BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Department of Linguistics - UCLA - ECPv6.17.3.1//NONSGML v1.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH 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:20180311T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20181104T090000 END:STANDARD 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 END:VTIMEZONE 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 BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201030T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201030T130000 DTSTAMP:20201030T114510Z CREATED:20201001T104537Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201030T114510Z UID:26362-1604055600-1604062800@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk with Gillian Gallagher DESCRIPTION:Phonetic variability and natural class phonotacticsGillian Gallagher\, NYU \nPhonological patterns are stated over classes of sounds\, usually defined based on a shared phonetic property. Phonetic sound changes and phonetic variation\, however\, are both extremely common\, and easily result in a language showing a phonological pattern over a class of segments that cannot be easily defined given the synchronic phonetic system. In this talk\, I look at such a case in South Bolivian Quechua\, where the etymological plain uvular stop /q/ has lenited to a sonorant \, among several other variants. Despite this change in phonetics\, the sound still patterns with the other stops with respect to phonotactic restrictions. Like other stops\, this sound is absent from coda position\, and like other stops\, this sound is prohibited from cooccurring with a following aspirate or ejective. \nI present the results of acoustic analysis of spontaneous speech\, leading to a description of the lenition pattern across speakers and phonological contexts\, and explore the consequences of phonetic variation for an inductive learning model of phonotactics. I then present the results of an experiment supporting the cognitive reality of phonotactic restrictions on /q/. \nFaculty host: Kie Zuraw. \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-gillian-gallagher-2/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201023T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201023T130000 DTSTAMP:20201023T111514Z CREATED:20201001T104537Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201023T111514Z UID:26361-1603450800-1603458000@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk with Hannah Sande DESCRIPTION:Hannah Sande (Georgetown University). Faculty host: Ethan Poole \nZoom link will be available one week ahead of the talk. URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-with-hannah-sande-2/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201009T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201009T130000 DTSTAMP:20201009T104508Z CREATED:20201001T104537Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201009T104508Z UID:26360-1602241200-1602248400@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk with Joe Pater DESCRIPTION:Joe Pater (UMass). Faculty host: Claire Moore-Cantwell \nZoom link will be available one week ahead of the talk. URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-with-joe-pater-2/ LOCATION:Zoom CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20191206T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20191206T130000 DTSTAMP:20191204T011337Z CREATED:20190726T175551Z LAST-MODIFIED:20191204T011337Z UID:20512-1575630000-1575637200@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium: Nathan Klinedinst - Anaphora and Identity DESCRIPTION:In prominent theories pronouns are treated as having (in effect) descriptive content\, to explain the possibility of anaphora on indefinites outside their binding domain. We discuss some data that appears to be problematic for these approaches\, and consider as an alternative\, a view that treats pronouns as simple variables and tracks anaphoric dependencies separately. URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-nathan-klinedist/ LOCATION:Haines Hall A25 CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20191115T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20191115T130000 DTSTAMP:20191112T164722Z CREATED:20190726T175401Z LAST-MODIFIED:20191112T164722Z UID:20510-1573815600-1573822800@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium: Will Styler - Using Transparent Machine Learning to study Human Speech DESCRIPTION:Using Transparent Machine Learning to study Human Speech \n  \nMachine learning\, the use of nuanced computer models to analyze and predict data\, has a long history in speech recognition and natural language processing\, but has largely been limited to more applied\, engineering tasks.  This talk will describe two more research-focused applications of transparent machine learning algorithms in the study of speech perception and production. \nFor speech perception\, we’ll examine the difficult problem of identifying acoustic cues to a complex phonetic contrast\, in this case\, vowel nasality.  Here\, by training machine learning algorithms on acoustic measurements\, we can more directly measure the informativeness of the various acoustic features to the contrast.  This by-feature informativeness data was then used to create hypotheses about human cue usage\, and then\, to model the observed human patterns of perception\, showing that these models were able to predict not only the utilized cue\, but the subtle patterns of perception arising from less informative changes. \nFor speech production\, we’ll focus on data from Electromagnetic Articulography (EMA)\, which provides position data for the articulators with high temporal and spatial resolution\, and discuss our ongoing efforts to identify and characterize pause postures (specific vocal tract configurations at prosodic boundaries\, c.f. Katsika et al. 2014) in the speech of 7 speakers of American English.  Here\, the lip aperture trajectories of 800+ individual pauses were gold-standard annotated by a member of the research team\, and then subjected to principal component analysis.  These analyses were then used to train a support vector machine (SVM) classifier\, which achieved a 96% classification accuracy in cross validation tests\, with a Cohen’s Kappa showing machine-to-annotator agreement of 0.79\, suggesting the potential for improvements in speed\, consistency\, and objective characterization of gestures. \nThese methods of modeling feature importance and classifying curves using transparent and interpretable machine learning both demonstrate concrete methods which are potentially useful and applicable to a variety of questions in phonetics\, and potentially\, in linguistics in general. URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-will-styler/ LOCATION:Haines Hall A25 CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20191101T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20191101T130000 DTSTAMP:20191014T235329Z CREATED:20190726T175219Z LAST-MODIFIED:20191014T235329Z UID:20507-1572606000-1572613200@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium: Masaya Yoshida DESCRIPTION: URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-masaya-yoshida/ LOCATION:Haines Hall A25 CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20191018T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20191018T130000 DTSTAMP:20191015T201424Z CREATED:20190726T175120Z LAST-MODIFIED:20191015T201424Z UID:20505-1571396400-1571403600@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium: Lyn Frazier DESCRIPTION:Topic situations and domain restriction      \nLyn Frazier \nUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst \nTopic Situations are discussed in several guises in the linguistics literature. Austinian Topic Situations (Austin\, 1950) are familiar in situation semantics\, where sentences are true of partial worlds\, not entire worlds\, and people hold attitudes toward partial worlds (Barwise and Perry\, 1983\, Kratzer\, 1989\, 2017). McKenzie (2015) discusses non-canonical switch reference in Kiowa (citing Watkins\, 1993) using the example in (1)\, where the ‘same subject’ marker gàu is used to indicate that the conjoined clauses refer to the same writing situation. \n(1)  Kathryn gà=gύt gàu Esther=àl gà=gύt\n“Kathryn wrote a letter and Esther wrote one too.” \nThe same sentence with the ‘different subject’ morpheme nàu indicates that the conjoined clauses refer to different situations. \nFrazier and Clifton (2018) proposed the topic situation hypothesis in (2) (see also Bestgen and Piérard\, 2014\, Schwarz\, 2019). \n(2)  Topic situation hypothesis: Initial temporal and locative PPs in English introduce topic situations. By default\, following material is included in the topic situation until a new topic situation\, or incompatible information\, is encountered. Other things equal\, the topic situation supplies the preferred context for implicit domain restriction. \nThe results of several interpretation and naturalness judgment experiments support the predictions of the topic situation hypothesis. \nWe will then look more closely at domain restriction in an attempt to understand the linguistic and processing mechanisms involved in supplying unstated context. Studies of time dependent nouns (In 1960\, the senator …) confirm that initial temporal phrases\, which by hypothesis introduce a topic situation\, are more likely to restrict the interpretation of the noun than do sentence-final temporal phrases\, which by hypothesis do not introduce a topic situation.  However\, noun class does not seem to be particularly important:  clearly relational nouns are not particularly likely to be restricted by the topic situation\, as might have been expected if domain restriction were a bottom-up process triggered by the nominal. The results perhaps fit best with Schwarz’s account where definite DPs have a situation variable which may be interpreted using the topic situation\, may be bound by a higher operator\, or may remain unbound. We will conclude by looking at whether indefinites\, and generic sentences\, pattern with definites. \nReferences \nBarwise\, J.\, & Perry\, J. (1983). Situations and Attitudes. Cambridge\, MA: MIT Press \nBestgen\, Y. & Piérard\, S. (2014). Sentence-initial adverbials and text comprehension. In L. Sarda\, S. Carter Thomas\, B. Fagard & M. Charolles (eds.) Adverbials in Use: From Predicative to Discourse Functions (pp. 151-168). Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses universitaires de Louvain. \nFrazier\, L.\, & Clifton Jr.\, C. (2018) Topic situations: Coherence by inclusion. Journal of Memory and Language\, 103\, 176-190. \nKratzer\, A. (2017). Situations in natural language semantics. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.)\, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2017 Edition). Stanford\, California. \nMcKenzie\, A. (2015). A survey of switch-reference in North America. International Journal of American Linguistics\, 81\, 409–448. DOI 10.1086/681580 \nSchwarz\, F. (2019). Definites\, domain restriction\,and discourse structure in online processing. In K. Carlson\, C. Clifton Jr.\, and J. Fodor (Eds)\, Heidleberg and New York: Springer. URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-lyn-frazier-2/ LOCATION:Haines Hall A25 CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20190607T160000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20190607T180000 DTSTAMP:20190608T170009Z CREATED:20190424T000028Z LAST-MODIFIED:20190608T170009Z UID:19104-1559923200-1559930400@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium: Isabelle Lin DESCRIPTION: URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-isabelle-lin/ LOCATION:Dodd Hall 170 CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20190531T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20190531T130000 DTSTAMP:20190530T164507Z CREATED:20190418T000005Z LAST-MODIFIED:20190530T164507Z UID:19029-1559300400-1559307600@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium: Meng Yang DESCRIPTION: URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-meng-yang/ LOCATION:Dodd Hall 167\, 315 Portola Plaza\, Los Angeles\, CA 90095\, USA\, 400 N Hill Pl\, United States CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20190524T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20190524T130000 DTSTAMP:20190524T163410Z CREATED:20190311T230645Z LAST-MODIFIED:20190524T163410Z UID:18402-1558695600-1558702800@linguistics.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colloquium: Laura Dilley DESCRIPTION: URL:https://linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-laura-dilley/ LOCATION:Dodd Hall (Room 167)\, 315 Portola Plaza\, Los Angeles\, CA 90095\, USA\, 1401 Via Portola\, United States CATEGORIES:Colloquium END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR