Author Archives: Michael Becker

Nirheche in Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics

Ali Nirheche and Michael Becker’s paper “NᴏɴFɪɴᴀʟɪᴛʏ drives epenthesis in the Moroccan Arabic broken plural” has appeared in the Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics 17(2), 333–359. https://doi.org/10.1163/18776930-01702004

Abstract. We show that in Moroccan Arabic, the iambic broken plural (C.CVC) is augmented to (C.CV).CV with a final vowel, focusing on the (C.Cu).Ca pattern, e.g., old [k.tub] ‘books’ → new [k.tu.ba] ‘books’. We argue that the added final vowel serves to prevent a final footed syllable (prevent a violation of NonFinality). This instance of prosodically-driven epenthesis fills a typological gap where such patterns were claimed to be unattested (Blumenfeld 2006, Moore-Cantwell 2016) and supports similar proposals about German plurals where NonFinality is argued to drive epenthesis (Golston & Wiese 1995, Wiese 2009). We show that NonFinality is active more broadly in the Moroccan Arabic plural system, e.g., capturing the increase in use of C.Ca.Ci in the lexicon. Our conclusions are based on a corpus and a survey of Moroccan plurals that we analyze with lexically-indexed violable constraints (Moore-Cantwell & Pater 2016).

Welcome to Felipe Vital

Please welcome Felipe Vital, who is visiting us this fall from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). He is a third-year Phd student who works on the phonology-morphology and phonology-syntax interfaces. Currently, he is researching the contribution of inverting language games (like french Verlan) to the broader debate on the structural limits of phonology and “impossible languages”.

Incoming class 2025

We are happy to introduce you to our incoming class!

Yifan Hu

Hello! My name is Yifan Hu. I completed my MA in Linguistics last year at University College London, where I focused — and plan to continue focusing — on phonology, phonetics and computational linguistics, particularly where these areas intersect. I work primarily on English, Mandarin and Spanish, and I’m always open to new languages. 

As some of you might have seen during the Open House, I am the long-haired person who’s sometimes a little too easy to spot in the crowd. I enjoy getting plenty of sleep; and outside of that, I regularly do some indoor workouts with Apple Fitness, occasionally go swimming, and (very) rarely play tennis — I used to play it every week, but I guess I need some recovery training now.

Anbu Vajuravel

My name is Anbu and I grew up in Singapore speaking English and Tamil. I did my undergraduate degree in Physics at UCLA. After completing my degree, I decided that I’d had enough of that and wanted to use my math skills in something else, namely linguistics. I’m interested in syntax-semantics (especially that of South Asian languages) as well as computational studies of syntax and language acquisition. When I’m not doing linguistics you might find me wishing I’d gotten into Singapore’s indie rock scene earlier in my life and playing or making what my friend describes as “5 dollar indie games.”

Kevin Morand

Hi! My name is Kevin (he/him) and I’m originally from France. Before joining UMass, I lived in Chile and South Korea, working as a post-doc in mathematical physics, before recently defecting to linguistics. My main topics of interests are those that reveal the underlying logicality of language; these include the study of classifiers, modality, quantification and part-whole structures.

Outside of linguistics, I enjoy listening to music (especially 60’s British pop) and sometimes playing some (I once ended up as the singer of a Korean ‘Red Hot Chili Peppers cover band’ for a year—despite not really liking their music. We had to disband eventually when one of the members joined a cult). I also enjoy reading (especially North and South American literature), watching movies, stand-up comedy, playing board games and walking in nature.

Gabriel Correa

Hi all, I’m Gabriel (he/him)! I’m originally from Brazil and just finished my undergrad at UChicago. My main research interest is in theoretical syntax, and I’ve been particularly interested in phenomena such as clitic doubling and null subjects within an information-structural framework. I’ve worked quite a bit on Blackfoot and Brazilian Portuguese in undergrad, so I’m very much looking forward to working across different languages during my time at UMass. Outside of linguistics, I love movies (I’ve even done a stint as a film projectionist in Chicago!), live theater, and crocheting.

Jack Duff to UCLA Linguistics

Amanda Rysling (PhD 2017) reports:

UMass Linguistics alumnus John (Jack) Duff (B.A. 2018, Linguistics & Psychology and Classical Languages) has just accepted a tenure-track assistant professor position in psycholinguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles. While he was at UMass, Jack worked as a research assistant for John Kingston in phonetics, for Lyn Frazier and Chuck Clifton in sentence processing, and for Alice Harris in fieldwork on Caucasian languages. He then went to UC Santa Cruz for his Ph.D., where he worked on the processing of both sentences and discourses, both in English and in Santiago Laxopa Zapotec, in addition to other projects with the Santiago Laxopa Zapotec community. Since 2023, he has been a postdoctoral researcher on the European Research Council grant “Individualized Interaction in Discourse” at Saarland University. He’ll take up his position at UCLA for the 2025-26 school year. Congratulations, Jack!

Gary Thoms Linguistics Colloquium

The Linguistics Colloquium this Friday November 22nd will be given by Gary Thoms (NYU). Time and place: 3.30pm in ILC S211. Title and abstract below.

Counter-counter-cyclicity

One of the best ideas in Chomsky’s Minimalist critique was the proposal that structure building proceeds monotonically, captured via his Extension Condition. Somewhat unfortunately, it has become increasingly common for syntactic analysis to reject this proposal on empirical grounds and to allow a range of counter-cyclic derivations to capture a range of phenomena which seem to resist cyclic treatments given standard base representations. In this talk I argue against counter-cyclic derivations by means of a series of case studies — the ‘punting’ of interveners, ‘skipping’ derivations, late merge of adjuncts, and ‘tucking in’ in multiple wh-questions — and I argue that counter-cyclic proposals fail to capture the facts. I argue that multidominant representations (of the kind championed by Kyle Johnson) give us a means by which to capture these phenomena more effectively, with a particularly important role for rethinking the specifics of our base structures. 

UMass linguists and alumni at AMP 2024

This year’s Annual Meeting on Phonology (AMP) will be hosted by Rutgers University November 1–3. The Annual Meetings on Phonology began as Phonology 2013 here at UMass.

Andrew Lamont (PhD 2022) will give a keynote address: Optimality Theory with lexical insertion is not computable. Abstract: This talk examines the computational consequences of introducing lexical insertion, i.e., the ability to copy morphemes or insert them from the lexicon, as an operation into Optimality Theory. I demonstrate that this operation makes OT not computable: in other words, it is impossible to determine the output of a given input in a finite amount of time. This result is derived by modeling the Post Correspondence Problem in an OT grammar that uses only representations and mechanisms attested in the literature.

Presentations from current students, faculty, and alumni included:

  • Claire Moore-Cantwell (PhD 2016): Balancing type and token frequency matching with lexically indexed constraints
  • Ali Nirheche: Variable Assimilation of the Definite Article l- in Moroccan Arabic
  • Seung Suk Lee, Joe Pater, & Brandon Prickett (PhD 2021): Representing and learning stress in a MaxEnt framework

Incoming class 2024

We are happy to introduce you to our very accomplished incoming class!

Hee Joong Choi

Hello, I’m Hee Joong from South Korea. As some of you might already know, I just finished my third year of Ph.D. coursework in Hispanic Linguistics here at UMass. My interests in semantics and pragmatics have always attracted me to the Linguistics Department, and now I am joining the linguistics program as a second-year (joint Ph.D.) student. Currently, what interests me the most is how words translate into actions, which is why Speech Act Theory plays a significant role in my research agenda. Besides linguistics and learning/teaching languages, I enjoy doing core exercises and cardio workouts. Oh, and I like to try making new dishes from scratch, too!

Duygu Demiray

My name is Duygu (they/them), and I am from Istanbul. I work on sentence processing and I am specifically interested in the effects of syntactic structure on the encoding and retrieval of linguistic elements. I am hoping to get more into computational linguistics (and maybe theoretical syntax). I got my MA from UC Santa Cruz and my BA from Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. When I am not doing linguistics stuff, I like reading about (socio)musicology and pop culture, and playing the same three video games. 

Kenta Kakenami

I’m Kenta Kakenami (he/him) from Japan. My research interests lie in syntax and semantics, particularly those of my native language, Japanese. I previously worked as a high school teacher in my hometown. In my free time, I enjoy watching Japanese TV shows and anime, and listening to various types of music.

Roger Liu

Hello, I am Roger Cheng-yen Liu (he/him) from Taiwan. I am interested in speech sound (phonetics, phonology, prosody) as well as its interface with other grammatical module (syntax and semantics) in different facets (theoretical, experimental, diachronic, and probably computational—in which I have very limited experience). I like language, because it pleases me both mentally and physically through analyzing grammatical formulae and manipulating the articulators respectively. I work on linguistics, because I wonder how theories can elegantly predict variations of human language with a finite set of parameters and elements. Besides linguistics, I am interested in popular music in Taiwan and Japan (especially before the 1990s), and I consider myself to be a good singer. I also like to play computer games (genre: JRPG), and I used to be familiar with the RPG Maker series.

Yanran Mou

Hi there, I’m Yanran (she/her)! I’m from Edmonton, Alberta, and recently finished up my undergrad at McGill University. I’m interested primarily in suprasegmental phonology, particularly in a language learning context, but would love to explore the world of information structure and its interaction with phonology. In my spare time, you can find me looking at birds in the woods or walking my dogs around town.

Nir Segal

Hi, I’m Nir. I’m from Jerusalem. My name comes from biblical Hebrew and means “plowing” or “plowed field.” My main interest is the study of meaning, which has led me to focus on formal semantics. However, thanks to some enthusiastic professors who showed me how to frame interesting research questions, I’ve also gotten into syntax and psycho-/neurolinguistics. Outside of linguistics, I enjoy music, films, reading, and laughing.

Lingle on Wednesday November 29

The first Lingle (Linguist Mingle) of the year will happen on Wednesday, November 29 at 5:30. Lingles are events for all of our various linguistics undergraduate majors. They are partly social and partly informational. This Lingle will include:

1. Food and socializing
2. An info session (optional!) on computational linguistics, including a Q&A on jobs in linguistics with one of our recent graduates.

Everyone is welcome. Please join if you’re able!

Susi Wurmbrand colloquium Friday Nov 18

Susi Wurmbrand (Harvard University) will present “Implicational complementation hierarchies: Containment and the freedom of syntax” on Friday November 18, 2022 at 3:30pm as part of the Linguistics colloquium series. The presentation will be both in-person in S331 in the ILC and available through Zoom. Abstract can be found below. All are welcome!

Typological and cross-linguistic observations show that complementation configurations can be ranked according to their semantic properties, forming an implicational complementation hierarchy along which syntactic or morphological distinctions operate. I suggest a model where the cross-linguistically stable (possibly universal) properties follow from a rigid syntax?semantic mapping of categories defined via containment, whereas variable properties indicate the points where syntax may act autonomously.  I will discuss several phenomena where implicational relations have been observed (among them finiteness, transparency, restructuring, the left periphery) and show that they can be related to truncation options (whether implemented via exfoliation, structure removal or non-projection) regulated by containment.