Speaker: Edward Flemming (MIT) and Amy Li (MIT)
Title: An optimization-based approach to phonetic grammar
Time: Thursday, April 30, 12:30pm - 2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: A phonetic grammar maps phonological representations onto acoustic or articulatory trajectories. In the tonal domain, this involves mapping tone categories onto f0 trajectories that are aligned to the segmental string (Pierrehumbert 1980). One challenge of modeling a phonetic grammar is to derive variation in the realization of phonological units as a function of variation in the context. To address this challenge, we develop an optimization-based model of phonetic grammar where the constraints on phonetic realization are derived from phonological representations and articulatory limitations. The model is illustrated through a case study of the Mandarin rising tone, focusing on variation in realization due to varying speech rate.
Issue of Monday, April 27th, 2026
LingLunch 4/30 - Edward Flemming (MIT) and Amy Li (MIT)
LF Reading Group 4/29 - Lorenzo Pinton (MIT)
Speaker: Lorenzo Pinton (MIT)
Title: Hurford Disjunctions without Entailment: A Mereological Approach
Time: Wednesday, April 29th, 1pm - 2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: I present part of my ongoing work on Hurford disjunctions and the role of parthood in meaning. In the first part of the talk, I introduce novel data showing that predicates vary systematically in how they interact with the Hurford Constraint. In particular, I show that while all predicates give rise to infelicity in Hurford-like sentences, many can be rescued by inserting just or only in one of the disjuncts. This pattern resembles traditional scalar cases, but crucially arises even in the absence of an overt all in the other disjunct. I propose a typology that predicts when such rescue is possible: namely, in sentences containing predicates that universally quantify over parts of entities. More generally, I argue that all Hurford sentences can be rescued when universal quantification is introduced by some means, for instance via distribution over conjunction or through definite plurals.
Building on these examples, and on recent observations by Amir Anvari, I argue that Hurford disjunctions are best understood in terms of mereological constraints on quantificational domains, rather than entailment relationsentailment, on this view, emerges as a byproduct of parthood structure. In the second part of the talk, I sketch an account that captures these contrasts. The proposal combines a model without absolute atoms (following Magri 2008; and Sudo, 2025 (talk)) with a cognitively general no-overlap constraint on quantificational domains (Casati and Varzi, 1999; Chatain and McHugh, 2025; a.o.).
Title: Hurford Disjunctions without Entailment: A Mereological Approach
Time: Wednesday, April 29th, 1pm - 2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: I present part of my ongoing work on Hurford disjunctions and the role of parthood in meaning. In the first part of the talk, I introduce novel data showing that predicates vary systematically in how they interact with the Hurford Constraint. In particular, I show that while all predicates give rise to infelicity in Hurford-like sentences, many can be rescued by inserting just or only in one of the disjuncts. This pattern resembles traditional scalar cases, but crucially arises even in the absence of an overt all in the other disjunct. I propose a typology that predicts when such rescue is possible: namely, in sentences containing predicates that universally quantify over parts of entities. More generally, I argue that all Hurford sentences can be rescued when universal quantification is introduced by some means, for instance via distribution over conjunction or through definite plurals.
Syntax Square 4/28 - Ioannis Katochoritis (MIT)
Speaker: Ioannis Katochoritis (MIT)
Title: To Unlock is to (Re)Merge: Locality Domains, Intervention and Minimal Compliance
Time: Tuesday, April 28, 1:00pm - 2pm
Location: 32-D461
This is Part II of a distant mid-March syntax square. Some things in the world have changed in-between, but not the need to undo locality domains. Recall:
Rackowski and Richards (2005) propose a Phase Unlocking operation: phases can be made transparent for extraction if they first Agree with a higher probe, which may then attract a goal from within the phases domain. If phases are by default potential movable goals that intervene (Abels 2003), then prior Agree with the phase allows the probe to ignore that phase and Agree with an embedded goal, as per Richards 1998 Principle of Minimal Compliance (PMC) in (1).
(1) Once a probe P Agrees with a goal G, P can ignore G for the rest of the derivation.
However, the unlocking program raises some questions: 1. Are both unlocking and successive-cyclicity required to escape a phase? 2. How is unlocking compatible with the Phase Impenetrability Condition? 3. How does the PMC allow to ignore an Agreed-with locality domain? 4. Is unlocking an exceptional mechanism or a variant of some broader strategy to obviate intervention?
To address these questions, I suggest something like (2):
(2) Unlocking requires (re)merge of the containing phase XP to the specifier of the probing head H, before an XP-embedded goal YP can subextract to an outer SpecHP.
Hence, it is not mere Agree, but (re)merge of the phase with the probing head that makes it transparent for subextraction, in what yields a derived multiple-spec configuration. I will argue that (2), especially when extended to external merge to encompass c-selection via sisterhood, may reconcile unlocking with Phase Theory, structurally derive the PMC, the Weak PIC, certain A-movements and subextraction asymmetries, as well as unify syntactic strategies of obviating intervention.
The discussion will also be relevant to (and maybe arguing against) the recent view (see Halpert & Zeiljstra 2025) that there are no designated phase heads with special status, and all phase-like locality effects should be reduced to Relativized Minimality (Rizzi 1990).
Speaker: Ioannis Katochoritis (MIT)
Title: To Unlock is to (Re)Merge: Locality Domains, Intervention and Minimal Compliance
Time: Tuesday, April 28, 1:00pm - 2pm
Location: 32-D461
Phonology Circle - Jian-Leat Siah (UCLA)
Speaker: Jian-Leat Siah (UCLA)
Title: How Language Experience Reshapes the P-Map: The Case of Final Nasalization in Serudung Murut
Time: , 5pm - 6:30pm
Location: 32-D831
Abstract: In this talk, I present my dissertation research testing Steriade (2001/2008)s P-Map hypothesis, which posits that learners are biased toward alternations that minimize perceptual deviations between input and output forms. In the case of word-final voiced obstruents, the P-Map predicts that final devoicing should be the uniquely preferred repair strategy cross-linguistically. Experimental results from American English listeners in a perceptual AXB task support this prediction. However, results from Serudung Murut (Austronesian) listeners, whose phonological grammar employs (laryngo-)nasalization to avoid voiced stops in word-final position, demonstrate that the perceptual biases posited by the P-Map are not immutable but can be reshaped through exposure to alternations that contradict the P-Map rankings. This synchronic restructuring of the P-Map is especially evident among speakers with advanced proficiency, highlighting the role of language experience in phonological learning.
Speaker: Jian-Leat Siah (UCLA)
Title: How Language Experience Reshapes the P-Map: The Case of Final Nasalization in Serudung Murut
Time: , 5pm - 6:30pm
Location: 32-D831
Abstract: In this talk, I present my dissertation research testing Steriade (2001/2008)s P-Map hypothesis, which posits that learners are biased toward alternations that minimize perceptual deviations between input and output forms. In the case of word-final voiced obstruents, the P-Map predicts that final devoicing should be the uniquely preferred repair strategy cross-linguistically. Experimental results from American English listeners in a perceptual AXB task support this prediction. However, results from Serudung Murut (Austronesian) listeners, whose phonological grammar employs (laryngo-)nasalization to avoid voiced stops in word-final position, demonstrate that the perceptual biases posited by the P-Map are not immutable but can be reshaped through exposure to alternations that contradict the P-Map rankings. This synchronic restructuring of the P-Map is especially evident among speakers with advanced proficiency, highlighting the role of language experience in phonological learning.
MIT Linguistics @ GLOW 48
The 48th meeting of Generative Linguistics in the Old World (GLOW48) was held at the University of Siena on April 21-23, 2026. MIT linguistics was well respresented by the following current students and alums:
- Giovanni Roversi (Postdoc; PhD 2025) & Jéssica Mendes: Light attitudes, heavy complements: evidence from Äiwoo
- Eyal Marco (1st year), Ezer Rasin (PhD 2018)[Tel Aviv]: Cyclic derivatives in Nazarene Arabic cannot be generated through base correspondence
- Yiannis Katochoritis (3rd year): To Unlock is to (Re)Merge: Phase Theory, Locality and Minimal Compliance revis(it)ed
- Magdalena Lohninger & Yiannis Katochoritis (3rd year): Topic-to-subject grammaticalization: the case of Malayo-Polynesian pivots
- Yurika Aounuki (4th year): Questions and conditionals with disjunction in Gitksan
- Haoming Li (4th year) & Yizhen Jiang (3rd year): Infelicity of negated bare plurals: Not presupposition, but Partition by Exhaustification
- Oddur Snorrason, Vlad Orlov (2nd year) & Zhouyi Sun (4th year): Concealed pied-piping in Russian and Icelandic degree questions: 3/4 effects and an interface account
- Paul Meisenbichler (3rd year): Non-identity readings of ATB-gaps: ATB vs. conjunction reduction
- Adèle Hénot-Mortier (PhD 2025)[QMUL]: Remind-me presuppositions with iterated Speech Acts
- Coppe van Urk (PhD 2015)[QMUL]: Intermediate reflexes of Lowering in Tigrinya
- Colin Davis (PhD 2020)[Nord University]: Superlative adjectives reveal the Final-Over-Final Condition in morphology
- Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine (PhD 2014)[CNRS / Nantes Université]: Atayalic subjects and the nature of nominative
- Jeroen van Craenenbroeck & Kyle Johnson (PhD 1986)[UMass]: Symmetric predicates contain comitatives
- Lena Baunaz & Giuliano Bocci, Ur Shlonsky (PhD 1987)[University of Geneva]: Positional Relativized Minimality and negative islands
- Thomas Schökler & Shoichi Takahashi (PhD 2006)[Aoyama Gakuin University]: Elements of Was für-Split
- Pilar P. Barbosa (PhD 1995)[Universidade do Minho] On the role of n in the derivation of rich agreement pro-drop and doubling
The 48th meeting of Generative Linguistics in the Old World (GLOW48) was held at the University of Siena on April 21-23, 2026. MIT linguistics was well respresented by the following current students and alums:
- Giovanni Roversi (Postdoc; PhD 2025) & Jéssica Mendes: Light attitudes, heavy complements: evidence from Äiwoo
- Eyal Marco (1st year), Ezer Rasin (PhD 2018)[Tel Aviv]: Cyclic derivatives in Nazarene Arabic cannot be generated through base correspondence
- Yiannis Katochoritis (3rd year): To Unlock is to (Re)Merge: Phase Theory, Locality and Minimal Compliance revis(it)ed
- Magdalena Lohninger & Yiannis Katochoritis (3rd year): Topic-to-subject grammaticalization: the case of Malayo-Polynesian pivots
- Yurika Aounuki (4th year): Questions and conditionals with disjunction in Gitksan
- Haoming Li (4th year) & Yizhen Jiang (3rd year): Infelicity of negated bare plurals: Not presupposition, but Partition by Exhaustification
- Oddur Snorrason, Vlad Orlov (2nd year) & Zhouyi Sun (4th year): Concealed pied-piping in Russian and Icelandic degree questions: 3/4 effects and an interface account
- Paul Meisenbichler (3rd year): Non-identity readings of ATB-gaps: ATB vs. conjunction reduction
- Adèle Hénot-Mortier (PhD 2025)[QMUL]: Remind-me presuppositions with iterated Speech Acts
- Coppe van Urk (PhD 2015)[QMUL]: Intermediate reflexes of Lowering in Tigrinya
- Colin Davis (PhD 2020)[Nord University]: Superlative adjectives reveal the Final-Over-Final Condition in morphology
- Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine (PhD 2014)[CNRS / Nantes Université]: Atayalic subjects and the nature of nominative
- Jeroen van Craenenbroeck & Kyle Johnson (PhD 1986)[UMass]: Symmetric predicates contain comitatives
- Lena Baunaz & Giuliano Bocci, Ur Shlonsky (PhD 1987)[University of Geneva]: Positional Relativized Minimality and negative islands
- Thomas Schökler & Shoichi Takahashi (PhD 2006)[Aoyama Gakuin University]: Elements of Was für-Split
- Pilar P. Barbosa (PhD 1995)[Universidade do Minho] On the role of n in the derivation of rich agreement pro-drop and doubling