognitive neuroscience raises new and interesting questions for semantic theory about what we should take to be the internal world-model in which sentences are interpreted\, and can inspire new ideas about how human language was shaped by its interface with these pre-existing representational formats.\n\nLocation: Haines Hall 220 URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/ellen-lau/ CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230519T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230519T130000 DTSTAMP:20230517T220847Z CREATED:20220919T182704Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230517T220847Z UID:38414-1684494000-1684501200@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium: Xin Xie DESCRIPTION:Location: Haines Hall 220 \nWhat is “adapted” in adaptive speech perception? \nThe acoustic-phonetic realization of the same linguistic categories (e.g.\, phonemes\, syllables\, or words) can vary considerably both within and across talkers. This variability poses a challenge for listeners\, who must be able to perceive speech accurately despite these changes. Empirical data suggest that listeners adapt to cross-talker variability. Exactly how this adaptivity is achieved remains unknown. Three hypotheses have been proposed: (1) low-level\, pre-linguistic signal normalization\, (2) changes in linguistic representations\, or (3) changes in post-perceptual decision-making. However\, no study has directly compared these hypotheses. \nI will present a computational framework for adaptive speech perception (ASP for brevity) that implements all three hypotheses and use it to derive predictions for experiments on perception. We find that the signature results of influential experimental paradigms do not distinguish between the three hypotheses\, highlighting the need for new research methods. I will then discuss new approaches for investigating how these mechanisms—together and separately—guide the impressive adaptivity in human speech perception. URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/xin-xie/ CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230512T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230512T130000 DTSTAMP:20230509T160242Z CREATED:20230306T173208Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230509T160242Z UID:41073-1683889200-1683896400@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium: Jennifer Kuo DESCRIPTION:Location: Haines Hall 220 \nWhen phonological learning is not statistical: how learning biases have reshaped Malagasy paradigms \nOne view of phonological learning is that it is driven by a domain-general bias towards frequency-matching\, and therefore predictable from statistical distributions of the language (Albright 2002; Ernestus & Baayen 2003; Nosofsky 2011). A competing view is that learning is influenced by various linguistically-motivated biases\, such as a bias towards less complex patterns. One way to tease apart these effects is to look at how learners behave when presented with conflicting data patterns––they do not always replicate the language they hear from their parents\, and their errors (such as goed instead of went) can be informative\, telling us about what biases are present in learning. Such errors can be adopted into speech communities and passed through generations of speakers\, resulting in reanalysis of a data pattern. \nIn this talk\, I look at reanalyses over time in Malagasy and show that reanalysis is not entirely predictable from statistical distributions. Instead\, I argue that Malagasy reanalysis is sensitive to both frequency-matching and a markedness bias\, using an iterated version of Maximum Entropy Harmonic Grammar (Smolensky 1986; Goldwater & Johnson\, 2003) that simulates the cumulative effect of reanalyses across generations of speakers. I further propose that the markedness effects active in reanalysis are restricted to those already present in the language as a phonotactic tendency\, and show that this is the case for Malagasy. These results demonstrate how findings from language change over time\, combined with quantitative modeling\, can give us insight into phonological learning. URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-jennifer-kuo/ CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230428T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230428T130000 DTSTAMP:20230425T224415Z CREATED:20220919T182552Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230425T224415Z UID:38412-1682679600-1682686800@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium: Erik Zyman DESCRIPTION:Location: Haines Hall 220 \n\n\n\nOn the Symmetry Between Merge and Adjoin\nA crucial task for syntactic theory is to determine what syntactic operations are made available by the human capacity for language\, what their properties are\, and why they have the properties they do. This talk aims to bring us closer to that goal by pushing forward our understanding of adjunction. It is argued that a minimal extension of the system developed in Zyman to appear—building on\, but modifying\, ideas from Bruening 2013\, a.o.—makes possible an analysis of adjunction that is simple\, explanatory\, and empirically successful. On this analysis\, there are two structure-building operations—Merge and Adjoin—whose definitions are similar but not identical\, differing primarily in which of the two operands projects. This approach puts us in a good position to tackle two related questions: 1) why Merge and Adjoin both exist\, and 2) why their definitions are similar but not identical. The answer that is offered to both questions is that Merge and Adjoin are “fillings-in” (elaborations) of a more elementary ur-operation Combine that does not incorporate projection/labeling. (Precise proposals are made as to both 1) why Combine was “filled in” and 2) why it was “filled in” in such a way as to yield Merge and Adjoin specifically.) Contrary to a widespread consensus\, then\, the statement in the definition of Merge to the effect that what selects projects is not an arbitrary\, unexplained stipulation\, but rather one-half of the double/symmetric “filling-in” just mentioned. Finally\, the approach to Merge and Adjoin developed leads to the expectation that there should be no A-over-A Condition. Some apparent empirical problems for that conclusion are shown to be just that: only apparent. Overall\, then\, the goal of the talk is to bring us a step closer to fully understanding the seemingly recalcitrant phenomenon of adjunction\, as well as its relationship to Merge.\n \nReferences\nBruening\, Benjamin. 2013. “By Phrases in Passives and Nominals.” Syntax 16.1: 1–41.\nZyman\, Erik. To appear. “On the definition of Merge.” Syntax. URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/erik-zyman/ CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230414T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230414T130000 DTSTAMP:20230321T211934Z CREATED:20220919T182410Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230321T211934Z UID:38408-1681470000-1681477200@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium: Robert Henderson DESCRIPTION:Location: Haines Hall 220 URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/robert-henderson/ CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230407T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230407T130000 DTSTAMP:20230321T211957Z CREATED:20220919T182316Z LAST-MODIFIED:20230321T211957Z UID:38406-1680865200-1680872400@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium: Maziar Toosarvandani DESCRIPTION:Location: Haines Hall 220 URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/maziar-toosarvandani/ CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230217T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230217T130000 DTSTAMP:20221114T161203Z CREATED:20220919T181848Z LAST-MODIFIED:20221114T161203Z UID:38400-1676631600-1676638800@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium: Georgia Zellou DESCRIPTION: URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/georgia-zellou/ LOCATION:Haines A25 CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20221014T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20221014T130000 DTSTAMP:20221003T161231Z CREATED:20220919T181613Z LAST-MODIFIED:20221003T161231Z UID:38397-1665745200-1665752400@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium: Modeling early phonetic learning from natural speech- Naomi Feldman\, University of Maryland DESCRIPTION:Theories of language acquisition have typically been developed using an idealization of the phonetic learning problem.  For example\, phonetic category learning models have used input that is much less variable than the speech children hear and have assumed that learners already know which dimensions of the speech signal to pay attention to.  In this talk\, I use a series of modeling studies to argue that taking seriously the complexity of children’s speech input has major implications for theories of phonetic learning. \nWe have worked to create models that work on naturalistic speech after finding that phonetic learning models that were developed on simplified data fail when trained on more realistic data.  Our first strategy has been to question theories of what is being learned: perhaps infants are acquiring a language-specific perceptual space during their first year of life\, rather than a set of phonetic categories.  Our second strategy has been to question theories of the learning mechanism: perhaps rather than looking for distinct acoustic clusters of sounds corresponding to phones\, learners can use statistical information that is more reliable in naturalistic speech.  In each case\, we have found that the models that succeed in phonetic learning on naturalistic speech differ in important ways from previous theories.  This work raises new questions about what young infants know about the sounds of their language and underscores the need to take into account the complexity of the data that children hear when building theories of language acquisition. \nThis is joint work with Kasia Hitczenko\, Thomas Schatz\, Stephanie Antetomaso\, Xuan-Nga Cao\, Yevgen Matusevych\, Kouki Miyazawa\, Emmanuel Dupoux\, Micha Elsner\, Sharon Goldwater\, and Reiko Mazuka. URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/naomi-feldman/ LOCATION:Haines Hall A25 CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220930T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220930T130000 DTSTAMP:20220930T005947Z CREATED:20220912T180152Z LAST-MODIFIED:20220930T005947Z UID:38306-1664535600-1664542800@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium: Some Half-Truths and Interim Conclusions about Liaison- Anne-Michelle Tessier\, UBC DESCRIPTION:A very complicated issue in understanding morpho-phonological alternations concerns those phenomena that are pervasive\, frequent\, and phonotactically-motivated\, and yet exceptionful and lexically-sensitive. To what extent are such processes\, that apply idiosyncratically to different morphemes\, words and even phrases\, represented in a way that generalizes to novel forms? \nThis talk examines this issue via the “well-plowed ground”* of French liaison\, specifically those liaison consonants that come and go at the boundary between nouns and the words preceding them (e.g. les [z] amis\, ‘the friends’). My main goal is to assess the predictions that different analyses make about (i) how exceptional nouns resist liaison\, and (ii) how productive liaison should be with novel nouns. I report the results of an adult production + acceptability study\, primarily with L1 speakers of Laurentian French in Quebec\, which find liaison to be somewhat intermediate in its application as compared with regular vs. exceptional nouns. I also discuss computational simulations and child corpus studies that try to understand how learners eventually reach the knowledge state of our adult participants.  The overall picture is one in which learners and speakers are making really interesting generalizations about their lexicons and their grammars\, including some more abstract than almost any model might predict?… but which also require substantial individual variation. URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/anne-michelle-tessier/ LOCATION:Haines A25 CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220603T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220603T150000 DTSTAMP:20220602T220028Z CREATED:20220404T170337Z LAST-MODIFIED:20220602T220028Z UID:35793-1654261200-1654268400@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Canaan Breiss's student colloquium talk DESCRIPTION: URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/canaan-breisss-student-colloquium-talk/ LOCATION:Public Affairs 1222 CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220520T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220520T140000 DTSTAMP:20220519T213031Z CREATED:20220219T160109Z LAST-MODIFIED:20220519T213031Z UID:35170-1653044400-1653055200@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Athulya Aravind (MIT) - semantics\, acquisition DESCRIPTION: URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/athulya-aravind-mit-semantics-acquisition-2/ LOCATION:Haines 118 CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220429T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220429T130000 DTSTAMP:20220428T210112Z CREATED:20220404T170337Z LAST-MODIFIED:20220428T210112Z UID:35792-1651230000-1651237200@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Maura O'Leary's student colloquium talk- It's About Time: A long-expected relationship between nouns and tense DESCRIPTION:It’s About Time: A long-expected relationship between nouns and tenseMaura O’Leary (UCLA) \nIt has been well established that the property times of verbs\, adjectives\, adverbs\, prepositional phrases\, participle phrases\, and relative clauses are all interpreted relative to the time argument introduced by the nearest scoping lambda abstractor (e.g.\, Abusch 1988\, Percus 2000\, Ogihara 2003\, Keshet 2008) – generally meaning that these property times overlap the reference time defined by sentential tense. However\, nominal property times have eluded such a clear-cut distribution; it seems that they need not overlap the tense’s reference time\, nor even the utterance time – leading some to conclude that nouns\, unlike all other predicates\, are altogether unaffected by tense (e.g.\, Enç 1981\, 1986; Musan 1995\, 1999; Tonhauser 2002\, 2006\, 2020). In this talk\, I show that the property times of nouns actually are defined relative to the time argument introduced by the nearest scoping lambda abstractor\, arguing that this fact has been obscured over the years by the existence of two nominal lexical aspectual classes\, which each derive their property time from their time argument in a unique way. With this confound accounted for\, I propose a single locality constraint which accounts for the binding of the time arguments of all predicate types. (This content\, which is only meant to account for predicates introducing novel referents\, comprises 2/3 of my dissertation – the remaining 1/3 accounts for the property times of nouns used in longer discourses to refer to familiar referents.) URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/maura-olearys-student-colloquium-talk/ LOCATION:Haines 118 CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220422T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220422T140000 DTSTAMP:20220422T175408Z CREATED:20220122T141559Z LAST-MODIFIED:20220422T175408Z UID:34831-1650625200-1650636000@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Lisa Davidson (NYU) - phonetics DESCRIPTION: URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/lisa-davidson-nyu-phonetics-2/ LOCATION:Haines 118 CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220408T121500 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220408T130000 DTSTAMP:20220408T171641Z CREATED:20220404T151830Z LAST-MODIFIED:20220408T171641Z UID:35779-1649420100-1649422800@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium Nominee's Minority Status DESCRIPTION: URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-nominees-minority-status/ CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220401T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220401T130000 DTSTAMP:20220331T213105Z CREATED:20220328T212535Z LAST-MODIFIED:20220331T213105Z UID:35663-1648810800-1648818000@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium Speaker-Bob Frank (Yale) DESCRIPTION:computational\, syntax URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-speaker-bob-frank-yale/ LOCATION:Haines 118 CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220401T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220401T130000 DTSTAMP:20220328T213936Z CREATED:20210818T174443Z LAST-MODIFIED:20220328T213936Z UID:31694-1648810800-1648818000@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Bob Frank (Yale) - computational\, syntax DESCRIPTION:Linguistic Productivity in Neural Networks: Representation and Inductive BiasA fundamental fact about human language is its productivity: speakers are able to understand and produce forms different from those that they have previously encountered. Linguists typically account for this fact by positing abstract grammars that characterize structural representations for an infinity of possible forms. At the same time\, recent neural network models have achieved extraordinary levels of performance on practical NLP tasks without any explicit abstract grammar or structured representations. This remarkable success raises the question of whether these models do in fact exhibit productivity of the sort human speakers are capable of\, even in the absence of abstract grammar. In this talk\, I will explore this question from two perspectives. First\, I will discuss a line of work that investigates this question in the context of large pre-trained language models that have been at the forefront of contemporary NLP.  We ask whether these models show evidence of productive knowledge of selectional restrictions that cut across variation in syntactic context (deriving from argument structure alternations like dative shift or syntactic “transformations” like passivization). For the second part of the talk\, I will drill down to the properties of the neural network models themselves\, and consider what kinds of biases they exhibit when they learn: how do they perform in the face of ambiguous data\, and how do their biases differ from human generalization? To conclude\, I will consider the viability of different approaches to fostering linguistic abstraction in these models\,  by modifying the structure of model itself or the way in which training takes place. URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/bob-frank-yale-computational-syntax/ LOCATION:Haines 118 CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20211112T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20211112T140000 DTSTAMP:20211112T101656Z CREATED:20210818T173539Z LAST-MODIFIED:20211112T101656Z UID:31687-1636714800-1636725600@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Jess Law (UC Santa Cruz) - semantics DESCRIPTION: URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/jess-law-uc-santa-cruz-semantics/ LOCATION:TBA\, 395 Wythe Avenue\, NY\, 11249\, United States CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20211015T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20211015T140000 DTSTAMP:20211015T071722Z CREATED:20210818T173539Z LAST-MODIFIED:20211015T071722Z UID:31685-1634295600-1634306400@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Michelle Yuan (UC San Diego) - syntax\, fieldwork DESCRIPTION:We are pleased to welcome Michelle Yuan (UC San Diego) as part of theUCLA Linguistics Colloquium Series. This talk will be given in person.Title: Morphological conditions on chain resolution: Inuktitut noun incorporation revisited \nAbstract: Previous research on the Copy Theory of Movement has suggested that therealization of movement chains may be regulated by morphological well-formednessconditions governing complex word formation\, such as the Stray Affix Filter (e.g. Boskovic2001\, Landau 2006\, Kandybowicz 2007). This talk provides novel evidence for thisinteraction from noun incorporation in Inuktitut (Eastern Canadian varieties of the Inuitlanguage) and\, in doing so\, reevaluates a number of previous claims about the structuralproperties of incorporated objects in Inuit. Noun incorporation throughout Inuit is crosslinguistically unusual\, in that a small set of verbs is obligatorily incorporating (i.e. affixal)\,while for most other verbs incorporation is not possible (Sadock 1980\, Johns 2007). Incontrast to most prior characterizations of Inuit incorporation\, I present new data from myfieldwork demonstrating that incorporated nominals in at least Inuktitut are in factsyntactically active: despite their morphological appearance\, they display the same syntacticand semantic properties as their standalone counterparts and may be targeted by phrasal (AandA’-) movement operations. This is argued to be a Stray Affix effect applied in the contextof phrasal movement: the nominal complement of an incorporating verb is obligatorilyrealized within the verb complex\, regardless of whether it has undergone movement\, due tothe affixal nature of the verb. Finally\, I show how the basic logic of this interaction may serveas a novel diagnostic for backward control (cf. Polinsky & Potsdam 2002). \nPlease note the following COVID Safety protocols: \n\nMasking is required for all indoor Organized Events.\nMasking is required for smaller Organized Events while attendees are in line to enter\, exit\, or to use the restroom. \nUCLA community members (Faculty\, Staff\, and Students) attending an indoor or outdoor Organized Event must show their UCLA COVID-19 Symptom Monitoring Clearance Certificate\, as part of the entry procedures. \nNon-Affiliates (non-UCLA community members) attending an indoor or outdoor Organized Event must show proof of being fully vaccinated or a negative COVID test within 72 hours of the event upon entry. \n The following are acceptable proof of a negative COVID-19 test result:\n\nA photo ID of the attendee\, AND\nPrinted documentation from a test provider or lab\, OR an email or text message displayed on a smart phone from the test provider or lab. The information must include the person’s name\, the date the test was performed\, the type of test performed\, and a clear indication that the result was negative. \n\n\n\nNote that for colloquium talks this academic year\, no lunch will be provided by thedepartment. The faculty hosts will take the speaker somewhere on campus for lunch. Othersare welcome to join\, but will have to pay for themselves. URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/michelle-yuan-uc-san-diego-syntax-fieldwork/ LOCATION:Haines A25 CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20211008T104500 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20211008T134500 DTSTAMP:20211008T164129Z CREATED:20210818T173538Z LAST-MODIFIED:20211008T164129Z UID:31683-1633689900-1633700700@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Lisa Pearl (UC Irvine) - computational\, acquisition DESCRIPTION:**UPDATE: Starting 15 minutes earlier than usual due to a logistical complication.** \n \nHow children are and aren’t like adults when interpreting pronouns:  \n \nA computational cognitive modeling investigation \n \nInterpreting pronouns in context is a complex linguistic task\, especially when cues to a pronoun’s intended interpretation conflict. Children haveto learn to interpret pronouns like adults do\, and computational cognitive modeling can help identify what potentially needs to change for them to do so. Here\, I present a case study of pronoun interpretation in Mexican Spanish\, using computational cognitivemodeling to capture observed differences between children and adults interpreting pronouns in context in a picture-selection task. Modeling results suggest that children are likely either always deploying inaccurate representations of their input\, or selectivelydeploying accurate representations\, but not selectively deploying inaccurate representations. In contrast\, adults are likely always deploying inaccurate representations. So\, this would mean that becoming adult-like doesn’t mean becoming accurate; rather\, tobecome adult-like\, children would need to learn how to be inaccurate in the right ways for potentially both representation and deployment of pronoun information.  \n \n \nZoom link:  \n \nhttps://ucla.zoom.us/j/91259768698?pwd=WDl2RjVCRUpzZlU4VjEvSkFXVThMUT09Meeting ID: 912 5976 8698Passcode: 057388 \n \n*Please log into Zoom using your UCLA account. Non-UCLA attendees need to RSVP through this colloquiumRSVP form in order to be admitted from the waiting room. \n  URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/lisa-pearl-uc-irvine-computational-acquisition/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20210604T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20210604T150000 DTSTAMP:20220421T232619Z CREATED:20210511T171809Z LAST-MODIFIED:20220421T232619Z UID:29779-1622811600-1622818800@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium with Connor Mayer (UCLA - Grad Colloquium) DESCRIPTION:Title TBA. \nVenue:  Zoom.  Please note the passcode. \nhttps://ucla.zoom.us/j/95041126939?pwd=aFpWUmNiZ09yd1NUc2VjRmtIaXBHdz09 \nMeeting ID: 950 4112 6939\nPasscode: panini \nFor guests outside of UCLA\, please submit an RSVP for colloquiums you would like to attend. \nEmail the Department Coordinator\, at linguist@humnet.ucla.edu\, to be added to the “Friends of Linguistics” listserv. URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-with-connor-mayer-ucla-grad-colloquium/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20210430T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20210430T130000 DTSTAMP:20210430T062426Z CREATED:20210130T181612Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210430T062426Z UID:28158-1619780400-1619787600@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium with Ryan Bochnak (UBC) DESCRIPTION:Zoom link will be available one week before the talk. Emailthe Colloquium Committee at uclacolloquium@gmail.com to be added to thelistserv. For guest outside of UCLA\, please submit anRSVPfor colloquiums you would like to attend. URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-with-ryan-bochnak-ubc/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20210423T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20210423T130000 DTSTAMP:20210424T110820Z CREATED:20210309T175646Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210424T110820Z UID:28769-1619175600-1619182800@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium with Iara Mantenuto (Grad Colloquium) DESCRIPTION:Expanding our Typology of Conjoined Comparatives(joint work with Margit Bowler (University of Manchester) & Octavio León Vázquez (CIESAS)) \nZoom link: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/95703088970?pwd=TENsT2EraFZTQXFvMG9xRTBtaXpQZz09 \nMeeting ID: 957 0308 8970 \nPasscode: 372159 \nPlease note: non-UCLA attendees should RSVP to linguist@humnet.ucla.edu in order to be admitted to the talk.  \nAbstractConjoined comparatives have traditionally been described as involving two conjoined clauses\, one containing the target comparison and the other containing the standard comparison (Stassen 1985); generally\, the expected form of the predicates is the positive form (Kennedy 1999\, 2011). Traditionally\, Mixtec comparatives have been presented as an example of conjoined comparatives (Stassen 1985)\, although they do no match the expected syntactic structure of conjoined comparatives. During this talk\, we provide evidence from San Sebastián del Monte Mixtec (ISO: oks) in support of the idea that Mixtec comparatives are indeed syntactically conjoined; however we can do so only by expanding the syntactic typology of conjoined comparatives. More importantly\, we account for the unexpected presence of degree morphology within this conjoined construction\, thus requiring a novel analysis of the semantics of conjoined comparison in SSM\, and an expansion of the typology of comparatives more widely\, to account for this unattested “mixed” construction.  URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-with-iara-mantenuto-grad-colloquium/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20210416T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20210416T130000 DTSTAMP:20210415T184857Z CREATED:20210309T175646Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210415T184857Z UID:28768-1618570800-1618578000@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium with Nikos Angelopoulos (Grad Colloquium) DESCRIPTION: URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-with-nikos-angelopoulos-grad-colloquium/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20210409T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20210409T130000 DTSTAMP:20210409T103250Z CREATED:20210121T174427Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210409T103250Z UID:27959-1617966000-1617973200@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium with Kristen Syrett (Rutgers) DESCRIPTION:Zoom link: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/98929850267?pwd=Y3hUdi9RSG5ITG9UT0ZGRUFReU5hdz09 \nMeeting ID: 989 2985 0267  \nPasscode: colloquium  \nAbstract: Making comparisons and interpreting comparatives in child language  \n \nRutgers University – New Brunswick \nFor many years now\, researchers in language and cognitive development have been plagued by children’s divergent non-adult-like productions of comparative constructions\, and their apparent inability to properly interpret even the most basic of comparatives (although researchers have also thrown some complicated ones their way!). The source of the difficulty has been alternatively attributed to a lack of understanding of language-specific comparative morphology\, a misinterpretation of the form of the adjective\, or a reanalysis of the syntax of the comparative. In this talk\, I will present evidence from a number of studies coming out of my lab in the last few years demonstrating that not only do children perform at or near ceiling with certain basic comparative constructions\, but they also have sophisticated knowledge of the adjectival scalar structure that feeds into comparatives\, as well as the syntactic and semantic building blocks in place to represent comparative structures. Why\, then\, does it take them so long across other tasks to properly interpret and produce comparative constructions? I consider multiple explanations\, and lay out a path for a promising line of future research on degree constructions in child language.  \nEmail the Colloquium Committee at uclacolloquium@gmail.com to be added to the listserv. For guest outside of UCLA\, please submit an RSVP for colloquiums you would like to attend. URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-with-kristen-syrett-rutgers/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20210219T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20210219T120000 DTSTAMP:20210219T191534Z CREATED:20210121T174426Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210219T191534Z UID:27957-1613732400-1613736000@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk with Jeremy Steffman DESCRIPTION:Prosodic context in speech perception \nWhen listeners process spoken language\, they extract information about (1) segmental categories\, defining the words intended by a speaker and (2) prosodic features\, which convey information about prominence\, grouping\, and so on (i.e. how the words are said). These two parts of understanding spoken language are often studied as separate\, however\, their joint influence in structuring acoustic information in the speech signal suggests that they might interact in perception. This talk presents an exploration of one sort of interaction: the mediating influence of prosodic context on listeners’ interpretation of segmental contrasts. We will explore how both prosodic boundaries and prosodic prominence impact perception in this regard\, testing how (1) boundaries shape the perception of temporal segmental contrasts in Japanese and Korean\, and (2) how prominence shapes vowel perception in American English. For this latter test case\, two visual-world eye-tracking studies are reported which further explore how listeners integrate contextual prominence cues as speech unfolds. Results are discussed in terms of what they tell us about the representation of different aspects of prosody in segmental processing\, and more generally\, how listeners tease apart different components of linguistic structure from a rich and time-varying speech signal.  \nZoom link will be available one week before the talk. Email the Colloquium Committee at uclacolloquium@gmail.com to be added to the listserv. For guest outside of UCLA\, please submit an RSVP for colloquiums you would like to attend.   URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-with-jeremy-steffman/ CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20210129T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20210129T130000 DTSTAMP:20210129T181631Z CREATED:20201001T104537Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210129T181631Z UID:26363-1611918000-1611925200@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk with Molly Babel DESCRIPTION:Molly Babel (UBC). Faculty host: Claire Moore-Cantwell. \nZoom link: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/99599993759?pwd=NkQwQnRwNkpqWGRMTGV1dG1FbUxyUT09  \n Email the Colloquium Committee at uclacolloquium@gmail.com to be added to the listserv. For guest outside of UCLA\, please submit an RSVP for colloquiums you would like to attend. \nAbstract: \nWhen do listeners care about phonetic variation? \nSpoken language is immenselyvariable. Some of that variation may be associated with social categories andsome may be idiosyncratic to an individual’s voice. Either of these sources ofvariation may affect the typical patterning of meaningful contrasts in alanguage. Listeners certainly care about sociolinguistic andtalker-idiosyncratic variation to the extent that they readily make socialevaluations about voices\, have knowledge about social-linguistic associations\,and use phonetic variation in talker recognition and related processes. Incases where phonetic variation affects linguistic categories\, listeners mayneed to adapt their systems to adjust to that variation. The question addressedin this talk is when do listeners care about phonetic variation such that itwarrants a change to linguistic categories or processes. Across a series ofexperiments using two perceptual learning paradigms (e.g.\, Norris et al.\, 2003;Maye et al.\, 2008)\, I demonstrate that listeners’ adaptation to phoneticvariation is bounded from a number of angles: it is modulated by the nature ofphonetic attention\, category typicality\, and linguistic experience\, but not socialpreferences. Together\, this suggests that attention and experience eithermoderate the nature of the phonetic detail that is apprehended in speechperception or the way the phonetic detail is encoded for use in subsequentspoken language processing.     URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-with-molly-babel-2/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201120T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201120T130000 DTSTAMP:20201105T024904Z CREATED:20201001T104537Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201105T024904Z UID:26364-1605870000-1605877200@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk with Jessica Coon DESCRIPTION:Jessica Coon (McGill University). Faculty host: Harold Torrence. \nZoom link will be available one week before the talk. Email the Colloquium Committee at uclacolloquium@gmail.com to be added to the listserv. For guest outside of UCLA\, please submit an RSVP for colloquiums you would like to attend. URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-with-jessica-coon-2/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR