McMaster University's graduate program in Cognitive Science of Language

09/11/2021

https://www.facebook.com/100057787654526/posts/282578807011706/?d=n

Dear All,
It is our pleasure to invite you to Cognitive Science of Language lecture series first talk of 2021–2022. The lecture will be delivered online by Dr. Ivona Kucerova, an Associate Professor at the Department of Linguistics and Languages at McMaster University. Please use this link to join the talk. No registration is required.

https://mcmaster.zoom.us/j/92740975174?pwd=N0F0ZlVQOW45ZytJTTFvNkx4bU1DQT09

Who: Ivona Kucerova
What: Neuter is a lonely gender
When: Monday September 20, 2021; 2:30-4:20pm
Where: Zoom


Existing literature on gender in Slavic highlights what appears to be an exceptional behaviour of the neuter gender (Wechsler and Zlatić 2003, Kučerová 2015, Arsenijević 2016, Despić 2016, 2017, among many others). For example, in Czech two neuter singular conjuncts cannot trigger plural neuter agreement, even though the plural neuter agreement form exists and neuter plural nouns display a fully regular plural behaviour. In this talk I will propose that contrary to appearances the syntactic behaviour of neuter is regular and expected from a feature introduced in the vicinity of a syntactic root (nP; e.g., Kramer 2015). Instead, structurally unexpected behavior arises with the other genders, a fact obscured by the relative scarcity of languages with gender distinction in plural. I will suggest that the non-neuter part of the gender system underwent re-grammaticalization shift via head movement to higher functional projections, incorporating animacy in the system. The resulting nominal structure allows for a feature interaction of gender and person, and triggers a fused behaviour of gender and number. I will demonstrate that head movement within the derived systems can be cross-linguistically detected by locality restrictions on feature operations in higher nominal functional projections and is responsible for gender interactions that have been analyzed as structure, instead of feature, based (Acquaviva 2020, Fassi Fehri 2020).

We are looking forward to seeing you at the event!

03/19/2021

Congratulations to Carla Weigel, 2nd year MSc student in the Cognitive Science of Language program whose 3 min presentation won the 3rd prize in the McMaster Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) competition at the Current Research in Engineering Science and Technology (CREST) meeting on March 12-13, 2021. Carla’s paper was on applying automatic Speech to Text technology in academic settings for deaf and hard of hearing students. She is working with Drs. Daniel Pape and Magda Stroinska. Well done, Carla!

01/26/2021

We would like to invite you to the next talk of the Cognitive Science of Language lecture series organized by McMaster’s Department of Linguistics and Languages. The lecture will be delivered online by Dr. Doreen Georgi. Dr. Georgi is an Associate Professor of Linguistics at the Department of Linguistics at Potsdam University (Germany). She received her PhD from Leipzig University in 2014 and spent a year as a lecturer at the ENS, Paris before accepting an assistant professor position in Potsdam. Her area of interest is (the limits of) cross-linguistic variation in morphosyntax, in particular phenomena related to agreement, case, movement, scale effects, NP-syntax, locality, and the timing of elementary syntactic operations. In recent years she has focused on how morphological cues can be used to diagnose syntactic derivations that involve various kinds of asymmetries (long/short asymmetries as ,e.g., in anti-agreement or resumption, subject vs. non-subject asymmetries, asymmetric extraction in sharing constructions such as ATB-movement).

Who: Doreen Georgi (poster is attached)
What: Resumption in Igbo
When: Monday February 8, 2021; 2:30-4:20 pm
Where: Zoom

The talk is free, but participants must register. Registration link can be found here:
https://mcmaster.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUkfuuhqjosGNYDlqJey35IQpgi5kbJeUNY

Please make sure to register in advance. For logistic reasons the registration for this event will only be reviewed until 2pm on the event date.

10/26/2020

We would like to invite you to the second talk of the Cognitive Science of Language lecture series organized by McMaster’s Department of Linguistics and Languages. The lecture will be delivered online by Professor Susana Béjar. Dr. Susana Béjar is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of Toronto. She specializes in nominal features and the syntax of agreement and licensing. Her publications have appeared in Journal of Linguistics, Language, Linguistic Inquiry, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, and Syntax.
Who : Dr. Susana Béjar (University of Toronto)
What : Thirty years of feature theory (the poster is attached)
When : Monday November 2, 2020; 2:30-4:20 pm
Where: Zoom

Abstract:

Thirty years of feature theory

This talk addresses successes and challenges of feature theory in syntax - specifically theory of phi-features. In recent decades, feature-theory has had wide-ranging consequences for such topics as the modeling of syntactic dependencies, the mapping from syntax to morphological exponence, and the ontology of functional categories. Case studies illustrating a convergence of findings across domains will be contrasted with ones that suggest limitations to feature-theoretic approaches.

The talk is free but participants must register. Registration link can be found here:
https://mcmaster.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0uf--tqz0pHtInAZo2_xG_jOHpm1V_1qBp

We are looking forward to seeing you at the event!

10/20/2020

10/19/2020

Dr. Michel DeGraff is a Professor of Linguistics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Director of MIT-Haiti Initiative. This talk is hosted by the Department of Linguistics and Languages as part of their 2020-2021 Cognitive Science of Language Lecture Series, and is co-hosted by ARiEAL....

09/05/2020

Dr. Vikki Cecchetto
Associate Professor (retired)
Department of Linguistics and Languages

It is with great sadness that we have to let you know that Dr. Vikki Cecchetto passed away early Thursday morning, peacefully, in her sleep. She spent her final days at the Juravinski Hospital in Hamilton with her closest family. She was just two weeks shy of her milestone 70th birthday.

Born in Casacorba, Italy, at age 2, Vikki and her Mother immigrated to Canada to join her Father. Vikki’s zest for knowledge was evident at a very young age. Vikki proudly achieved her BA (1973), MA (1974) and PhD (1982) at the University of Toronto.

Vikki chose to spend her teaching career at McMaster University. Throughout her 35 year tenure, Vikki taught, inspired and guided a multitude of students. She built strong and long-lasting, genuine friendships with both her colleagues and her students along the way. She started in the Department of Romance Languages and then, in 1987, moved to Modern Languages. She was the Director of the McMaster Language Institute, long-term counsellor for linguistics and the first graduate chair of the new PhD and Master’s program in the Cognitive Science of Language.

Vikki was the author of the popular Italian language textbook Primi Passi and co-editor of three other books on language and identity in exile, international classroom and, most recently, trauma. Vikki also went above and beyond to collect interviews from the families of Italian Canadians who were interned during WWII. Her research interests involved 2nd language loss in aging bilinguals, the effects of trauma, and, most recently hate speech against refugees and minorities. Vikki sought to explore topics that were socially engaged and important, always with the goal of helping others. She retired from McMaster in 2011 as Associate Professor but continued to do research whilst devoting her spare time as a volunteer on the board of the Hamilton Public Library.

Over the past 6 months, Vikki bravely faced her battle with cancer with a relentless, fighting attitude. It was inspiring to watch her remain positive and hopeful while always putting others first.

Vikki was also a wonderful daughter, sister, aunt and friend. Her gentle presence, warmth, passion, generosity and caring ways were admirable and will be deeply missed.

We can never forget her unconditional love for her furry friend, Tigger the cat.

Visitation at Bay Gardens Funeral Home - "William J. Markey Chapel", 947 Rymal Road East, HAMILTON (905.574.0405) on Wednesday from 2-4pm and from 7 - 9pm. Due to Covid 19 attendance restrictions the Mass will be celebrated by invitation by the family only. Cremation.

In lieu of flowers, a donation to the Canadian Cancer Society, Juravinski Cancer Center or a charity of your choice in her honour is appreciated.

07/29/2020

Diagnosing and treating COVID-19's neurological effects

07/07/2020

As of July 1, 2020, our colleague, friend, and mentor, Dr. Lili Service, has been promoted to the position of Full Professor. We shared this good news as soon as we received the confirmation from the Dean but it was only last week, on Canada Day, that this decision actually came into force. Under normal circumstances, this would be a wonderful occasion to get together and celebrate Lili’s accomplishments. Let us hope that we will have an opportunity sometime during this academic year to transition back to meeting in person and not only on Zoom and we shall make sure that Lili’s well-deserved promotion is the focus of one of the first toasts. Please join me in congratulating Lili! Cheers and best wishes!

06/12/2020

Are you thinking of taking an elective course this summer? Here is an interesting option for linguists and for everyone else. Dr. Kim teaches Korean language and Korean pop-culture courses in our Department and specializes in language use online. Have fun!

05/15/2020

Being out of school for half a year could change children’s relationship with formal expression.