Dinka and Passamaquoddy-Wolastoqey both have types of extraction which distinguish between DPs and non-DPs; the distinction has syntactic and morphological consequences in various parts of the clause.  Van Urk (2015) was able to use the Dinka version of this phenomenon to argue that PP extraction in Dinka involves converting the PP into a DP at a certain point along the movement path.  I’ll argue that Passamaquoddy can perform the same kind of conversion.  In both cases, the resulting DP participates in phi-agreement (and, in the Dinka example, case-assignment) as though it had never been the object of a preposition.  I’ll try to demonstrate that all of the above is true, and then talk about possible consequences.

We seek candidates whose research connects productively with current issues in core areas of linguistic theory as they interface with core computational questions. The successful candidate will have a PhD in Linguistics, Computer Science or a related field, and will be expected to participate in research, teaching and advising in Linguistics and in SCC. A PhD is required by the start of employment.

The successful candidate will have a shared appointment in both the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy and SCC in either the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) or the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS), depending on best fit. Faculty duties include teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in computational linguistics and related educational programs of SCC; conducting research; and advising undergraduate and graduate students. The normal teaching load is three subjects per year.

Applicants should submit a letter of application, curriculum vitae, copies of research papers, evidence of teaching ability, and contact information for at least three referees. In addition, the application should include a statement outlining the applicant’s research interests, previous achievements, and plans, as well as the broader questions that this research promises to engage with.

The pay range for a 9-month academic appointment at the entry-level Assistant Professor rank (excluding summer salary): $135,000 – $138,000.
MIT provides pay ranges representing its good faith estimate of what the Institute reasonably expects to pay for a position at the time of posting. The pay offered to a selected candidate during hiring will be based on factors such as (but not limited to) the scope and responsibilities of the position, the candidate’s work experience and education/training, internal peer equity, and applicable legal requirements. This pay range represents base pay only and does not include any other benefits or compensation

Please submit online applications to: https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/33177

Review of applications will begin on December 11, 2026. To ensure full consideration, applications should be complete by this date, but we will consider all applications submitted until the position is filled.

MIT is an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and strongly encourage applications from individuals from all identities and backgrounds. All qualified applicants will receive equitable consideration for employment based on their experience and qualifications and will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, religion, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, or national or ethnic origin. See MIT’s full policy on nondiscrimination. Employment is contingent upon the completion of a satisfactory background check, including verifying any finding of misconduct (or pending investigation) from prior employers.

Abstract:

In this talk, I will discuss a prediction inspired by Kim’s (2024) Realized-Input account of phonological opacity. Consider a language with the following three processes:

• Palatalization: t → tʃ / _i
• Raising: e → i / [-stress]
• Epenthesis: ∅ → i / C_C

In principle, both Raising and Epenthesis can create the context for Palatalization. In a rule-based framework, depending on the order of application, each rule can feed (yielding [tʃi]) or counterfeed Palatalization (yielding [ti]). This permits four combinations: both feed Palatalization, both counterfeed it, or one feeds it while the other counterfeeds it. However, are all four combinations attested? I predict that Raising and Epenthesis should interact with Palatalization in the same way, if all three rules apply within the same phonological domain: either both rules feed Palatalization or both rules counterfeed it. I will develop this prediction using the analysis in Kim (2024) and examine preliminary supporting evidence from São Paulo Brazilian Portuguese and perhaps a few other languages.

Here is the abstract:

The distribution of [h] and [ŋ] in English poses a well-known challenge for the structuralist assumption that segments in complementary distribution are allophones of the same phoneme. In this paper, we show that this distribution also poses a challenge within generative linguistics, a challenge of explanatory adequacy. The challenge is to explain why the English-learning child does not acquire a grammar in which [h] and [ŋ] are derived from the same underlying representation. The generative literature has not identified this as a problem, largely because of the assumption that [h] and [ŋ] are too phonetically dissimilar to participate in an alternation. However, we argue that phonetic accounts do not eliminate the challenge. We discuss simplicity-based theories of learning and show that under naive representational assumptions, simplicity-based learners prefer to derive [ŋ] from an underlying /h/, rather than a longer sequence of /ng/ (or an underlying /ŋ/), and therefore make wrong predictions about English speakers’ knowledge. The same learners, however, make correct predictions when combined with a representational framework that assumes underspecification and lexical redundancy rules. We therefore conclude that the acquisition problem can be addressed using simplicity-based learning, and that the complementary distribution of [h] and [ŋ] provides an argument for underspecification and lexical redundancy rules.

The paper is open access: https://doi.org/10.1162/LING.a.614

Abstract:

This talk investigates “word”-internal language mixing among Turkish, Anatolian Arabic, and Northern Kurdish across verbal and nominal domains. Drawing on rarely studied trilingual code-switching data, the study explores how language contact shapes templatic and affixal morphology. To account for these patterns, the study adopts the No-Reversal Constraint (NRC, Akkuş 2025), which dictates that language mixing cannot switch back to a language that contributed a morpheme earlier in the derivation. Demonstrating that the NRC fares better than alternative formal approaches, this talk broadens the empirical coverage of the constraint and addresses two issues not discussed in Akkuş 2025. First, the NRC is shown to apply to morphosyntactic words prior to linearization, exerting a structural, bottom-up restriction (prohibiting [[A B] A] structures) rather than a simple left-to-right linear prohibition (*A-B-A). Second, language mixing occurs even without phonological or morphological integration – or when phonological processes do not track each other – confirming that these patterns reflect genuine code-switching rather than borrowing, and that the NRC operates independently of integration levels.

Abstract:

This minicourse presents an analysis of argument indexation, the process by which arguments in a clause are coindexed with grammatical markers that bear their features. In particular, it examines how morphosyntactic operations that phi-features are involved with relate to their morphophonological behavior. The main case study is based on varieties of Central Kurdish, whose indexation properties interact with an alignment split of the type often called ‘split Ergative.’ From this, we develop a more general theory that can be applied to many other languages, some of which will be illustrated. A key line of argument is that agreement and clitic movement operations target specific cases, in a process called ‘Case Targeting’. The approach further hypothesizes that case labels like ‘Nominative’, ‘Ergative’, and so on are shorthand for decomposed feature bundles, both in the syntax and morphology. It is these features that are targeted by syntactic operations such as agreement and movement. In addition to requiring Case Targeting, the analysis of Central Kurdish implies that syntactic operations (agreement, clitic movement) and their morphophonological reflexes may be mismatched: agreement and movement can both produce affixes and clitics, contrary to many views of morphosyntax/morphophonology relations. The implications of these points are discussed focusing on indexing effects shown by (in)transitives, possessive constructions, along with the prepositional-arguments.

[This is based on joint work with David Embick and Mohammed Salih]

Check out the beautiful view in the photo below!

• Ford 1:34:35
• Joseph 1:38:01
• Jin 1:57:55
• Thomas 1:58:01

Congratulations to all four!!

See below for photos of our amazing runners:

Elora Cromarty (current student in the MITILI program), Peter Grishin (‘23, postdoc ‘23-‘25), Elise Newman (‘21, current faculty), Norvin Richards (‘97, faculty), and Cooper Roberts (current student in the doctoral program) all presented at the conference.

Elora gave a poster, and participated in a co-authored talk (with Joel Jansen, Grace Yang, and Antti Arppe), on her work with Swampy Cree – and also participated in a keynote panel discussion on “Youth in Leadership”. The other MIT-related participants presented their work with Passamaquoddy-Wolastoqey. Peter and Elise co-presented both a paper and a poster, and Norvin and Cooper each gave talks.

Norvin Richards writes: “The conference was both inspiring and educational, and we’re looking forward to putting what we’ve learned into practice.”

Conference program: https://algonquianstudies.org/ac58-program/

Abstract:

Whereas the syntax of fragment answers is typically discussed in root contexts, it has been observed that they may also occur as complements of bridge verbs (Temmerman 2013) and as predicates in a copular clause (Weir 2017). In this work-in-progress talk I consider the distribution of fragments in subject position, such as the PP fragment in (1B).

(1) Q. Where should we put the pie?
A. On the table would be a good idea.
Approximately means: “For us to put the pie on the table would be a good idea.”

I show that such “fragment subjects” present a paradox. On the one hand, fragment subjects behave like fragments elsewhere in exhibiting connectivity for case and binding, indicating covert clausal structure. On the other hand, they are more like gerunds than clauses (i) in freely allowing embedding and (ii) disallowing it-extraposition. The puzzle is that gerunds in DP-selecting complement positions do not generally permit fragments, indicating that ellipsis of gerunds is not a freely available operation. Various approaches to this puzzle are discussed.

Abstract:

There are two ways of articulating counterfactual thought experiments about what would have been the case if some (specific) things had been the case: counterfactual supposition and counterfactual conditionals. We introduce a novel puzzle about a class of iterated counterfactual thought experiments, the problem of yo-yo conditionals like If it had rained then if it hadn’t rained the seats would be wet. We show that yo-yo conditionals raise serious issues for all extant theories of counterfactual conditionals. There are some fixes we can and will consider, but lurking there’s a hard problem that we find both intriguing and infuriating.

Abstract:

Language is essential to being human and to understanding ourselves. Yet Linguistics, the scientific study of human language, remains largely unknown as a field and inaccessible to the general public in the US. LEAP—Linguistics, Education, and Pedagogy—is a departmental outreach initiative working to address this problem in two key ways: by creating and implementing teaching materials for middle school and high school students, and by creating resources to promote the accessible communication of linguistics research.

In this presentation, we will discuss our belief that studying Linguistics offers middle school and high school students the opportunity to develop scientific thinking skills and an understanding of the rule-governed nature of language, while cultivating metalinguistic awareness. We will also discuss the key challenges of making big questions in the field (and possible answers) conceptually accessible to students and also to non-linguists beyond the classroom. We will discuss the ways LEAP projects attempt to address these challenges, as well as ways for you to get involved in this important work.

Ultimately, we must all work together as a community to create access and promote awareness about Linguistics. These goals transcend the work of a single person or the LEAP initiative. We need your insight, your expertise, and your collaboration. We hope you will join us in this evolving conversation. To that end, we invite you to reflect on the following discussion questions in anticipation of our presentation:

1. What do you think is vital for middle school and high school students to know about your research area?
2. What do you find is most challenging about making your work accessible to a general audience?

Fox Fest, organized by his former students — themselves now eminent researchers in their own right — attracted speakers, commentators, poster presenters, and audience from just about everywhere. The Dean of our School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, philosopher Agustin Rayo, began the proceedings with ten full minutes of praise for Danny as not only a brilliant and influential researcher (which we already knew) but as a selfless and wise advisor and colleague to others across the School and Institute. Five talks with commentary followed the Dean’s introduction, and ten posters, along with lots of discussion — and of course the day was concluded with a party.

Capping the celebration was the publication and presentation of a 518-page Festschrift for Danny Fox, full of excellent papers by his peers and colleagues influenced by his work in semantics, pragmatics, syntax, and how all these areas of our field reveal the workings of the human mind.

Photo credits: Jiamu Zhu and social media accounts of Yale Linguistics and Salzburg Linguistics - thank you!
Apologies for the delayed announcement of the great day!

Norvin talked about the MIT Indigenous Language Initiative (MITILI), which he leads — what it has meant to us as a community, what we have learned about language from it, and what it has meant to its graduates and their communities — the communities for which the entire initiative was created in the first place.

Elise, who double-majored in physics and linguistics at MIT, spoke about the moment she realized that languages can be studied in much the same way physicists have studied the rest of the natural world — and then exemplified this with her own research discovering and explaining some universals of argument structure.

Jessica, a specialist in Mayan languages (and more recently, Iroquoian as well), spoke eloquently about the paths that her graduate study at MIT opened up for her, some things she has discovered in her fieldwork and theoretical investigations, and the paths that she herself now opens up for others through her own teaching and research.

These were intellectually challenging and often moving events, with talks by our colleagues and friends interspersed meaningfully with talks highlighting all the SHASS fields, followed by unusual and fascinating group discussions and Q&A. Happy birthday, SHASS!

The following current students and alums presented their work:

• Zhouyi Sun (5th year): Tigrinya gradable verbs: When verbalizers comparativize
• Zhouyi Sun (5th year), Vlad Orlov (3rd year), and Oddur Snorrason: Concealed pied-piping and 3/4 effects in degree questions in Russian and beyond
• Vincent Rouillard (PhD 2023)[Université Laval]: Deriving Strong Polarity Sensitivity and Locality Effects from Trivalence
• Furkan Dikmen, Ömer Demirok (PhD 2019)[Bo?aziçi University], and Nikos Angelopoulos: Turkish passives have implicit arguments
• Suyeon Yun (PhD 2016)[Chungnam National University]: Perceptual similarity in a single grammar: Repair choice in Mongolian loanwords
• Coppe van Urk (PhD 2015)[Queen Mary University of London]: Outermost wins in Dinka and the theory of nonconcatenative morphology
• Lee Bickmore and Bronwyn Bjorkman (PhD 2011)[Princeton University]: Empty morphs in Kiwoso Chaga
• Dalina Kallulli, Ian Roberts, Ur Shlonsky (PhD 1987)[University of Geneva], and Charles Yang: Types of null subjects and the test of tolerance

1. Scope Condition
   a. A quantifier Q may covertly outscope an element S only if …
   b. An NPI must be in the scope of an element S such that …
   the reading that would result from the Q/NPI taking wide scope with respect to S does not entail the reading resulting from the Q/NPI taking narrow scope with respect to S.

• Hani Al Naeem (4th year): The nature of emphasis spread in Jordanian Arabic
• Yuen Chun (Chelsea) Tang (4th year): From Denasalization to Backcopying in Nyandarua G?k?y?: Contrast Loss and the Emergence of Base-Reduplicant Identity
• Suyeon Yun (PhD 2016)[Chungnam National University]: Gestural transparency in apparent opacity: Lenis stop lenition and vowel devoicing in Seoul Korean
• Shuang Zheng and Youngah Do (PhD 2013)[HKU]: Phonetic substance in the neural network implementation of phonological learning: the case of vowel harmony and vowel disharmony
• Shuhao Zhang and Youngah Do (PhD 2013)[HKU]: Discriminating Allophones: Impacts of Acoustic, Contextual, and Semantic Factors
• Giorgio Magri (PhD 2009)[CNRS]: Biases do not help with the problem of maximum entropy’s unrestrictiveness
• Stefan Pophristic, Alec Marantz (PhD 1981)[NYU] and Maria Gouskova: Beyond Wug Tests: Sublexical Phonotactics Affect Real and Nonce Word Processing
• Yang Wang and Bruce Hayes (PhD 1980)[UCLA]: A learning algorithm for phonemicization in Stratal MaxEnt OT

Talk #1:

Speaker: Zhouyi Sun (MIT), Vlad Orlov (MIT), Oddur Snorrason (Queen Mary University of London)

Title: DD support at LF: On the last-resort nature of Distributed Deletion



Abstract: In this talk, we show that the interpretation of a discontinuously realized nominal (apparent left branch extraction; LBE) depends on the presence and attachment height of a parasitic-gap-containing (PG) adjunct licensed by it.

Building on Bondarenko and Davis (2023) who show than Russian LBE licenses parasitic gaps, we observe that in the absence of a relevant PG-licensing requirement, LBE obligatorily yields a split-scope interpretation with respect to an intervening scope-taking element (1a). Overt pied-piping of the corresponding nominal, by contrast, permits both high and low interpretations of the nominal restrictor (1b). Strikingly, this asymmetry disappears when a PG-containing adjunct attaches above the intervening operator: in this configuration, LBE and overt pied-piping have the same scope possibilities.

(1)

a.  [Skol?ko statej]1 Petja potreboval, ?toby ty otpravil t1
     How.many papers Peter required that you sent
     OK — papers require
     OK — require papers
b. Skol?ko3 Petja potreboval, ?toby ty otpravil [t3 statej]1
     How.many Peter required that you sent papers
     * — papers require
     OK — require papers

We argue that this interaction is problematic for adopting any single uniform analysis of LBE, whether in terms of direct subextraction, or distributed deletion. We propose instead that LBE has two competing derivations. Direct subextraction is preferred whenever possible, and blocks distributed deletion. Distributed deletion is available only as a last resort when required by an independent LF condition, such as PG licensing. We also show that this last-resort strategy is constrained by Economy Conditions, in that it moves only when necessary and only to the height necessary to satisfy the relevant LF requirement.

We further show that the same interaction is found in Icelandic and other languages and discuss additional LF conditions that force the distributed-deletion derivation. More generally, we propose that the last-resort nature of distributed deletion can be motivated by LF-requirements in addition to the previously established PF-constraints (e.g. Franks 1998, Bos?kovic? 2001).

Talk #2:

Speaker: Zhouyi Sun (MIT)

Title: Tigrinya gradable verbs: When verbalizers comparativize

Abstract: In Distributed Morphology, words are built syntactically from acategorial roots and categorizing functional heads such as v, a, and n (Halle & Marantz 1993, et seq.). In addition to determining syntactic category, categorizers may contribute semantic content. For verbalizers, previous work has focused primarily on meanings associated with argument structure and event structure (e.g. Arad 2005, Harley 2009). The range of possible meanings verbalizers can contribute remains an open question.

This work takes comparative meaning as a case study. A potential connection between verbalization and comparative meaning has been suggested by degree achievements (e.g. worsen; Bobaljik 2012: 171–172, 205–207), English out-comparatives (e.g. outweigh; Ahn 2022), and Mandarin transitive comparatives (schematically, ‘John tall Mary 5cm’; Grano & Kennedy 2012). Yet in these cases, it remains unclear whether the relevant comparative operator is contributed by a verbalizer. I suggest Tigrinya (Ethio-Semitic) offers a useful case for investigating this possibility: its gradable roots exhibit a systematic, category-conditioned positive-comparative opposition. Their adjectival forms have positive interpretations, as in b?lla? ‘smart’, whereas their verbal forms have comparative interpretations, as in t?-b?ll?? ‘she is smarter’. I show that the relevant forms are morphosyntactically verbal and semantically comparative, and argue that the comparative operator is contributed by the verbalizer. The analysis thus identifies comparison as a possible semantic contribution of verbal categorization.

Time: Monday, October 5 5pm-6:30pm

Location: 32-D831

Speaker #1: Hani Na’eem (MIT)
Title: The nature of emphasis spread in Jordanian Arabic
Abstract: 

In this practice for an AMP poster presentation, I will give a summary of my work on the phenomenon of emphasis spread (ES) in Jordanian Arabic (JA). ES is a process whereby emphatics, coronals with a secondary constriction near the uvula, lower the second formant (F2) of sounds in their context, most saliently backing low vowels which are otherwise front. Previous work on ES has documented a directional asymmetry of the effect: while vowels to the left of the emphatics have their F2 uniformly lowered regardless of distance and the consonantal context, the effect on following vowels gradually fades out with distance and, in some descriptions, is blocked by high segments. The gradience of the rightward effect led to varying accounts with respect to the domain of spreading and/or the nature of the mechanism that gives rise to the effect. Some analyses (Davis 1995; Herzallah 1990; Jaber et al. 2019; McCarthy 1997; Younes 1982, 1993) posit a phonological account of rightward [rtr] harmony with various restrictions on its domain of application; others (Zawaydeh 1999; Zawaydeh & de Jong 2002) argue that ES is a ‘phonetic’ rather than a ‘phonological’ process.

Based on acoustic data from a production experiment, I argue that (i) emphatics spread [rtr] non-iteratively to two vowels to the right of the trigger, (ii) that the effect on the second vowel to the right does not reduce to a purely phonetic/coarticulatory mechanism, and (iii) that the observed gradience/smaller acoustic effect on this distant vowel is due to anticipatory coarticulation with the following context, which is outside the direct purview of the ES process. Adopting Walker’s (2011) formalism, I analyze both leftward and rightward ES through licensing constraints that seek to maximally license [rtr] in the surrounding context. While the constraint responsible for leftward spreading is highly ranked, the one responsible for rightward spreading is dominated by a CrispEdge constraint that delimits the spreading domain which I propose – as a first approximation – is sensitive to foot structure. The resulting analysis captures the directional asymmetry in ES while allowing the gradient phonetic realization of rightward spreading to emerge from the interaction between a categorical feature-spreading process and independent coarticulatory mechanisms.

Speaker #2: Chelsea Tang (MIT)
Title: From Denasalization to Backcopying in Nyandarua G?k?y?: the Emergence of Base-Reduplicant Identity from Sound Change
Abstract:

This presentation examines how a historical change in the consonant inventory of Nyandarua G?k?y? gives rise to a new pattern of consonant backcopying. Earlier descriptions of G?k?y? document a consonant system with prenasalized voiced stops but no corresponding plain voiced stops, while Nyandarua and other northern and southern varieties have undergone the loss of prenasalization, resulting in only plain voiced stops (Ngure 2005). The two varieties also differ in reduplication. Both Standard and Nyandarua G?k?y? show templatic backcopying, where the reduplicant can affect the shape or vowel quality of the base, but consonant backcopying is found only in Nyandarua.

I argue that the emergence of consonant backcopying follows from the historical change in Nyandarua Gi?ku?yu? consonant inventory. Diachronic work in Optimality Theory models sound change through changes in constraint ranking (Jacobs 1995; Holt 2003, 2015; Lleó 2003), and many analyses show that a single instance of constraint reranking can have consequences for multiple (sometimes apparently unrelated) phonological processes (Holt 2003; Miglio & Morén 2003; Padgett 2003; Smith 2023; among others). Building on these accounts, I analyze the loss of prenasalized stops as a reranking of *NC and IO-Id[nas], such that *NC comes to dominate IO-Id[nas] in Nyandarua, while varieties that retain prenasalized stops have the IO-Id[nas] >> *NC grammar. In reduplication, templatic backcopying in both varieties establishes that BR-faith is active. However, the effect of BR-faith on consonants is masked by a higher-ranked IO-Id[nas] that preserves prenasalized stops in Standard G?k?y?. By contrast, in Nyandarua, the reranking of *NC and IO-Id[nas] responsible for denasalization also places IO-Id[nas] below BR-Id[nas], allowing consonant backcopying to surface. The historical loss of prenasalized stops therefore not only changes the consonant inventory, but also gives rise to consonant backcopying in Nyandarua G?k?y?.

Here is the abstract:

This paper demonstrates that in Gitksan, measure phrases (MPs) occurring with relative gradable adjectives (GAs) like ’wii ’nakw ‘tall’ receive differential interpretations even in the absence of an overt comparative operator or an overt standard phrase, a pattern which has been only reported in Japanese (e.g., Snyder et al. 1995) and Korean (Oda 2008; contra Sawada and Grano 2011). In contrast, MPs occurring with minimum-standard GAs like k?’ak? ‘open’ receive absolute interpretations, as in many languages including Japanese (Sawada and Grano 2011). However, Gitksan differs from Japanese in two crucial ways. First, the distinction between relative and minimum-standard GAs is observed even without MPs: relative GAs can easily receive comparative interpretations on their own, while minimum-standard GAs cannot. Second, Gitksan has a morphologically free, overt morpheme k’aa, which can give rise to comparative readings with any GA and hence makes the possibility of a covert comparative operator less plausible. On a closer investigation, the comparative readings of relative GAs without k’aa show mixed behaviours of what have traditionally been called ‘explicit’ and ‘implicit’ comparatives (Kennedy 2007). I propose that these comparative readings arise from inherently context-sensitive denotations of relative GAs, building on Oda’s (2008) analysis of Japanese. The latter half of the paper examines the semantics of k’aa and analyzes it as a superlative morpheme, and highlights the role of consideration of alternatives to the subject in comparative readings observed without k’aa. 

The paper is open access: https://doi.org/10.16995/snl.29102

The talk investigates clausal complementation in Austrian German, focusing specifically on complement clauses under verbs like “try, begin, finish”. While such verbs select only infinitival complements in Standard German, they can take full CPs in Austrian German, giving rise to sentences such as (1):

1)   (1) Er hat versucht/angfangen/aufghört [ dass er des Auto repariert ]
    He has tried/started/finished [ that he the car repair.3sg ]
    He tried/started/finished to repair the car

Even though such complement clauses surface as full CPs, they are highly restricted in their interpretation: they exhibit obligatory control, their time-reference must be identical to the matrix time, they cannot express any other morphological tense value than present tense, they can receive an implicative reading under verbs like “forget”, and do not permit embedded V2 or interrogatives. Hence, their interpretation resembles an infinitive (or what Wurmbrand and Lohninger 2019 term an “Event” clause), rather than what we expect from a CP. Interestingly, these “fake” CPs freely alternate with genuine infinitival complements, raising a puzzle concerning the relationship between semantic selection and syntactic size.

Given that this is very recent work, I will focus primarily on the empirical findings, and hope to get some feedback on how to develop the more theoretical aspects.

We investigate the tough-construction in Thai, focusing on two exceptional properties. First, Thai tough-constructions may involve a potentially unconstrained dependency, and second, the gap in the embedded clause can be in the subject position. While these facts superficially support a heterogeneous view of tough-constructions across the world’s languages, on closer inspection, we come to a different conclusion. We argue that unconstrained dependencies and subject gaps are not a function of Thai tough-constructions, but instead reflect the fact that Thai has an undiagnosed broad subject position. Once controlled for, Thai tough-constructions look surprisingly like other well-documented cases. Ultimately, we are concerned not with variation in tough-constructions, but rather crosslinguistic similarities.

You can read the paper here: https://lingbuzz.net/lingbuzz/010319

Congratulations, Ford!

 I will present you some curious data from Äiwoo that I’ve been banging my head on for a while. We will see a construction that functionally speaking seems to be a relative clear case of an applicative (i.e., it adds one DP argument to the argument structure of the verb, one that would’ve otherwise had to be expressed as a PP). However, the way it’s morphologically realized is rather puzzling, because it’s nowhere near where applicatives typically are found. Given what they do syntactically, applicative heads are usually in the lower theta domain of the clause (i.e., within vP/VoiceP). Therefore, by the Mirror Principle (Baker 1988)’s terms and conditions, applicative morphemes should be very close to the verb stem — and indeed they are, in most (all?) cases I know of. However, in the Äiwoo case, the particle that marks this “applicative” construction is realized somewhere else entirely. I will discuss a couple of hypotheses about what we could be looking at, and where they break. Put on your creative syntactician hats, and help me out!

• Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine (PhD 2014)[CNRS / Nantes University]: Word order and interpretation order in Japanese scrambling
• Ömer Demirok (PhD 2019)[Bo?aziçi University]: Toward a typology of implicit arguments: Insights from Turkish passives

The following current students, faculty and alumns also presented their work:

• Bergül Soykan (4th year): Limitations on meta questions: Insights from Turkish
• Rümeysa Bekta?, Onur Özsoy, Despoina Oikonomou & Shigeru Miyagawa (Faculty): Condition C effects in wh-movement in Turkish: The effect of pronominal type
• Yusuke Imanishi (PhD 2014)[Kwansei Gakuin University]: Explaining evidentiality syntactically: Evidence from Kikai

Mícheál Curtin [‘mih?l]: Beannachtaí an fhomhair oraibh! I am an Irish speaker and a first-year student on the MITILI program. Thus far, my career and training have been in applied theatre. For the last nine years I have been directing a drama education program for high school students in New York City, where I led a team of Actor/Teachers who use theatre as a teaching tool in public schools. In Ireland, I have led programming with elders and young people alike in support of the language revitalization movement there. I have an MA in Applied Theatre from CUNY. At MIT, I hope to gain skills that enrich my work in Ireland. I look forward to learning from other folks who have worked on revitalizing languages in other contexts. I’m originally from Brooklyn, NY and enjoy archery, Survivor, running, and board games. 

Mehment Can Dadan: Hi everyone, I am Can (he/him) with a [d?]. I am from Turkey and got my B.A. and M.A. in Linguistics from Bo?aziçi University. I am interested in phonetics and phonology, particularly in vowel harmony and stress. Other than linguistics, I enjoy watching films and talking/venting about them as well as photography. Nowadays, I am trying to learn how to play bass.

Churong Jin: Hi all! I’m Jin, originally from Beijing, China. I’m interested in semantics, and some topics that have been on my mind include neg-raising, event semantics, inquisitive semantics, and probability operators. Prior to joining MIT, I did my undergrad at UCLA in math and philosophy, and worked as an RA at the Meaning Lab at USC. Lifting, running, hiking, reading and playing video games constitute most of my life outside of academics, other than, of course, hanging out and going on spontaneous adventures with friends. I’m currently most excited about branching out to areas of linguistics beyond semantics, and my side quest is to run the Boston Marathon before I graduate.

Ogloo Jurkhaichin: I’m Ogloo, and I’m originally from Inner Mongolia, China. My main interests are in syntax and morphology, especially the ways they interact with each other and with other components of grammar. Most of my work so far has focused on Mongolian, and I’m interested in using data from Mongolian and related languages to think about broader questions in linguistic theory. Before starting the PhD program, I was a student in MIT’s Indigenous Languages Initiative, or MITILI, here in the department, so I’ve actually already been around for the past two years. I’m really excited to continue working on these questions and to explore some new directions during the PhD. 

Rowan Levick: Hi everyone! I’m Rowan (they/them). I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA and got my BA in linguistics from William & Mary in Virginia. I’m primarily interested in the phonetics phonology interface and experimental work with children and adults. I’ve done research on acoustic phonetics of nasals, vowel length perception in young children, and I worked for a developmental neurolinguistics lab at UT Dallas where we mainly studied individual differences in children’s word learning abilities. Outside of linguistics I play a lot of ultimate frisbee and enjoy glassblowing, cooking, and a good chat with friends.

• Special Topics: “Doing Experimental Linguistics” (24.S95)
• More Advanced Syntax (24.955)
• Topics in Phonology: Phonetics and phonology in generative grammar (24.964)
• Topics in Computational Phonology (24.981)
• Topics in Semantics: Presupposition, Anaphora, and Reference (24.979)

24.S95: Special Topics: “Doing Experimental Linguistics”

• Instructor: Shota Momma
• Time: Tuesday, 2pm-5pm
• Room: 32-D461

As the title suggests, the goal of this course is to design and carry out an experimental project, either individually or in groups. Through this process, you will learn the fundamentals of experimental design and data analysis as used in experimental syntax, semantics, phonology, and psycholinguistics. I currently plan to spend the first half of each class covering core concepts in experimental methods and statistics, along with discussion of relevant papers, and the second half working on student projects (going through materials together, discussing specifics of designs, etc). One concrete goal of the course is to submit an abstract (individually or as a group) to a psycholinguistics conference (e.g., HSP: https://www.hspsociety.org/). The deadline for HSP is typically in late November/early December, so we may be able to aim for that if things go well.

24.955: More Advanced Syntax

• Instructor: Elise Newman & Sabine Iatridou
• Time: Thursday, 2pm-5pm
• Room: 32-D461

24.964 Topics in Phonology: Phonetics and phonology in generative grammar

• Instructor: Edward Flemming
• Time: Friday, 10am-1pm
• Location: 32-D461

Standard models of the grammar of linguistic sound divide it into two components, phonetics and phonology, but many questions about this division remain open. The goal of this seminar is to explore some of these questions. For example:

• Where is the dividing line between phonetics and phonology, and why?
• What information is passed from the phonology to the phonetics? Just the output of the phonology? Underlying representations? Information about the system of contrasts?
• Are there inputs to the phonetics that do not come from the phonology? E.g. speech rate, hyper-/hypoarticulation.
• Does any information flow from the phonetics to the phonology? Does the phonology anticipate language-specific aspects of phonetic realization?
• Are these components organized serially? If so, are there opaque interactions between them?

24.981 Topics in Computational Phonology

• Instructor: Adam Albright
• Time: Wednesday, 10am-1pm
• Location: 32-D831

Computational modeling can usefully inform many aspects of phonological theory. Implementing a theory provides a more rigorous test of its applicability to different data sets, and requires a greater degree of formal precision than is found in purely expository presentations. By training models on realistic training samples, we can test whether a posited analysis can actually be learned from representative data, and we can observe what proportion of the data is actually accounted for by that analysis. Modeling also provides a direct means of testing whether a proposed formal device facilitates the discovery of generalizations, or whether it hampers learning by greatly increasing the size of the search space. Finally, modeling has played an increasingly important role in modeling gradient experimental data, since it provides a way of comparing human behavior with statistical properties of linguistic input, filtered through a possibly non-trivial learning procedure.

This class is intended to provide an introduction to the theory and practice of computational models of phonology.  We will discuss recent theoretical work informed by computational implementations, and tools for modeling phonological knowledge of various kinds.  Special attention will be paid to the relation between formal learning models and empirical data concerning early phonological acquisition.

Topics may include: (subject to substantial revision, according to needs or interests of participants)

• Statistical “baseline” models (n-gram models, exemplar models)
• Algorithms for constraint weighting and constraint ranking (recursive constraint demotion, biased constraint demotion, the GLA; perceptron learning and maximum entropy weighting)
• Algorithms for constraint discovery (Albright and Hayes 2006; Hayes and Wilson 2008)
• Integrating learned and innate constraints
• Bayesian inference for phonology and morphology
• Models of morphological decomposition and morphological productivity

The course is also designed to provide opportunities for hands-on experience in various aspects of using and developing models, including preparing training data, running simulations, and interpreting their results. No background in programming or machine learning is assumed.
*** Depending on interests and goals of students, we may experiment with AI-assisted coding this semester

Course requirements:

• Weekly readings
• Participation in class discussions
• Written assignments (small problem sets)
• Final project (presentation + writeup)

24.979 Topics in Semantics: Presupposition, Anaphora, and Reference

• Instructor: Amir Anvari, Danny Fox, Martin Hackl
• Time: Wednesday, 10am-1pm
• Location: 32-D461

In this seminar we will explore various issues in the theory of presupposition, discourse anaphora and reference. We will begin with the theory of local accommodation which we think will interact in interesting ways with more general questions in the theory of presupposition, anaphora and reference. Our starting point will be puzzles pertaining to the meaning of gender features (reading Bobaljik and Zocca 2010 and Merchant 2013) which we will use to introduce a novel proposal for local accommodation (Doron, Fox, Wehbe). From there we will move to other explorations in the semantics and pragmatics of indefinites, discourse anaphora, definites vs. demonstratives and free pronouns, to name a few.

Requirements:

• Class participation and presentations
• A final paper

Rough and tentative list of topics (not necessarily in chronological order):

1. Local Accommodation, Strong-Weak Triggers, Trivalence vs. Two-dimensional semantics
2. Presupposition Projection
3. Competition and Markedness
4. Indefinites and anaphora
5. Predicates and Formulas
6. Reference resolution with definite descriptions, demonstratives and (free) pronouns

Congratulations, Will! We are so pround of you!

Faculty: 

• Viola Schmitt gave an invited talk: Individuation, generalized

Students:

• Haoming Li & Yizhen Jiang: Infelicity of negated bare plurals: Not presupposition, but Partition by Exhaustification
• James Xinyu Gu & Churong Jin: An unlikely semantics for ‘likely’

Alums: 

• Michela Ippolito (PhD 2002)[University of Toronto] & Anastasia Tsilia (PhD 2026)[University of Illinois]: What if and its kin
• Dmitry Privoznov (PhD 2021)[University of Göttingen]: Static semantics and “dynamic” pragmatics: Once more on double negation
• Adèle Hénot-Mortier (PhD 2025)[Queen Mary University]: “Remind-me” presuppositions with iterated Speech Acts
• Anna Carolina Almeida, Raimundo Cox-Casals & Michael Wagner (PhD 2005)[McGill]: Adjectival agreement is interpretable: Evidence from summative agreement in Mexican Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese
• Paul Marty (PhD 2017)[University of Lisbon], Patrick Elliott, Alexandros Kalomoiros & Jacopo Romoli: Quantifying multiplicity
• Paloma Jereti?, Itai Bassi (PhD 2021)[ZAS/Ben Gurion University], Aurore Gonzalez, Andreea Nicolae, Kazuko Yatsushiro & Uli Sauerland (PhD 1998)[ZAS]: Not all scalar implicatures are derived from utterable alternatives: evidence from child language acquisition
• Sam Alxatib (PhD 2013)[CUNY]: Local contexts in formal alternatives
• Vincent Rouillard (PhD 2023)[Laval University]: Until and Incremental Homogeinity

Our 4th-year student Paul Meisenbichler gave a colloquium talk at University of Vienna on June 3rd, 2026, entitle “

You can read the paper here. Below is the abstract:

Phonological alternations that arise due to morphological concatenation often serve to enforce static phonotactic generalizations within the lexicon. Due to this close link, knowledge about alternations and phonotactics are encoded using a single mechanism in constraint-based models like Optimality Theory. Evidence of this link in learning, however, is equivocal. In this study we examine whether learners readily extend a generalization from alternations to phonotactics. Learners were trained on consonant harmony alternations that involved harmony between a suffix and stem consonant, while stems were ambiguous in terms of phonotactic generalizations. We then examined whether learners extended the alternation generalization to phonotactic judgments about novel stems. While learners successfully learned the alternations in training, they failed to extend this generalization to phonotactic judgments about novel stems. Taken together with previous findings, our results suggest that learners are conservative in extending learned generalizations to unseen morphological contexts. Overall, these results suggest that the link between phonotactics and alternations might not be as tight as previously suggested.

Here is the abstract: 

Much work has shown that wh-movement is subject to several kinds of locality restrictions cross-linguistically. I propose that these restrictions arise when [wh] projects past the maximal projection that it came from. When this happens, it intervenes for wh-movement, trapping the wh-element in its base position, unless it can escape through other means. The need to escape the domain of [wh] is proposed to capture the distribution of successive-cyclic movement and interactions with Voice in different languages. Different locality conditions in different languages are captured by different distributions of the same features and probes.

The paper is open access: https://doi.org/10.1162/LING.a.564

You can read the paper here.

• Edward Flemming (Faculty) & Amy Li (3rd year): Deriving phonetic realizations from the interaction of target constraints and constraints on articulatory dynamics
• Cynthia Zhong (5th year): Predictors of tone sandhi in Mandarin-English bilingual speech
• Bingzi Yu (4th year) & Ezer Rasin (PhD 2018)[Tel Aviv]: Learning attested and unattested opaque interactions in the lab

And by our alumns:

• Suyeon Yun (PhD 2016)[Chungnam National University]: Acquired, not innate: The role of English exposure in sonority sequencing principle sensitivity
• Riccardo Orrico, Bowei Shao & Maria Giavazzi (PhD 2010)[Ecole Normale Supérieure, DEC]: Stress-induced articulation effects on post-tonic consonants
• Maria Giavazzi (PhD 2010)[Ecole Normale Supérieure, DEC] & Riccardo Orrico: Lexical stress and phonemic perception: The roles of acoustics and attention
• Feng-Fan Hsieh (PhD 2007)[National Tsing Hua University], Jian-Leat Siah, Yueh-Chin Chang & Sam Zukoff (PhD 2018)[UC San Diego]: Gradient Overapplication in Malay Reduplication: Direct Aerodynamic Evidence for Base-Reduplicant Correspondence
• Yueh-Chin Chang & Feng-Fan Hsieh (PhD 2007)[National Tsing Hua University]: How Vowel-Like Is a Nucleus?Ultrasound Evidence for Gradient Articulatory Vowelhood
• Chao Han, Yoonjung Kang (PhD 2000)[University of Toronto], Juhyung Cho, Tae-Won Lim, Say Young Kim & Philip
  Monahan: The functional status of f0 shapes the neural encoding of English stop voicing contrasts: Evidence from Korean and English listeners
• Hassan Khan, Yoonjung Kang (PhD 2000)[University of Toronto] & Dave Kush: Gender perception varies with consonant sonority in Urdu nonce copy
• Juhyung Cho & Yoonjung Kang (PhD 2000)[University of Toronto]: Clear speech effect on the perception of English /i-?/ by English and Korean listeners
• Xinyu Liao, Hironori Katsuda & Yoonjung Kang (PhD 2000)[University of Toronto]: Do long vowels lead sound change? Perceptual learning of vowel shifts in Japanese
• Jack Mahlmann, Samuel Akinbo, Yoonjung Kang (PhD 2000)[University of Toronto] & Agnes Legbeti: Iconicity of tonal and vowel disharmony in English and Yoruba

We discuss a set of cases where an adjunct or specifier is neither uniformly opaque nor uniformly transparent for long distance dependencies but rather its transparency is sensitive to other properties of its local context besides adjuncthood/specifierhood. These cases pose a problem for classic analyses of the Condition on Extraction Domains, as non-complements are usually taken uniformly to be islands for extraction. To describe the variable transparency effects observed, we first suggest that each exception to the Condition on Extraction Domains occurs in a multiple specifier environment, like that proposed by Jonathan Nissenbaum (2000, doctoral thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) for parasitic gap constructions. We furthermore propose a theory of locality that makes fine-grained predictions about what phrases are accessible for operations external to them. The proposal features a path-based view of locality in dependency formation, where projection of a feature from the goal to the probe’s sister is necessary for a dependency to be well-formed. On our view, the feature projection algorithm allows goals to project their features only when their sisters have certain properties, predicting that complements and second specifiers but not first specifiers are transparent for long distance dependencies.

Congratulations Elise and Kenyan!

Their project is entitled “Landmarks of Human Language Acquisition as Benchmarks for LLMs”:

Children acquire their native language from remarkably limited input: roughly 20 million words by age six. This is orders of magnitude smaller than the training data of LLMs exhibiting sophisticated language abilities. How children accomplish this is not fully understood, nor is the extent to which such LLMs employ analogs of human grammatical knowledge. The project aims to establish a set of developmental landmarks of human language acquisition to be used as benchmarks for purpose-designed mini-LLMs endowed with learning biases hypothesized to enable human language acquisition. Successful models may offer clues to increase efficiency in LLMs more broadly (biomimicry).

Congratulations Martin and Yoon!

This dissertation investigates how the grammar expresses defeated expectations of the speaker or attitude holder through matrix and embedded wh-exclamatives, such as Wow, how smart Maria is! and George is surprised at how smart Maria is. It asks two central questions. First, why do wh-exclamatives morphosyntactically resemble wh-interrogatives cross-linguistically, while behaving differently from both interrogatives and declaratives? Second, what is the role of negation in wh-exclamatives when it appears redundant, not reserving the truth value of the sentence? I show that wh-exclamatives are not merely exclamatory uses of declaratives or interrogatives, and I disentangle the speech act of exclamation from the clause type of wh-exclamatives. I argue that the resemblance between wh-exclamatives and wh-interrogatives is not accidental: exclamatives are built from interrogatives plus surprise (or a predicate with an equivalent meaning). A wh-exclamative expresses the surprise of the speaker (for root exclamatives) or the attitude holder (for embedded exclamatives) at the answer to the question. I propose that the structure of root exclamatives is wow-type particle + Q, where wow a speaker-anchored surprise/amaze/can’t believe, and that of embedded exclamatives surprise-type predicate + Q. This accounts for their interrogative-like morphosyntax without reducing them to questions semantically: a question asks for an answer, whereas an exclamative expresses or describes surprise at an answer. The analysis has consequences for question embedding. I discuss an expanded typology of clause-embedding predicates, and I introduce a paradigm showing that declarative- and question-embedding surprise as well as matrix exclamatives all have different discourse contributions. I argue that surprise-type predicates need to have access to their prejacent set of propositions, and thus that answerhood operators should not be applied to the question complement before it composes with the predicate.

The second part of the dissertation turns to a cross-linguistically recurrent negation in wh-exclamatives, which I call Cover Negation (e.g., How often have I (not) watched this series!). Examining the phenomenon cross-linguistically, I show that this negation is not expletive and has certain cross-linguistically recurring properties: it resists stress, does not license negative polarity items, permits positive polarity items, often appears with a discourse-initial and or wh all-type material, and is blocked by relative-clause complementizers. I argue that Cover Negation contributes a coverage reading: the speaker is surprised that the actual wh-values instantiate sufficiently many contextually salient categories. Formally, it performs complementation over a contextual cover, a structured set of categories in the wh-domain. I discuss other corners of the grammar where such a wh-domain is attested, as well as open questions.

Congratulations, Anastasia!

The student editors:
Bingzi Yu and Alma Frischoff

The faculty editor:
David Pesetsky
(who thanks Bingzi and Alma for their great work on Whamit throughout the year — and our department as a whole, for giving us such great stuff to write about)

Congratulations to our undergraduate majors Miguel Buitrago, Ellie Bultena, and Olivia Honeycutt, who were awarded the degree of Bachelor of Science (S.B.) in Linguistics!

Congratulations to Ukhengching Marma, William Pacheco, and Ogloo Jurkhaichin, who were awarded the degree of Master of Science (S.M.) in Linguistics for their work in the MIT Indigenous Languages Initiative program!

And congratulations to Omri Doron, Adele Mortier, Giovanni Roversi, and Yash Sinha, who were awarded the degree of PhD in Linguistics!

A remarkable group even by the standards of our remarkable field. We rejoice in your achievements at MIT and cannot wait to see what you all do next!!

Thanks to a dedicated set of intensional operators—e.g., modals, attitude predicates, tense operators, and temporal adverbials—natural language is able to convey information about things beyond the concrete here and now; a feature famously termed displacement (Hockett 1960). In model-theoretic semantics, modal and temporal displacement are standardly cashed-out by treating declarative utterances as functions from worlds and times to truth values. Intensional operators like modals are then taken to quantify over possible worlds, while tense operators quantify over time intervals. Despite these operators’ distinct domains, a long-standing semantic assumption holds that worlds and times should receive parallel formal representations; namely, that the same grammatical machinery, whatever it may be, governs both world-dependence and time-dependence in natural language.

Recently, Schmitt (2023) observed that worlds are special in that they do not seem to pluralize and partake in cumulative relations. In my thesis, I show that Schmitt’s claim is necessary to account for an earlier observation, that DPs cannot scope above a modal operator that in turn determines the evaluation domain of their restrictor. The reading that would be derived from this unavailable scopal configuration, I argue, can also be derived without it, as a cumulative reading with a plurality of worlds. Hence, without Schmitt’s ban on cumulative readings with worlds, a reading long thought to be unavailable is predicted to be attested for certain modal sentences.

Building on observations by Szabo (2010,2011), I then show that the same reading that is unattested with modal operators is attested with temporal ones, and furthermore, that it is attested exactly because the way time intervals are introduced into the semantic derivation is not subject to a constraint similar to the one we must posit to prevent overgeneration in the modal case. I explore the implications of this disanalogy between worlds and times for the design of the semantic formalism and its representation of the world and time dependence of utterances.

Congratulations, Ido!!

A central question in formal semantics concerns the division of labor between lexical semantics and the compositional system. Given a particular inference pattern, we can ask whether this inference is encoded in the lexicon or whether it arises from a particular syntactic interaction between different compositional ingredients. This question is especially important in the domain of plural predication, where prominent accounts attribute different types of phenomena to generalizations over the lexical meanings of predicates. This thesis addresses this question through three case-studies: (i) cumulative inferences, (ii) reciprocal alternations, and (iii) the contribution of together.  I argue for a framework for plural predication in which these different phenomena result from scope interactions between a limited set of syntactic operators, including pluralization operators and other scope-taking elements. Thus, I argue for a more impoverished lexicon and a richer syntax in the domain of plural predication. 

The scope-based account I argue for faces an immediate explanatory challenge: while lexical analyses can appeal to lexical stipulations to capture the distribution of readings in each construction, the scope-based account appears to overgenerate unattested readings. I argue that these lexical stipulations can be replaced by independently motivated grammatical constraints that cut across different constructions. More specifically, I propose that two such constraints play a key role in plural predication: (i) a generalized economy constraint, inspired by Fox’s (2000) scope economy, which rules out LFs when they can be proven to be equivalent to simpler LFs and (ii) a constraint that requires implicit arguments to take lowest scope (Fodor and Fodor, 1980). The result is a framework where the different ingredients of plural predication are in principle free to take scope in different positions, as long as they don’t violate these independently needed constraints.

Finally, the scope-based account I argue for has some broader architectural consequences. The first consequence concerns the nature of economy constraints in the grammar. I show that in order to predict the desired distribution of readings, the generalized economy constraint has to be evaluated relative to an encapsulated system which only has access to some of the information that is needed to compute truth-conditions. My account therefore provides a new domain where we see evidence for a modular deductive system (following Fox, 2000; Gajewski, 2002; Fox and Hackl, 2006, a.o.). The second consequence concerns universal constraints that determine what kinds of meanings can be lexicalized in a single lexical item. I explore the idea that there is an economy constraint on lexicalization, which optimizes the expressive power of the lexicon, relative to its size. This constraint essentially predicts that inferences which can be generated independently in the syntax can’t be encoded in the lexicon.

Congratulations, Jad!!

There are several MIT connections to the launch:

• Irene Heim, founding co-editor of Natural Language Semantics, is one of the signers of the open letter
• Danny Fox and Kai von Fintel are on the editorial board
• Three of the first five accepted articles are MIT-connected:
  • Yurika Aonuki (4th year): Scale-sensitivity of comparatives and measure phrase interpretations in Gitksan
  • Keny Chatain (PhD 2021) & Philippe Schlenker (PhD 1999): ­Local Pragmatics Redux: Presupposition Accommodation Without Covert Operators
  • Jingyi Chen & Valentine Hacquard (PhD 2006): Being pragmatic about anankastic conditionals

Learn more here: https://snl-journal.org/
Browse accepted articles: https://snl-journal.org/news/944/
Read the open letter: https://snl-journal.org/news/942/
Submissions: https://snl-journal.org/submissions/

 ”I’m deeply honored and excited to be joining the MIT linguistics department, which has been home to so many people I deeply respect, past and present. I’m looking forward to learning from my future colleagues and to building a vibrant intellectual community together. My research aims to understand how people construct sentences in their minds during both comprehension and production, drawing on insights from linguistics and cognitive science more broadly. I’m confident that exciting new research directions will emerge at MIT - something I already began to experience during my visit in 2023.”

Welcome!  We can’t wait for you to join us!

photo source: https://bpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/websites.umass.edu/dist/5/13737/files/2020/02/Shota-Momma.jpg

In this talk, I will discuss the nature of the Turing Test and the current level of evidence that LLMs can pass it. I will argue that the Turing Test in its original formulation had a limited conception of intelligence, failing to capture aspects of intelligence that come to the fore in theories of embodied cognition. These aspects of intelligence play a crucial role for humans in acquiring a mental lexicon of meaningful units, and mastering semantic operators (such as markers of temporal, numerical and logical relationships). When probed, LLMs exhibit persistent shortcomings in these areas of language, shortcomings which are systematic consequences of their architecture and training.

• Tamari Berulava (2nd year): Shifting Identity: the Interaction of phi-features, Honorification and Indexical shift
• Michela Ippolito (PhD 2002)[University of Toronto] & Anastasia Tsilia (5th year): What if and its kin
• Norvin Richards (Faculty; PhD 1997): Long-distance agreement by proxy in Passamaquoddy
• Jessica Coon (PhD 2010)[McGill University], Stefan Keine, Juan Jesús Vázquez Álvarez & Michael Wagner (PhD 2005)[McGill University]: Reconsidering Animacy Hierarchy Effects in Mayan: Experimental Evidence from Ch’ol
• Adam Singerman, Andrew Nevins (PhD 2005)[UCL], Susana Bejar, Maka Tetradze: Suppletion as inflection: insights from two endangered languages
• Ken Hiraiwa (PhD 2005)[Meiji Gakuin University], Kimiko Nakanishi: Japanese Free Choice Items at the Syntax–Semantics–Phonology Interface
• Anna Carolina Almeida, Raimundo Cox-Casals, Michael Wagner (PhD 2005)[McGill University]: Adjectival agreement is interpretable: Evidence from summative agreement in Mexican Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese
• Sam Alxatib (PhD 2013)[CUNY], Alexander Podobryaev (PhD 2014)[HSE]: On the (non-) vacuity of the Russian participial present

Russian does not allow left branch extraction from NPs that are complements of P. Sluicing alleviates this restriction. I argue that the pattern is best explained by the Cyclic Linearization view of “island repair”: ungrammaticality results from conflicting linearization statements but ellipsis can resolve the conflict.

The talk will cover: 
— Why the pattern must involve salvation by deletion (against the general attitude expressed by Barros et al. 2014)

— Extension to other restrictions on extraction from Russian NPs which are alleviated by sluicing based on the scattered deletion view of left branch extraction (Fanselow, ?avar 2003; Bondarenko, Davis 2023).

— An account of what we call the Sole Remnant Generalization: the remnant must be the only pronounced item in its clause (observed for preposition drop in other languages too). The model is a mix of Fox & Pesetsky (2003) and Johnson (2020) which allows for scattered deletion and predicts the Sole Remnant Generalization straightforwardly.

The talk is an extension of the material written up in Kalyakin, Kasenov (2025): https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/009308

• Vlad Orlov (2nd year): Existential wh-words are still a question in Russian 
• Marijana Marelj & Ora Matushansky (PhD 1998)[CNRS]: Against length-determined tone assignment in Serbo-Croatian
• Marijana Marelj & Ora Matushansky (PhD 1998)[CNRS]: Two types of unaccusatives: evidence from Slavic Degree Achievements
• Ivona Ku?erová (PhD 1997)[McMaster University] & Edgar Onea: Topic pronouns in Czech: Argument drop in disguise

• Giovanni Roversi (Postdoc; PhD 2025) & Jéssica Mendes: Light attitudes, heavy complements: evidence from Äiwoo
• Eyal Marco (1st year), Ezer Rasin (PhD 2018)[Tel Aviv]: Cyclic derivatives in Nazarene Arabic cannot be generated through base correspondence
• Yiannis Katochoritis (3rd year): To Unlock is to (Re)Merge: Phase Theory, Locality and Minimal Compliance revis(it)ed
• Magdalena Lohninger & Yiannis Katochoritis (3rd year): Topic-to-subject grammaticalization: the case of Malayo-Polynesian pivots
• Yurika Aounuki (4th year): Questions and conditionals with disjunction in Gitksan
• Haoming Li (4th year) & Yizhen Jiang (3rd year): Infelicity of negated bare plurals: Not presupposition, but Partition by Exhaustification
• Oddur Snorrason, Vlad Orlov (2nd year) & Zhouyi Sun (4th year): Concealed pied-piping in Russian and Icelandic degree questions: 3/4 effects and an interface account
• Paul Meisenbichler (3rd year): Non-identity readings of ATB-gaps: ATB vs. conjunction reduction
• Adèle Hénot-Mortier (PhD 2025)[QMUL]: “Remind-me” presuppositions with iterated Speech Acts
• Coppe van Urk (PhD 2015)[QMUL]: Intermediate reflexes of Lowering in Tigrinya
• Colin Davis (PhD 2020)[Nord University]: Superlative adjectives reveal the Final-Over-Final Condition in morphology
• Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine (PhD 2014)[CNRS / Nantes Université]: Atayalic subjects and the nature of nominative
• Jeroen van Craenenbroeck & Kyle Johnson (PhD 1986)[UMass]: Symmetric predicates contain comitatives
• Lena Baunaz & Giuliano Bocci, Ur Shlonsky (PhD 1987)[University of Geneva]: Positional Relativized Minimality and negative islands
• Thomas Schökler & Shoichi Takahashi (PhD 2006)[Aoyama Gakuin University]: Elements of Was für-Split
• Pilar P. Barbosa (PhD 1995)[Universidade do Minho] On the role of n in the derivation of rich agreement pro-drop and doubling

Passamaquoddy-Wolastoqey has long-distance agreement: the verb of a matrix clause can (optionally) agree with nominals in a complement clause, even if the complement clause appears to be a full-fledged tensed clause.  I will argue that this long-distance agreement should be treated as an instance of what I’ve called ‘agreement by proxy’.  In this case, the C of the embedded clause has Agreed with the nominals in that clause, and probes in the higher clause, although considerations of locality prevent them from agreeing with any DPs in the embedded clause directly, can agree with the features on embedded C, thereby effectively agreeing with the DPs of the embedded clause.

We invite you to the LEAP (Linguistics Education and Pedagogy) workshop on Communicating Your Research. Here is the complete schedule of the four-session workshop:

April 14th (last week): Defining the knowledge gap

• What does your audience know, and what do you want them to learn from you?

April 21st (this week): Bridging the knowledge gap

• Given your audience’s prior knowledge, how do you provide essential content in order to facilitate their understanding?

April 28: Evaluating success

• How will you know that understanding has been achieved?

May 12th: Research Slam: Workshop participants will give their presentations!

Workshop sessions take place on Tuesdays from 5-6pm in 32-D461. Note that we will skip May 5th and that the Research Slam will take place during the final week of the semester.

 Come for the snacks! Stay for the workshop!

Do the impressive abilities of neural-network Large Language Models in generating rich, well-formed syntax falsify fundamental principles of generative linguistic theory? The answer I will argue for is: no. But it will be a rather nuanced “no”, trying to identify the proper treatment of generative AI for generative linguistics. Specifically, I will consider these principles:

1. Computability: Generating natural language with rich, human-level syntax requires use of symbolic grammatical rule systems.
2. Explanation: Theoretical explanation in generative linguistics requires built-in discrete symbolic structure.
3. Acquisition: Children’s ability to acquire language requires innate knowledge of grammatical rule systems.
4. Universals: Linguistic universals can only be explained from innate limitations on what languages are learnable.

The quantity of discussion of these questions will decrease sharply from 1–4, the bulk of the presentation focused on 1. The discussion of 1 takes off from Smolensky, Fernandez, Zhou, Opper, Davies & Gao (JAIR 2025; arXiv:2410.17498).

• Tamari Berulava (2nd year) & Paul Meisenbichler (3rd year): Parasitic Binding into Nested Definites
• Johanna Alstott (4th year): Next
• Bergül Soykan (4th year): Limitations on Meta Questions: Insights from Turkish
• Thomas Truong (1st year): Plural superlatives and cumulativity

This week’s LingLunch will consist of two talks.

Talk 1: Questions and conditionals with disjunction in Gitksan (Yurika Aonuki, MIT)

Abstract: A morpheme ji in Gitksan (Rigsby 1986; Hunt 1993; Aonuki 2025) (and cognates in Nisga’a (Tarpent 1987) and Sm’algyax (Sasama 2001; Brown 2022, 2023, 2024, 2026)) introduce conditional antecedents and embedded polar questions. At the same time, ji is also allowed in declarative attitude complements when the attitude holder is uncertain or wrong (Hunt 1993; Gogag et al. in prep; Aonuki 2025); similar patterns are observed in Sm’algyax (Brown 2022, 2023). I will argue that there are reasons to attempt a unified analysis of ji in conditional antecedents and questions on one hand and declarative complements on the other. Against this background, I will provide novel data from disjunction, which shows that ji can introduce each disjunct in conditional antecedents, embedded alternative questions, and polar questions with disjunction. I will propose that ji constrains the set of epistemic possibilities associated with a speech or thought event, via the alternative semantic value of its argument. The proposal highlights a shared component between questions and uncertainty and has implications for an ongoing debate about the semantic relationship between polar and alternative questions (Roelofsen and Van Gool 2010; Pruitt and Roelofsen 2011; Meertens 2021).

*This will be a practice talk for GLOW and SULA-TripleA.

Talk 2: My Language, My Tools: AI-Assisted Documentation of Ki?w? Keres (William Pacheco, MIT)
Abstract: Ki?w? W?k???i is an underdocumented dialect of Keres — a language isolate spoken in seven Pueblos in New Mexico. I am a native speaker and relatively new to linguistics, and I quickly found that the tools available for documenting my dialect weren’t built with my needs in mind.

Abstract: Some attitude predicates in various unrelated languages have been reported to have variable flavor interpretations, covering doxastic (“think”), assertive (“say”), and bouletic (“want”) readings; cf. Navajo (Bogal-Allbritten 2016) and Koryak (Mo?nik & Abramovitz 2019, Mo?nik 2025). These have prompted analyses where much of the semantic contribution that distinguishes these readings is taken away from the lexical entry of the attitude verb itself (against the standard Hintikkan view), and rather offloaded to the semantics of the complement clause. Based on novel fieldwork data, we report on another such attitude verb in Äiwoo (Austronesian; Solomon Islands), and we show that in this language there is clearer morphological evidence for this type of analysis: overt elements in the embedded clause determine the reading of the matrix attitude predicate, whose interpretation is derived fully compositionally, and the semantics of these elements is independently verifiable from their use in unembedded contexts. We arrive at a picture where the attitude predicate itself is relatively underspecified, but not fully (against e.g. Bogal-Allbritten). We draw (tentative) cross-linguistic predictions about the range of meanings we expect “variable-flavor” attitudes to cover: these should not extend beyond what can be composed out of independently available elements already in the language (chiefly, relatively underspecified attitudes and already existing modals). Thus, we predict these kind of verbs to receive “think, say, want” interpretations, but not readings like “forget”, “imagine”, “dream”, which cannot be composed out of these simpler more basic atoms.

Note: This week’s Syntax Square will feature a special LFRG take-over: the talk will be fully focused on semantics, so we especially encourage those with an interest in semantics to attend. The presentation will also serve as a practice talk for GLOW, so it’s a great opportunity to hear the work in progress and offer feedback.

We invite you to the first-ever LEAP (Linguistics Education and Pedagogy) workshop on Communicating Your Research. Across four one-hour sessions, we will explore how the task of communicating key aspects of your linguistics research (eg., your GP or your thesis) can be informed by formal pedagogical theory, and vice versa.

Workshop sessions will take place on Tuesdays from 5-6pm starting this week, in 32-D461. The Research Slam will take place during the final week of the semester on May 12th.

This week, we begin with “Defining the Knowledge Gap”, considering the questions, “What does your audience already know, and what do you want them to learn from you?”

Snacks will be served!

Across the six weeks, students examined the linguistics of poetry, as well as phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and machine learning in diverse languages. The teaching team focused on bringing to students’ awareness their unconscious knowledge of language, using the tools of science to formulate and test ideas about the hidden structures of language, and identifying and appreciating similarities as well as differences across diverse languages. The 15 high school students who attended each week can now answer the question that Cora posed to them the first day, What is Linguistics? 

The course grew out of earlier work that the team has done, both individually and collectively, at Spark and Splash, day-long events also organized by MIT ESP, as well as in partnership with teachers for Maya Honda’s Linguistics in K-12 Education seminar.

You can find the book here.

Here is the abstract:

This paper reevaluates Optimal Paradigms (OP), an extension to Optimality Theory proposed by McCarthy (2005). In OP, candidates are full inflectional paradigms and faithfulness constraints can require uniformity between all members within a paradigm. McCarthy (2005) proposed that OP can replace the assumption that prosodic templates are grammatical entities and other phonological mechanisms, which he regards as stipulations. One of the case studies used in McCarthy (2005) to showcase OP comes from Moroccan Arabic, where a noun-verb asymmetry in the distribution of schwa is claimed to be predicted by paradigmatic constraints as a means to achieve uniformity within an inflectional paradigm. We reevaluate this proposal using new fieldwork data from Judeo-Tripolitanian Arabic, an endangered variety of Arabic that is closely related to Moroccan. We show that if adjectives are added to the picture, OP can no longer predict the distribution of schwa in the different categories. The conclusion is that OP cannot replace the mechanisms it was supposed to replace, and is therefore a redundant complication to phonological theory.

Linguistic Inquiry is an open-access journal so everyone can access the paper here: https://doi.org/10.1162/LING.a.575

Abstract:

This talk addresses three cases of anti-singularity in questions, illustrated in (1a)-(1c). They all convey that the speaker expects that the answer will name more than one individual:

(1)   a. Which books did you buy?                            English

        b. Was    hast du   alles gekauft?                    German

             What have you all    bought

             “What all have you bought?”

        c. Quiénes   se       fueron pronto?                  Spanish

             Who-PL REFL left       early

             “Who left early?”

The anti-singularity of (1a) has been explained as arising from competition with its singular version: which book did you buy?, which has a uniqueness presupposition – only one book can be named. This explanation does not extend to the other two cases. There is no uniqueness presupposition in the version of (1b) without alles or in the version of (1c) that has a singular wh quién.

The proper analysis of the anti-singularity observed in (1b)-(1c), I argue, requires us to pivot from consideration of number proper. Drawing inspiration from work on so-called optional plural markers, specifically the Cuzco Quechua morpheme kuna, I show how anti-singularity can be a bi-product of a presupposition of sortability – it should be possible to partition the set denoted by the noun complement along some dimension, such as type, size, color etc.

During his fellowship, [David Pesetsky will] investigate why there’s more than one kind of clause in the world’s languages. While linguists and researchers assume that clauses in most of the world’s languages come in different flavors, finite and infinitival, gerunds, and so on, they don’t yet know why.

The fellowship supports research and writing across the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. Read more here: https://shass.mit.edu/twelve-professors-selected-for-2026-27-cohort-of-shass-faculty-fellows/