PhD Admit Open HouseWelcome! =Will come?

Faculty ResearchIn RSVP (rapid serial visual presentation)

Production of non-native phonotactics What causes differences among the production of

non-native consonant sequences when none of the sequences are possible in a language?– e.g. bdava < gbafu < tkale < zgamo < fpane

Similar patterns for speakers of different language backgrounds suggest a common phonetic origin.

Example: both English & Catalan speakers are more accurate on fricative-initial than stop-initial sequences

—stops require more precise articulation, so speakers have more difficulty

.00

.10

.20

.30

.40

.50

.60

.70

.80

Stop-Stop Stop-Nasal Stop-Fric Fric-Stop Fric-Fric Fric-Nasal

Cluster Manner Type

Accuracy

Catalan

English

Lisa Davidson

Errors in cross-language production When speakers make errors on non-native sequences,

they are often repaired with vocalic insertion Evidence from both acoustic data and ultrasound

suggest that these errors are due to inappropriate articulatory coordination rather than segmental insertion– Speakers fail to appropriately overlap consonantal

gestures, giving rise to the percept of a schwa

t k a

t k a

open vocal tract=voicing

tip

Ultrasound shows that tongue does not match canonical

schwa

Diamandis Gafos: recent projects

• In phonology-morphology, a main focus area has been the proper characterization of the typological differences between concatenative (‘affixal’ as in English) and nonconcatenative (‘templatic’ as in Arabic) phonology and morphology.

• In phonology-phonetics, a main concern has been to formally relate high-level linguistic theories with lower-level speech production models.

• In computational/ mathematical models, my work aims at developing formal tools to deal with the duality between the discreteness of phonological entities and the variable, continuous nature of phonetic substance (example next).

Phonetics of transparent vowels

Back environment

Front environment

Front vs. Back environment Red-1 Green-2 Blue-3 Magenta-4 Cyan-5

Block Vowel

MD MD MD MD MD /í/ [i:] -1.16 ** -2.29** -2.54** -2.13** -1.32** /i/ [i] -1.34* -1.97* -2.19** -2.12** -1.03*

1

/é/ [e:] -0.69* -0.87* -0.74 -0.36 0.09 /í/ [i:] -1.92** -2.68** -3.05** -2.94** -2.07** /i/ [i] -1.48** -2.27** -2.92** -2.7** -1.69**

2

/é/ [e:] -1.31** -1.54** -1.5** -1.34* -0.97*

*p<.05, **p<.001

í (– nak)í (– nek)

é (– nak)é (– nek)

Transparent Vowel followed by back suffix

Transparent Vowel followed by front suffix

In vowel harmony systems, we find transparent vowels followed by either back or front suffixes

Phonemic form of the suffix as a function of R

maximal minimal intermediate (papír–nak) (emir–hez)

(aszpirin–nak/nek)

Within each R region, we find stable qualitative choices (same suffix).

As R is scaled beyond these regions, suffix form changes qualitatively (backfront).

Maria Gouskova

Areas of specialty: phonology and its interfaces with morphology and phonetics

Past work has investigated the nature of constraints in Optimality Theory, a constraint-based model of phonological grammar.

Focus on markedness constraints on sonority and metrical foot structure. Sonority: syllable contact, role of vowel quality in

deletion and epenthesis Foot structure: metrically conditioned vowel deletion

Maria Gouskova

Current work: lexical exceptions and partial phonological generalizations What are the sources of templates in morphological

truncation and reduplication? Lexical stress systems: in languages such as

Russian and English, stress is morphological and not entirely predictable. Can this be explained using the machinery that we use for other lexical exceptions?

Idiosyncratic vowel deletion, as in Russian “yers”

• What are the neural bases of basic linguistic computations, such as

• morphological decomposition

• syntactic composition

• semantic composition? (main current project)

• There is no evidence that the brain has regions dedicated to language.

• In order to develop a model of language in the brain, we need to be able to conceptualize core linguistic computations as computations that also occur in other domains.

Liina Pylkkänen & the Neurolinguistics Lab

Liina Pylkkänen & the Neurolinguistics LabRecent results

• Higher level object recognition areas perform morphological decomposition in reading (Zweig & Pylkkänen, LCP, 2008).

*

• Violations of syntactic category predictions are already noticed by regions of the visual cortex in reading (Dikker, Rabagliati, & Pylkkänen,

Cognition, 2009)

• Studies manipulating semantic composition yield effects in a very “multi-tasking” region of the prefrontal cortex which is also involved in reasoning, theory of mind, emotion, etc.. Are natural language meanings composed via a domain-general combinatoric function?

Anterior Midline Anterior Midline Field (AMF)Field (AMF)

Single dipole Single dipole modelmodel

Distributed Distributed source modelsource model

Alec MarantzMind/Brain Consequences of Linguistic Theory Predictions from Distributed Morphology (Marantz 1997)

To what extent does the mind/brain decompose complex words (e.g., workable) in order to recognize/produce them? (Is there -able in amiable? in tolerable?)?

Method

Single trial MEG data correlated with continuous stimulus variables

“M170” response, ~170ms post-visual word-stimulus onset

• The white point represents the peak of the Visual Word Form Area, as identified by Cohen et al. (2002)• The yellow line outlines the region of peak M170 MEG activation in an average of 9 subjects’ brain activity.

Results:Support for full decomposition in accessing morphologically complex words (Solomyak & Marantz, submitted)

• At 170ms post stimulus onset, activity in the putative “visual word form area” correlates with morphological properties of complex words.

• Correlation is with “affix properties” for words like amiable and tolerable with “bound stems” (ami and toler are not words) and with transition probabilities between stem and affixes for words like workable with “free stems” (work is a word) and words like “tolerable” with “bound stems” (“toler-” occurs also in “tolerate”).

Mean Activity in LH M170 Region for 9 Subjects(Dotted line shows average across subjects)

Correlation Waves: Single Trial MEG data (activation from left M170 region) correlated with continuous stimulus variables, here statistical properties of the relation between the stem and affix for words with free and bound stems.

M170 peak

Re- scopes over a part of the syntactic representation that can exclude the verb (root) (just the direct object, as part of the

end state of a resultative)• What does “rebuild” mean?• (1) After the hurricane, John rebuilt his

house.– Did John build the house to begin with?– Does(1) presuppose that anyone built the

house before it was destroyed?– I'm going to pass on the help with the

donation to help rebuild the Old Man of the Mountain.

The Old Man of the Mountain

Anna Szabolcsi: Recent research interests

Quantifiers and polarityWays of Scope Taking, Kluwer, 1997.Positive polarity—negative polarity, NLLT, 2004.Quantification, CUP (under construction).

Hungarian syntaxVerbal Complexes, MIT Press, 2000. (w/ Hilda Koopman)

Categorial grammar and variable-free semantics Binding on the fly,… in Kruijff-Oehrle, 2003.Optionality, scope, and licensing, … JoLLI, 2008.

(w/ Raffaella Bernardi)

Anna Szabolcsi: Current projectA model: before April after April

Bill gets good roles Bill doesn’t get good roles Joe gets good roles Joe doesn’t get good roles(Mary gets good roles) Mary gets good roles

`In April it began to be the case that only Mary is getting good roles’

Three different ways languages express this:

English: only Mary “reconstructs” into the infinitival complement of began In April only Mary began to get good roles

Hungarian: `only Mary’ is the overt nominative subject of the infinitival compl. Elkezdett [csak Mari kapni jó szerepeket]Shupamem: overt fronting of `began’ assigns it wide scope over the subject

A ka yeshe ndùù Maria inget ndàà li?

The latter two are previously unknown grammatical possibilities.

homepages.nyu.edu/~cb125

Chris Barker

Semantics, Philosophy of Language

Main current project (with Ken Shan):Semantic Context: Continuations, Scope,and Binding, in prep. OUP

Using continuations, a concept from theoreticalcomputer science, to understand scope taking, dynamic interpretation, and quantificational binding.

(Continuation-based treatment of donkey anaphora without Quantifier Raising, and without E-type pronouns.)

Other interests:

1. Vagueness a. Feynman was stupid to dance like that. b. *Feynman wanted to be stupid to dance like that. An impossible desire.2. Clarity a. It is clear that we are in a recession. b. We are in a recession. If (a) is true, why not just assert (b)?3. Parasitic Scope a. John and Bill read the same book. b. John read and reviewed the same book. c. I met two men with the same name. What is the compositional contribution of same?4. Double modals in Southern American English a. I might could feed your cat.5. Substructural logics for natural language syntax and semantics What structural resources characterize scope-taking?

I. Motivations • Empirical Motivation: presupposition is one of the main types of inferences that semantics must account for. Presupposition computation is not trivial:

John knows that he is incompetent presupposes John is incompetent John doesn’t know that he is incompetent presupposes John is incompetent If John is realistic, he knows that he is incompetent presupposes he is incompetent If John is incompetent, he knows that he is incompetent does NOT presuppose that he is incompetent

• Theoretical Motivations-Modular question: do presuppositional inferences belong to the semantics or to the pragmatics? -Foundational question: presupposition computation is one of the main arguments for ‘dynamic semantics’, which has been the dominant framework since the 1980’s. Is it justified?

Presuppositions Philippe Schlenker (Institut Jean-Nicod and NYU)

 II. Main Results • Theoretical Side-A formal account of presupposition computation can be given with (i) a fully classical (non-dynamic) semantics.(ii) a pragmatic algorithm.-The resulting theory is more predictive than dynamic semantics -Other recent theories have the same property - and the debate is open.

• Formal SideUnder certain conditions, general equivalence results can be obtained between (some) new theories and dynamic semantics.

• Experimental Side (collaboration with E. Chemla) Various theories of presupposition make different predictions about (i) inferential data, and (ii) reaction times. Some of the crucial data are currently being explored with experimental means.    

Presuppositions Philippe Schlenker (Institut Jean-Nicod and NYU)

Spontaneously Emergent ComplexityComputational/Mathematical BioLinguistics

Ray Dougherty rcd2@nyu.edu

NKS102708fin 22

BIOLOGY INFORMATION THEORY

EVOLUTION ofthe COCHLEA

Mammals have a coiled cochlea; all others a cylinder.Overnight the cylinder becamea helical spiral

Cats and humans haveexactly the same three/fourrows of hair cells in the cochlea.An overnight saltation for both.

12

Cognitive Cochlear ModelsContrasting

versus

Helical Spiral

Height

Length

Skinniness

x

y

WatchSpring Spiral

The Triple Concentric Helical Spiral

Mammal Cochlea

To Model This

23NKS102708fin

Professor Chris Collins has been doing research on endangered Khoisan languages for the last ten

years. Currently, his work focusses on the syntactic description of N|uu, a language spoken

by around10 elderly people in and around Upington, South Africa. The picture is of the beautiful Orange River, called !ari in N|uu.

Chris Collins, in collaboration with Richie Kayne and Dennis Shasha from Computer Science, is designing a database of the syntactic structures of the world's languages. This database will be open in the sense that the number of languages and the number of syntactic properties represented will increase continuously. Screen capture below illustrates the Search Interface, where it is possible to search for languages, properties, property_value pairs and examples, subject to various constraints. The system is being developed with the help of graduate students Jim Wood, Andrea Cattaneo, and Michael Taylor.

Paul Postal: Such an Imposter! Question:  Can a conjunction of two third person DPs antecede a

non-3 person (in particular, 1st person) reflexive?  Answer: Not in general. My father and that woman will devote themselves/*ourselves

to music. But….   Daddy and Mommy will devote themselves/ourselves to music. Question: Under what conditions can a conjunction of two 3

person DPs antecede a non-3 person (in particular 1st person) reflexive? 

Answer:  When one of the conjoined DPs is an imposter.  Question:   What is an imposter? Answer: An imposter is a DP which appears to be an

ordinary 3rd person DP in that it can only determine 3rd person verb agreement, but which actually (according to Paul Postal and Chris Collins) has a complex internal structure including a non-3rd person DP.

Paul Postal: The Magic Link Problem Observation: The form wrong licenses some negative polarity items (NPIs), e.g.

any forms in its immediate complement, but not others, e.g. squat, jack, jack shit, etc. It is wrong to give her anything/*squat

With most verbs taking that clause complements, this situation is unaltered when the NPIs are embedded in their complements below wrong: It is wrong to assert/testify that he gave her anything/*squat.

But, with a few verbs, e.g., believe, think, …, the pattern in (2) permits NPI squat: It is wrong to believe/think that he gave her anything/squat (= ‘anything’).

Question: why can linking an NPI like squat to a licenser like wrong when separated by believe, think, …clauses, here dubbed magic links, yield grammaticality when linking it via most verbs does not?

Clue to answer is that the magic link verbs are Classical NEG raising verbs, which permit a main clause negative to be understood as having exclusively complement clause scope:

a. Veronica doesn’t believe Ted is immortal. = (on one reading) b. Veronica believes Ted is not immortal. New Question: Why can Classical NEG raising verbs serve as magic links but other

verbs in general cannot? Tiny part of part of an answer: licensing NPIs has something to do with

permitting a negative to raise toward the licenser of an NPI. (see Postal, Foundations of a Novel View of Negative Polarity Items, in preparation)

Mark BaltinI am a syntactician whose research interests

typically deal with the interaction of syntax and semantics. Much of my work in recent years has dealt with the nature of ellipsis in language, and

has recently broadened to the syntax of anaphora in general, and how the syntax maps

onto the semantics of anaphora.

• I am currently teaching a graduate seminar in semantics, where we have been looking at work by philosophers of language and linguists on the semantics of pronouns. With Jeroen van Craenenbroeck, who was a visiting professor here, I– am exploring the similarities between pronouns and

deletion sites, and– have applied for an NSF grant to apply a theory that

predicts how the shape of pronouns is all that is needed to make them pronouns, and that predicts that deletion sites are essentially treated as pronouns.

Richie Kayne Early work of mine (several years ago) involved the transformational

cycle (the precursor of phases), via the syntax of French, especially clitics and causatives.  There followed work of a more abstract sort (connectedness, binary branching, antisymmetry) and simultaneously great enthusiasm for comparative syntax, both micro- (Romance dialects) and macro- (antisymmetry), seen as a new probe into the language faculty often leading to results not otherwise attainable (e.g. evidence for the existence and position of PRO that comes from manipulating the position of infinitives across Romance languages/dialects). 

More recently (and in addition) I've been interested in exploring what might be called the 'reach of syntax':  how far can the techniques developed in syntactic work over the last decades extend to classical questions of morphology or to questions that might be thought of as 'lexical', e.g. why do English sentences like You're to return home by midnight have no exact counterpart in other Germanic languages or in Romance languages?  (answer:  Such English sentences are really instances of W-verb-type ECM, which is independently known to be rare.  Moreover, the syntax-semantics interface does not allow the copula by itself to yield a deontic modal-like interpretation, whether directly or by 'shifting'.)

To what extent should the theory of anaphora be integrated into syntax?  (answer:  All antecedent-pronoun relations are established via movement.  Neither Condition B nor Condition C of the Binding Theory is necessary.)

The relevance of syntax to (abstract) phonology is less clear (though it's worth asking if phonology is antisymmetric in a way similar to the way syntax is).  Very clear, though, is that syntax and phonology diverge in that syntactically and semantically active elements can fail to be pronounced under very specific conditions (arguably as a consequence of the architecture of spellout).

Antisymmetry may in any event underlie the core noun-verb distinction that is usually (but wrongly) taken to be a given of the language faculty.  (Pursuing that leads to discovering that what we have thought of as sentential complementation is in fact a subtype of relative clause.)

Greg Guy: Variation and Exemplar Theory

• Exemplar Theory of Bybee, Pierrehumbert, Hay, etc., claims that words are stored in memory as clouds of memory traces of previously heard or uttered tokens of the word

• This theory predicts – 1) lexical frequency effects should be widely

evident in phonology– 2) lenition processes should show reduced effects

of context in high frequency words• My research on variable -t,d deletion suggests that (1)

frequency effects are more nuanced than ET predicts and (2) contextual conditioning is indeed reduced for lexical exceptions, but not for all high-frequency words

Re: Prediction 1. Frequency effects depend on morphology

Monomorphemic words (e.g. east, old) N Deletions % Deletion

High frequency 573 194 33.9Low frequency 151 28 18.5

(1) = 13.182, p < .01

Regular past tense verbs (e.g. missed, called) N Deletions % Deletion

High frequency 220 18 8.2Low frequency 96 7 7.3

(1) = .073, p > .75, n.s.

(Guy & Myers analysis of two speakers from Philadelphia)

Re: Prediction 2. Effect of following context is weaker for exceptional ‘and’, but not for

other high frequency words Following (factor weights for deletion)

Context: Other words and __C[+cor] .83 .63 __C[-cor, +vce] .90 .73 __C[-cor, -vce] .76 .52 __/w/ .72 .59 __V .29 .42

Range: .61 > .31 (Guy, Hay & Walker 2008 analysis of 18 speakers from the ONZE corpus)

35

Renée Blake, Ph.D. Associate Professor Department of Linguistics and Department of Social & Cultural Analysis

Renée Blake, Ph.D. Associate Professor Department of Linguistics and Department of Social & Cultural Analysis

I publish on the role of language in social interactions and relations, focusing on issues of language contact, race, ethnicity and class in several U.S. communities and the Caribbean. Additionally, I have lectured across the country on African American English; Language and Communication; Language and Politics; Race, Class and Language Ideology; and Diasporic Migration.

Over my career, I have received several grants including Fulbright, Rockefeller, and National Science Foundation. I have also served as a consultant to several organizations including Disney and the Ford Foundation. In my down time, I am working on a book on Black Latinos and sociolinguistic issues.

I publish on the role of language in social interactions and relations, focusing on issues of language contact, race, ethnicity and class in several U.S. communities and the Caribbean. Additionally, I have lectured across the country on African American English; Language and Communication; Language and Politics; Race, Class and Language Ideology; and Diasporic Migration.

Over my career, I have received several grants including Fulbright, Rockefeller, and National Science Foundation. I have also served as a consultant to several organizations including Disney and the Ford Foundation. In my down time, I am working on a book on Black Latinos and sociolinguistic issues.

What I do as a Sociolinguist:What I do as a Sociolinguist:

Current Work:For AMERICAN SPEECH: “ ‘Y'all ain't from 'round hurr’’: Hip-Hop and a Case of Regional Variation in AAE” (presented at NWAV and LSA)(with Fix, Moody and Shousterman)

For JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS:“New York City English: Perceptual Dialectology and Research Design” (presented at NWAV and ADS)(with Coggshall, Erker and Taylor)

For ENGLISH TODAY: One of the journal editors

Current Work:For AMERICAN SPEECH: “ ‘Y'all ain't from 'round hurr’’: Hip-Hop and a Case of Regional Variation in AAE” (presented at NWAV and LSA)(with Fix, Moody and Shousterman)

For JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS:“New York City English: Perceptual Dialectology and Research Design” (presented at NWAV and ADS)(with Coggshall, Erker and Taylor)

For ENGLISH TODAY: One of the journal editors

36

Who are my students (recent and current) Who are my students (recent and current) EREZ LEVON (2008), Assistant Professor, University of London

Israel, “Sexuality and the Politics of Belonging in Israel” LAURIE WOODS (2009)

South Carolina, “Whither the Southern Belle?: Language and Identity in the American South”CURRENT SONYA FIX (2009)

Ohio, “Whitegirl Plight: Gender, Ideology and Negotiation of the Racial(ized) Self Through Language among White Women With Black Social Networks”

SIMANIQUE MOODY (2009)Georgia, “Language Contact and Regional Variation in African American English: A Study of Southeast Georgia”

CARA SHOUSTERMANSt. Louis/Memphis/Mid-Atlantic, “Diachrony and AAE: Sound Change Outside of Mainstream”

DANNY ERKER New York City Spanish, coda /s/ MIKE TAYLOR

New York, Perceptual dialectology

EREZ LEVON (2008), Assistant Professor, University of London Israel, “Sexuality and the Politics of Belonging in Israel”

LAURIE WOODS (2009) South Carolina, “Whither the Southern Belle?: Language and Identity in the American South”

CURRENT SONYA FIX (2009)

Ohio, “Whitegirl Plight: Gender, Ideology and Negotiation of the Racial(ized) Self Through Language among White Women With Black Social Networks”

SIMANIQUE MOODY (2009)Georgia, “Language Contact and Regional Variation in African American English: A Study of Southeast Georgia”

CARA SHOUSTERMANSt. Louis/Memphis/Mid-Atlantic, “Diachrony and AAE: Sound Change Outside of Mainstream”

DANNY ERKER New York City Spanish, coda /s/ MIKE TAYLOR

New York, Perceptual dialectology

JOHN VICTOR SINGLER• I’m a sociolinguist: That means that I’m interested in the ways

in which social factors bear upon language. • I’m a socioLINGUIST. My interest in the social is always driven

by wanting to understand more about language and linguistic principles.

• Languages in Contact:• Pidgins and creoles, especially West African P/Cs, especially Vernacular Liberian English and Kru Pidgin English• The role of variation in language. • Kru and Mande (Niger-Congo) languages—phonology/phonetics and morphology.

In recent years, I have addressed the history of African American English and its diaspora varieties, in particular Liberian Settler English.

2008. The African American English of antebellum Philadelphia: Evidence from trial records at Bethel AME Church. NWAV.

2007. Samaná and Sinoe. Part I, Stalking the vernacular. Part II, Provenance. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages.

2004. I. Liberian Settler English—phonology. II. The morphology and syntax of Liberian Settler English. A handbook of varieties of English.

Dissertations Supervised2009. Chanti Seymour. College of the Bahamas2007. Komlan Essizewa. U. de Lomé2006. Philipp Angermeyer. York U. (Canada)2005. Bill Haddican. U. of York (UK)2004. Rafael Orozco. Louisiana State