On November 9th, Seth Cable visited the University of Tübingen and presented an invited talk on some of his recent work on the morpho-semantics of negative predicates in Tlingit. Former UMass visitors (and students) in attendance included Sigrid Beck, Polina Berezovskaya, Vera Hohaus, Anna Howell, Natasha Korotkova, Paula Menendez Benito, Konstantin Sachs, and Igor Yanovich (sincerest apologies to anyone who may have been left out).
As goes without saying, Seth had an incredibly wonderful and memorable time!
We’re pleased to share the news that Carolyn Anderson will be presenting work related to her first GP at two major upcoming conferences.
Carolyn will be presenting a talk titled “The Andative and Venitive Construction in San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec” at the conference Multi-Verb Constructions: Semantic, Syntactic and Typological Perspectives (MVC2017) at Humboldt University in Berlin on December 7-8.
She will also be presenting a talk titled “The San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec Andative and Venitive” at this year’s meeting of the Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA), which (as always) will be held with the LSA (Salt Lake City; January 4-7).
Both talks will be presenting Carolyn’s original fieldwork on the syntax and semantics of the so-called ‘andative’ and ‘venitive’ makers in San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec, which forms a major part of her first GP (defended last semester).
Please join us in welcoming Peter Alrenga (http://www.peteralrenga.com/) to our department! Peter will be working with us this year as a Visiting Professor in Semantics.
Peter earned his PhD from UC Santa Cruz, with a dissertation advancing our understanding of scalar structure, the syntax/semantics of degree constructions, and the ways in which they relate to more general statements of similarity and difference.
Peter’s current research touches on a number of central areas in the field of formal semantics, particularly those related to gradability, scale structure, and degree constructions. He has done important work with Chris Kennedy and Jason Merchant on the nature of comparative clauses (a.k.a. “than-phrases”), the interpretation of quantifiers within them, and more broadly the nature of so-called “split scope” phenomena. More recently, he has been working on the semantics of the scalar operators “at most” and “at least”, their focus semantics, and their possible deep connections with disjunction.
In addition to teaching our undergraduate semantics course, Peter will be teaching the graduate proseminar in semantics this fall. Of course, students (especially semantics students) are strongly encouraged to go ahead and arrange meetings with Peter!
Please join us in congratulating semantics PhD student Yangsook Park (https://websites.umass.edu/yangsook/), who will be joining Amazon this fall as a Language Engineer. In this position, she’ll be working to develop “coherent and comprehensive meaning representation frameworks”, and “solidifying new representations” of meaning.
Congratulations Yangsook!
It is our great pleasure to share the news that the University of Massachusetts Board of Trustees has just officially awarded tenure to Professor Brian Dillon, and that the Chancellor has just officially approved his promotion to Associate Professor.
Please join us in congratulating Professor Dillon on this extraordinary achievement, and in expressing our appreciation for all his exemplary contributions to our field!
The College of Humanities and Fine Arts held this year’s Senior Recognition Ceremony on Saturday May 13th. At this ceremony, graduating seniors in the College were honored by their respective programs.
The Linguistics Department faculty were represented by Seth Cable and Peggy Speas, who congratulated the graduating Linguistics majors in attendance:
– Savannah Champion
– Jenni Coppola
– Amanda Doucette
– Brandyn Evora-Rosa
– Ria Geguera
– Eric Gomes
– Carla Anne Guthrie
– Alicia LeClaire
– Tran Leeman
– Kazuki Moriguchi
– Patrick Murphy
– Samantha Sexton
– Megan Sorel
– Gabrielle Mae St. Pierre
– Abigail Williams
And, a heartfelt congratulations to all our majors in this year’s graduating class! Please stay in touch and keep us informed of all your incredible accomplishments!
It gives us great pleasure to announce that Sakshi Bhatia and Zahra Mirrazi have received Pre-Dissertation Fellowships, and that Ethan Poole and Leland Kusmer and have received Dissertation Fellowships. These Fellowships were granted by the Graduate School in a new program to provide summer support for graduate research.
Congratulations to each of them on these outstanding achievements – the competition was very stiff!
It is our great pleasure to announce that Lisa Green has received this year’s University Distinguished Community Engagement Award for Research. This well-deserved award recognizes Lisa for her exceptional achievements in community-engaged scholarship. For more on the award, including the winners from previous years, please see the link below:
Congratulations, Lisa!
It is our great pleasure to announce that Brian Dillon has received this year’s College of Humanities and Fine Arts Outstanding Teacher Award.
Please join us in congratulating him on this well-deserved recognition. Special thanks are also owed to the students who supported his nomination by writing such powerful statements testifying to Brian’s outstanding skills as a teacher.