Calendar of Events

Nearly all researchers agree that active dependency resolution relies, to some extent, on prediction: comprehenders appear to commit to analyses in advance of unambiguous confirmatory evidence. Researchers disagree, however, on how far in advance prediction occurs, what portions of linguistic representation(s) are predicted, and how to characterize the mechanisms that subserve predictive processes. In this […]

We are at a juncture when the communication practices of other species are becoming better understood, which linguists can take as an opportunity to readdress a fundamental question: what makes human language human? In this talk, I will examine one core architectural property of language, namely "locality", which restricts the possible long-distance interactions in linguistic […]

Why do we use language differently with different partners? In this talk, I will argue for a computational approach to sociolinguistics, which formalizes the obstacles standing in the way of effective communication and explains how people construct shared meaning to achieve their communicative goals with different audiences. Specifically, I'll present a computational model of partner-specific coordination […]

Previous investigations into Ā-dependencies terminating in resumptive pronouns (i.e. resumptive Ā-dependencies) have reached different and often contradictory conclusions regarding the nature of resumption: some contend that resumptive Ā-dependencies are derived via movement, while others argue that they are not. This talk contributes to the ongoing debate and resolves the apparent paradox by arguing---both from novel data […]