{"id":17927,"date":"2026-04-13T06:04:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T10:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/whamit.mit.edu\/?p=17927"},"modified":"2026-04-13T09:38:56","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T13:38:56","slug":"syntax-square-giovanni-roversi-mit-jessica-mendes-georg-august-universitat-gottingen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/2026\/04\/13\/syntax-square-giovanni-roversi-mit-jessica-mendes-georg-august-universitat-gottingen\/","title":{"rendered":"Syntax Square - Giovanni Roversi (MIT) &#038; J\u00e9ssica Mendes (Georg-August-Universit\u00e4t G\u00f6ttingen)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Speaker: <\/strong>Giovanni Roversi (MIT) &amp; J\u00e9ssica Mendes (Georg-August-Universit\u00e4t G\u00f6ttingen)<br class=\"\" \/><br clear='none'\/>\n<strong>Title: <\/strong>Light-ish attitudes, heavy complements: the view from \u00c4iwoo&#8221; (GLOW practice talk, LFRG take-over)<br class=\"\" \/><br clear='none'\/>\n<strong>Time: <\/strong>Tuesday, April 14, 1:00pm - 2pm<br class=\"\" \/><br clear='none'\/>\n<strong>Location: <\/strong>32-D461<\/p>\n<p><strong>Abstract<\/strong>: Some attitude predicates in various unrelated languages have been reported to have variable flavor interpretations, covering doxastic (\u0093think\u0094), assertive (\u0093say\u0094), and bouletic (\u0093want\u0094) readings; cf. Navajo (Bogal-Allbritten 2016) and Koryak (Mo?nik &amp; Abramovitz 2019, Mo?nik 2025). These have prompted analyses where much of the semantic contribution that distinguishes these readings is taken away from the lexical entry of the attitude verb itself (against the standard Hintikkan view), and rather offloaded to the semantics of the complement clause. Based on novel fieldwork data, we report on another such attitude verb in \u00c4iwoo (Austronesian; Solomon Islands), and we show that in this language there is clearer morphological evidence for this type of analysis: <i>overt<\/i>\u00a0elements in the embedded clause determine the reading of the matrix attitude predicate, whose interpretation is derived fully compositionally, and the semantics of these elements is independently verifiable from their use in unembedded contexts. We arrive at a picture where the attitude predicate itself is <i>relatively<\/i>\u00a0underspecified, but not fully (against e.g. Bogal-Allbritten). We draw (tentative) cross-linguistic predictions about the range of meanings we expect \u0093variable-flavor&#8221; attitudes to cover: these should not extend beyond what can be composed out of independently available elements already in the language (chiefly, relatively underspecified attitudes and already existing modals). Thus, we predict these kind of verbs to receive \u0093think, say, want\u0094 interpretations, but not readings like \u0093forget\u0094, \u0093imagine\u0094, \u0093dream\u0094, which cannot be composed out of these simpler more basic atoms.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Note<\/strong>: This week\u0092s Syntax Square will feature a special LFRG take-over: the talk will be fully focused on semantics, so we especially encourage those with an interest in semantics to attend. The presentation will also serve as a practice talk for GLOW, so it\u0092s a great opportunity to hear the work in progress and offer feedback.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Speaker: Giovanni Roversi (MIT) &amp; J\u00e9ssica Mendes (Georg-August-Universit\u00e4t G\u00f6ttingen) Title: Light-ish attitudes, heavy complements: the view from \u00c4iwoo&#8221; (GLOW practice talk, LFRG take-over) Time: Tuesday, April 14, 1:00pm - 2pm Location: 32-D461 Abstract: Some attitude predicates in various unrelated languages have been reported to have variable flavor interpretations, covering doxastic (\u0093think\u0094), assertive (\u0093say\u0094), and bouletic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17927"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17928,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17927\/revisions\/17928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}