Whamit!

The Weekly Newsletter of MIT Linguistics

Issue of Monday, February 16th, 2026

Colloquium - Jessica Coon (McGill University) 

Speaker: Jessica Coon (McGill University) 
Title: “Reconsidering animacy hierarchy effects in Mayan: Experimental evidence from Ch’ol” (presenting joint work with Stefan Keine (UCLA), Juan Vázquez Álvarez (CIMSUR-UNAM), and Michael Wagner (McGill))
When: Friday, February 20th, 3:30-5pm 
Where: 32-141 
 
Abstract: 
Like many other Mayan languages, Ch’ol has been described as restricting the combination of 3rd person arguments in a transitive clause according to their relative animacy (Zavala 2007, Vázquez Álvarez 2011; see Deal & Royer 2025 for an overview), as in (1):
 
(1) Ch’ol animacy restriction: Third person subjects must be at least as high as third person objects on the scale human ? animate ? inanimate.
 
As in many other Mayan languages, the restriction holds only over 3>3 transitives; 1st/2nd person human objects are possible regardless of the subject’s animacy. Passivization is commonly described as a rescue for expressing hierarchy-violating 3>3 constructions.
 
Aissen (1997) provides an Optimality Theoretic account for these patterns in related Tsotsil, using constraints which enforce alignment between participant hierarchies and grammatical roles. More recently, Deal & Royer (2025) argue for an Agree-based approach to Mayan animacy effects based on Deal’s (2024) Interaction/Satisfaction model of Agree. While different in their formal mechanisms, both accounts (i) derive uniform ungrammaticality of all hierarchy-violating transitives; (ii) invoke comparison of the relative animacy of subject and object; (iii) stipulate the immunity of 1st/2nd person pronouns.
 
We show that animacy effects in Ch’ol are more complex than previously described. We discuss results of a series of three experiments we conducted with 52 speakers of Ch’ol in Chiapas, Mexico: (i) a production task; (ii) a forced choice task; and (iii) a rating task. We do not find a binary opposition between hierarchy-obeying and hierarchy-violating constructions, contra expectations of (1), but rather more gradient and task-specific effects. We propose an account that attributes the animacy restriction to alignment constraints that demand subjects and external arguments to be high in animacy, combined with task-specific competition between syntactic structures. Unlike previous analyses, this account does not involve a comparison of the animacy of subject and object. Furthermore, it derives the fact that animacy restrictions arise only in configurations in which the verb form does not uniquely determine the mapping between nominals and their grammatical roles, correctly capturing the immunity of 1st/2nd persons and the rescuing effects of passivization.

LingLunch 2/19 - David Pesetsky (MIT)

Speaker: David Pesetsky (MIT)

Title: A Sparse Theory of Argument Alternations

Time: Thursday, February 19th, 12:30pm - 2pm

Location: 32-D461



Abstract: Argument alternations such as active~passive are common in the languages of the world, with several stable properties. Consequently, we should seek a maximally sparse account of such alternations that does not stipulate their existence by positing alternation-specific entities such as VoiceP or special probes. Ideally, these alternations and their properties should emerge as by-products of the interaction of more fundamental entities and operations. This talk argues for a sparse theory of argument alternations in that vein, in which two components interact to yield their existence and key properties, building on Collins (2005, 2024) and influenced by Newman (2025) and discussion in last Spring’s seminar co-taught with Peter Grishin. Neither is specific to argument alternations; both merely generalize phenomena already known from other domains.

  1. Generalized Dependent Case: The flagging of local c-command relations familiar under the rubric dependent case is not limited to nominals. Non-nominal phrases such as VP may both trigger and receive dependent case as well. This provides an account of morphemes specific to one alternant in an alternation, including passive morphology on V and by-phrase morphology, as well as morphemes that emerge and disappear in ditransitive alternations. Their presence correlates with the presence/absence of hyperlocal VP-fronting.
  2. Generalized Insatiability: The “Merge XP” feature on a head may apply more than once to the same element so long as some new c-command relation is created (i.e. so long as something changes). This permits hyperlocal complement-to-specifier movement over an intervening element (contra Abels 2003) – offering a simplification and new characterization of the VP-fronting central to Collins’ accounts of passive and other argument alternations. No alternation-specific feature drives this movement. It is just the same Merge feature that added the complement in the first place.