Whamit!

Gi?ku?yu? has two types of backcopying? (1) optional backcopying (i.e., backcopied and non-backcopied variants are in free variation) when prenasalized stop formation (/Nt, N?/ ? [?d], /N?/ ? [?d?], /Nk, N?/ ? [?g]) and foot reduplication interact; (2) obligatory backcopying when prenasalized stop formation, foot reduplication, and Meinhof’s law (NC?…N?(C) ? N?…N?(C)) interact.  To account for the obligatory backcopying cases, I propose that the distinguishing factor lies in the onset’s ratio of nasality in the base vs. the reduplicant. On a ratio-of-nasality scale of [t, k, ?, ?, ?] = 0, [?d, ?d?] = 1, [n] = 2, a Distantial Faithfulness constraint penalizes segments in RED that differ too much from their Base correspondents. Consequently, Base-Reduplicant pairs like [?d?]…[?] are acceptable because their nasality distance is ?1, whereas [n]…[?] is disfavored because the ‘distance’ is 2.

Speaker: Yvette Yi-Chi Wu (Harvard)

Title: Verb classes and affix ordering in Seediq

Time: Thursday, October 30th, 5pm - 6pm

Location: 32-D769



Abstract: This talk looks at verbal morphology in Seediq, with supplementary data from other Formosan languages. I will focus on the ordering of “voice” morphology with respect to derivational and TAM morphology, which allows us to examine the interactions of infixation, reduplication, stress-conditioned suppletion, and more. I show that the actor voice (AV) infix is located in the middle field (below perfective Asp and above Voice), which goes against theories where voice is high (e.g. in T or C). I also attribute apparent allomorphy of AV to regular argument structural morphology in Seediq (cf. Ross 1995, Chen 2020), and discuss the implications this has on verb classes and (anti-)causative structures.

Speaker: Vsevolod Masliukov (MIT)
Title: Participial Complementation in Russian
Time: Tuesday, October 28th, 1pm - 2pm
Location: 32-D461

Abstract: In this talk I will present a syntactic analysis of Russian sentences such as (1), which feature participles marked with the so-called ‘Predicate instrumental case’ (Bailyn 2001). I will argue that these participial clauses are arguments with a PredP (small clause structure, Bowers 1993 et seq.) built on top, whose subject is raised to the structural case licensing position in the matrix clause. I will also compare the properties of these constructions with participles used as adnominal adjuncts, which always require case matching, (2) and finite complements of the same class of verbs (3).

(1) Ona nikogda ne vide-l-a Maš-u pla?-uš?-ej.
she never NEG see-PST-F.SG M.-ACC cry-PTCP.IPFV-F.SG.INSTR
‘She has never seen Masha crying.’

(2) Ona nikogda ne vide-l-a [pla?-uš?-uju Maš-u] .
she never NEG see-PST-F.SG cry-PTCP.IPFV-F.SG.ACC M.-ACC
Lit.: ‘She has never seen crying Masha.’

(3) Ona nikogda ne vide-l-a, [kak Maša pla?-et].
she never NEG see-PST-F.SG COMP M.NOM cry-NPST.3SG
‘She has never seen Masha cry.’ (lit.: ‘how Masha cries’)

Speaker: Bergül Soykan (MIT)
Title: Limitations on meta questions: insights from Turkish
Time: Wednesday, October 29th, 1pm - 2pm
Location: 32-D461

Abstract: In this ongoing work, I present data on the basic patterns of Turkish meta questions (MQs) and show that Turkish appears to allow meta-meta questions as in (1), which Trinh, Fox, and Bassi (2025) predict to be problematic according to their recent NELS talk. They claim that speech act verbs are phase heads, and complements of phase heads are spelled out (á la Chomsky 2001), which implies that there can be only one silent speech act verb in every (audible) sentence.
(1) ??A1: Ela gel-ecek mi?
come-Fut PolQ
[IA ask [whether Ela will come]]
?????B1: Ela nere-ye gel-ecek mi? wh-MQ
where-Dat come-Fut PolQ
[where1 youB ask [whether Ela will come where1]]
A2: Ela nere-ye gel-ecek mi mi? pol-MQ
*[whether youB ask [where1 IA ask [whether Ela will come where1]]]

I suggest that the difference between Turkish and English MQs results from 1) their distinct question-formation strategies (e.g., English uses wh-phrases in situ only for MQs, while in-situ-ness is the default form of all questions in Turkish) and 2) from differences in their Spell-Out domains. Given that Turkish always uses wh-in-situ for constituent questions, I propose that C is the phase head in Turkish, not the speech-act verb (or any other v). Also, revising Krifka (2014) and Woods and Vicente (2021), I assume the following structure in (2) for Turkish questions, where Force P indicates whether an utterance has question force [+Q] or not [-Q], and say is the speech act for all utterances that is merged when needed. Thus, I offer a solution to the seeming issue in Turkish MQs along the lines of Trinh, Fox, and Bassi’s (2025).

(2)???A1: Ela gel-ecek mi?
come-Fut PolQ
[whether1 [Ela will comeF mI1 ForceP[+Q]] Cthat]
B1: Ela nere-ye gel-ecek mi? wh-MQ
where-Dat come-Fut PolQ
[where2 [whether1 [Ela where2 will comeF mI1 ForceP[+Q]] Cthat] sayA]
A2: Ela nere-ye gel-ecek mi mi? pol-MQ
[whether3 [where1 [whether1 [Ela where1 will comeF mI1 ForceP[+Q]]F mI3 Cthat] sayA]ForceP[+Q]]

Later, I provide evidence from embedded clauses with an overt C head for the interpretation layers of MQs in Turkish. Finally, if time allows, I share cross-linguistic data from various languages, supporting that the Spell Out domain and question-formation strategies are the two parameters that affect MQ layering.

Speaker: Ivy Sichel (UC Santa Cruz)

Title: How resumptive pronouns ameliorate island violations - evidence from Hebrew

Time: Thursday, October 30, 12:30pm - 2pm

Location: 32-D461



Abstract: While some resumptive pronouns (RPs), in some languages, ameliorate island violations (Hebrew, Irish, Lebanese Arabic, among others), not all do (Vata (Koopman 1982), Welsh (Tallerman 1983), Nupe (Kandybowicz 2007)). The variation in this domain is perplexing: what is it that allows RPs to ameliorate island violations in the languages in which they do, and how might this be parametrically constrained? According to the ‘Classic View’ (Chomsky 1977, Borer 1984, McCloskey 1990), the repair is only indirect: RPs are associated with a distinct, non-movement, derivation (1a), in which an island violation is simply not incurred. By now, however, it has become clear that RPs are at least sometimes compatible with movement derivations, even in languages which exhibit island repair (Aoun, Choueiri & Hornstein 2001, Sichel 2014). This raises the possibility that an RP that repairs an island violation is similarly compatible with movement, and that the repair is direct, due to the realization of the gap as an RP within a movement derivation (Perlmutter 1972, Pesetsky 1998). The present study argues for the ‘Classic View’ based on the syntax of RPs in high positions in Hebrew RCs - because in this situation, the RP is not realizing the gap at the foot of the chain. This suggests that languages with island-sensitive RPs lack the non-movement RC structure. Along the way, I will develop a particular view of movement-compatible RPs, according to which RPs directly realize a position in an A-bar movement chain, regulated by Economy of Pronunciation.