I'm writing to to tell you about the (new) linguistics club at MIT! You guys are always invited to any of our events, so if you'd like to be added to our mailing list to receive announcements, just email mitlings-request (at) mit.edu. Also, feel free to forward this to anyone I'm missing.

Our website is http://web.mit.edu/mitlings/.

In particular, as a sort of follow-up to "The Linguistics" documentary that you may have seen, we're having a talk this Wednesday on fieldwork and endangered languages. There will be food (pizza and subs, probably)!

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"Lessons from Lardil: Tense Concord, Generation Harmony, and the Rainbow Serpent"

Professor Norvin Richards will talk about his work on Lardil, an Aboriginal language of northern Australia. (As of 2000, it had two speakers remaining.) He'll try to hit on some topics relating to fieldwork and endangered languages that I suggested, but I think he's also hoping you come with lots of questions.

Wednesday, May 7 at 5pm in 32-144 (Stata Center).
Food will be provided.

Sponsored by the MIT Linguistics Society (Mitlings-Munch Series) and the MIT Societo por Esperanto (Lecture Series on Language Diversity and Language Rights).

  

Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=40854170120

Internalist Explorations of Meaning

Guest Speaker: Noam Chomsky

October 30, 2007, 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Fong Auditorium , Boylston Hall, Harvard Yard

We will be meeting at 4:20p.m. in Marsh Plaza. From there,
we will take the T from BU Central to Harvard Square.

Click here for further details

Tuesday, September 25

Dinner at the Back Court of the GSU at 7:00 PM.

Look for the LINGUISTICS poster and you will find us.

1. to meet and chat with other people interested in or majoring/minoring in linguistics, and
   
2. to propose to us (the executive board) your ideas for other events that we can hold during the coming year.

For those of you who are new to BULA, our past events have included talks by professors in linguistics and related fields (such as deaf studies) from BU and other nearby universities, movie showings, and panels on subjects such as translation and endangered languages. This year we are also hoping to organize some "field trips" to linguistics-related events taking place nearby! So, come to the dinner and share your ideas or just come to hang out and chat!

     -Doug Herman, president, BULA

Friday, April 20, 2007    @ 4 PM - SCI 115

Prof. Michela Ippolito (U. of Toronto)

"The meaning of 'will', 'would' and 'would have' in conditionals:
Modality with Tense or Aspect?"

A reception will follow the presentation.

In this talk I will discuss the semantics of conditionals, and in particular the so-called subjunctive conditionals. The examples in (1) and (2) illustrate some of the morphological and semantic differences between indicative and subjunctive conditionals. Unlike indicative conditionals, subjunctive conditionals are marked by what looks like the past tense, they cannot be felicitously uttered if the antecedent is known to be true but can be counterfactuals. (See Lewis 1973, Stalnaker 1975, Kartunnen 1979, von Fintel 1998, Iatridou 2000, among many others.)   1. John broke his legs yesterday. He is not going to play tomorrow. a. #If John plays tomorrow, his team will win. b. If John played tomorrow, his team would win.   2. John is playing tomorrow. a. If he is playing tomorrow, his team will win. b. #If he played tomorrow, his team would win. Furthermore, even within the class of subjunctive conditionals there are morphological and semantic distinctions, as illustrated in (3). If the future eventuality described by the antecedent has already happened, then the only type of subjunctive conditionals that is appropriate is one doubly-marked by past morphology. (See Ohigara 2002, Ippolito 2003, 2007, Arregui 2005.)   3. John was born yesterday. a. #If he were born tomorrow, he would be a Libra. b. If he had been born tomorrow, he would have been a Libra. The goal is to develop a semantic analysis of subjunctive conditionals that accounts for our semantic intuitions and at the same time for the occurrence of the past morphology in this type of conditionals, a fact that goes well beyond English and can be found in genetically unrelated languages. In particular, I will compare and discuss proposals according to which the features of subjunctive conditionals we saw above follow from the interplay of modality and temporal operators and proposals according to which they follow from the interplay of modality and aspectual operators.

*partially funded by your student activities fee
and co-sponsored by the James Geddes Lecture Series

Linguistics dinner

Thursday, February 8th at 7:00 in the BU Academy room.

An opportunity for students with an interest in linguistics to get together and chat.

Pick up your dinner in GSU and come on back to the Academy room, which BULA has reserved for this occasion.

  

Harlan Lane
(Matthews Distinguished University Professor at Northeastern University)

Wednesday, September 27, 2006 at 5 PM

http://www.psych.neu.edu/people/faculty/lane.html

Place: Stone Science Center (675 Comm. Ave.) B50

ASL/English interpreters will be present.

Abstract: This address is concerned with the language minority in North America called the Deaf-World and the larger society that engulfs it. I aim to show that this minority has the properties of an ethnic group, and that an unsuitable construction of the Deaf-World as a disability group has led to programs of the majority that discourage Deaf children from acquiring the language and culture of the Deaf-World and that aim to reduce the number of Deaf births—programs that are unethical from an ethnic group perspective. Four reasons not to construe the Deaf-World as a disability group are advanced: Deaf people themselves do not believe they have a disability; the disability construction brings with it needless medical and surgical risks for the Deaf child; it also endangers the future of the Deaf-World; finally, the disability construction brings bad solutions to real problems because it is predicated on a misunderstanding.

an important message from Morgan Jenatton about the

LINGUISTICS DINNER

Hello Linguists!

I would like to extend an invitation to you for a Dinner of Linguists that we are having on Monday, April 24th at 6:00 pm in the GSU 310 (note change of room!)! We thought would it would be fun if Linguistics concentrators could get together and meet, seeing as we are such a small major. The Linguistics Dinner is very informal. We will simply be eating food bought from the GSU (and actually have to; it’s a requirement of reserving the room). We aren’t going to be doing anything in particular, just having an informal convergence of B.U. Linguists. So, if you’re interested, please email me (gaep13@bu.edu) so that we know people will be coming. Again, it will be on Monday, April 24th at 6:00 pm in GSU 310. I will send out a reminder the week before (to those who RSVP) so you don’t forget.

I hope to see you there!
Morgan

"Infant speech perception and early language acquisition"

Leher Singh
Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, BU Sargent College

Are you curious about how infants begin the task of learning a first language? The BU Undergraduate Linguistics Association invites you to a presentation by BU Professor Leher Singh, who will discuss her research on infant speech perception and language acquisition. Join us on Wednesday, Apr. 12 at 5pm in CAS 313. Light refreshments will be served!

"Conflict and Humor in Conversation"

Neal R. Norrick
Saarland University

March 30, 2006 2 p.m.

SED 435 (Kelly Seminar Room)

Abstract:

My talk explores how participants deploy humor to resolve dispute sequences, including how disputants respond to humor and the trajectories of such sequences. It adopts the standard structural definition of conflict talk, according to which a dialogue counts as a dispute only when participants contradict each other in at least three consecutive turns. In particular, it focuses on: (1) how humor can successfully end conflict; (2) how one participant can for a time ignore/reject attempt at humor by others; (3) how humor can forestall an impending conflict, but fail to end it; and (4) how two parties in conflict talk can ignore attempts at humor by a third, unratified party. Further, it demonstrates that the effectiveness of humor depends on a series of factors: first, the seriousness of the conflict, second, the social power relationship between the participants, third, the kind of humor, fourth, the reactions of the participants, and finally, who initiates the humor. 
Neal R. Norrick holds the chair of English Linguistics at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany. His research specializations include conversation, narrative, verbal humor, and formulaicity. In recent years, Professor Norrick has focused his research on spoken language. 

His publications include:

Conversational Narrative. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2000.
Conversational joking: Humor in everyday talk.  Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1993.
Non-verbal humor and joke performance. Humor 17 (2004): 401-409.
Hyperbole, extreme case formulations. Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004): 1727-1739.
Remembering and forgetfulness in conversational narrative. Discourse Processes 36 (2003)

Sponsored by the BU Program in Applied Linguistics

Organizational Meeting - Thursday, Feb. 16, 2006 - 5 PM, CAS 430

Message from Jessica Musikar:

The BU Undergraduate Linguistics Association will be meeting this Thursday (Feb.16) at 5pm in CAS 430 to brainstorm ideas for the upcoming semester. There will be light refreshments.

They will also be electing some new officers at the meeting, so if you're interested in linguistics and might like to be on the BULA board, this is your opportunity!

First meeting of the year: Tuesday, Sept. 28 at 8pm in CAS 534 (near the Geddes Language Lab).
 
We're excited about our plans for the year, and we want to hear what you think. We'll also be electing some new officers. Come hear more about the organization and enjoy some snacks and drinks. Please bring your thoughts, interests, suggestions, and friends!

We look forward to seeing you there!
 
Thanks,
Jessica and Jocelyn, your current BULA board

Thursday, December 4th, 2003
CAS 533 (Geddes) at 7 pm

Remember My Fair Lady? Come see the original:
PYGMALION

Phonetics professor Henry Higgins undertakes to transform Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle into
a "lady" by means of rigorous elocution lessons.

Thursday, November 6, 2003
@ 7:30 PM in SMG room 208

Everything you always wanted to know about linguistics: don't be afraid to ask!

A question-answer session about things relating to languages and linguistics