4/23 Spring Colloquium - Graduate Student Presentations

Join us on Friday!
Event Date & Time

Join us this Friday for presentations from five of our graduate students!
 

Zach Lorang: Multiple Partitive as a Distinct Phenomenon: Evidence from Russian
Haspelmath (1997)’s wide-ranging survey of indefinite pronouns leaves the question of how ‘Multiple Partitive’ constructions ought to be understood as a challenge for future research. 'Multiple Partitive' is characterized by multiple clauses, each containing an interrogative (wh-) pronoun with an indeterminate reading. My research initially focuses on the properties of MP in Russian specifically, with a view to analyzing the functions of MP within a single language in as much detail as possible, before examining its functions cross-linguistically. I argue that MP constructions perform a unique and vital function in discourse in languages where they occur, and that their performance of this function depends on two properties inherent to all such constructions: non-specificity and partitivity. My presentation will summarize my research and make the case that Multiple Partitive ought to be treated as a distinct phenomenon, supporting this assertion with an analysis of MP phenomena in Basque.

Zoe Brown: Wh-imperatives in Ojibwe
This thesis investigates wh-question asking in Southwestern/Minnesota Ojibwe and focuses on the syntactic differences between content questions and wh-imperatives or suggestions. Content questions with the exception of WHERE questions are formed with the changed conjunct verbal order, a form marked by initial vowel change on plain conjunct verb. The wh-imperatives and additional conversational documented in this research are formed with the verb in plain conjunct order. In other words, they lack initial change, even in the environments that produce initial change for the WHERE question subtype. This research describes the environments in which wh-question words have a plain conjunct complement and analysis of how these wh-phrases can fit into the in the previous Algonquianist literature on plain and changed conjunct forms and broader literature on the syntactic properties of Wh-imperatives cross-linguistically and on the topics of focus and subjunctivity.

Chen Yang: Syntactic structure & situation types of synonym verbs in Mandarin

Brandon Kieffer: Glide Clusters in Kinyarwanda: An Optimality Theoretic Analysis
My MA is on glide clusters in Kinyarwanda. Glide clusters are quite marked in Kinyarwanda, and undergo a variety of resolutions, such as epenthesis, foritition, palatalization, and coalescence. The place of articulation of the consonant and glides, as well as the morphemic and syntactic boundaries within a cluster, are all factors in determining how the cluster resolves. Using Local Conjunction, I am able to account for the hiatus resolution, the tautomorphemic glide changes, and the heteromorphemic chain shift.

Vipasha Bansal: Condition C violation in White Hmong
Binding Theory is a set of three rules that govern the distribution of anaphors, pronouns and r-expressions, and is generally thought to be universal. However, White Hmong shows frequent Condition C violations, allowing sentences that include repeated names, kinship terms, and titles. My presentation will look at the various patterns of Condition C violation in White Hmong, how this relates to similar violations observed in Green Hmong, Thai, and Vietnamese, and demonstrate how an analysis originally proposed for Thai can also account for the White Hmong data.

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Topic: Colloquium
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