|
Date |
Presenter |
Title & Abstract |
|
9/18 |
Hunter
Hatfield University of
Hawai‘i
at Manoa
Department of
Linguistics
|
Aristotle, Causality, and the Poverty of the Stimulus
|
In Plato's dialogue "Meno," Socrates demonstrates that a child who has
never studied geometry is able to deduce some basic geometric principles.
Plato proposes that such knowledge must be "recalled" and not learned. In
Chomsky's terms, Plato's Problem, also called the Poverty of the Stimulus,
then is that children have never learned some types of knowledge, and yet
they act as if they possess this knowledge. The conclusion is that these unlearned
types of knowledge are part of the biological endowment of humankind – for
language, this is Universal Grammar. Modern Poverty of the Stimulus
arguments attempt to show two things: (1) that our biology constrains what
language can be like, and (2) that the biology is of a certain form. The
current paper focuses on part (2) and argues that just as the Problem can
be found in classical philosophy, it's possible solution can also be found
there, namely in Aristotle's theories of causality. To demonstrate this,
we will walk through a contemporary Poverty argument, show that the data
highly underdetermines the proposed innate endowment, and then assess how
we can reduce this underdetermination in our research. We can do this by
focusing on efficient causation (what makes things change), instead of
formal (what structures exist) or functional (what the purpose of language
is). |
|
|
9/25 |
Elaine Lau University of
Hawai‘i
at Manoa
Department of Linguistics
|
Acquisition of
Relative Clauses by Cantonese Children
Subject relatives are well
known for being easier than relative clauses (RCs) involving
extraction from other positions for processing (Wanner and Maratsos,
1978; Traxler et al., 2002) and acquisition (de Villiers et al., 1979;
Hamburger and Crain, 1982; Diessel and Tomasello, 2005). This has been
extensively investigated with both head-initial (such as English) and
head-final languages (such as Japanese). Researchers have long debated
whether the key factor determining the relative difficulty of each type is the grammatical
role of the relativized NP (Sheldon, 1974; Keenan and Comrie, 1977) or
the structural configuration (Slobin, 1973; Tavakolian, 1978; Hakuta,
1981; Hawkins, 1999).
In either English or Japanese, the positioning of relative clauses (postnominal
versus prenominal) follows the head direction of the language. Would
the situation be different if the head-position of a language and the
placement of its RCs are disharmonic? Chinese, a head-initial language
with prenominal relatives, thus becomes a perfect candidate.
Two experiments were conducted to examine the production and
comprehension of Cantonese monolingual children and results show
concordance with the developmental predictions derived from Keenan and
Comrie's (1977) NP accessibility hierarchy, thus reinforcing its
universality. The major erroneous responses, consistent conversions to
conjoined clauses in object-type relative clauses, possibly manifest
the role of simple sentences in the acquisition of Cantonese relative
clauses. |
|
|
10/2 |
Jee-Hyun Ma1,
Jung-Hee Kim2, and Bonnie D. Schwartz1 University of
Hawai‘i
at Manoa
1Department of Second Language
Studies
2Department of Linguistics
(Jung-Hee Kim presenting)
|
The status of
subjacency in child L1, child L2, and adult L2 acquisition: Rethinking
Johnson & Newport (1991)
|
Johnson & Newport (J&N 1991), in their ostensible L2‑endstate study,
found that oral acceptability judgments of adult, but not
(early) child, Chinese‑English L2ers fell (far) below native levels
across 3 subjacency‑violation types: extraction from
R(elative)C(lause)s, wh‑islands, C(omplex)NPs. These findings
suggest to J&N that "adult learners of a language will sometimes form
hypotheses or rules ... unnatural to human languages" (p. 245).
Our study revisits
(non‑)adherence to subjacency but from a non‑endstate
perspective, comparing Korean‑English L2 adults, Korean‑English L2
children and L1‑English‑acquiring children. Oral
acceptability‑judgment and elicited‑production results reveal: All 3
groups are most targetlike on extraction from RCs and least targetlike
on extraction from CNPs––paralleling, moreover, J&N's Chinese‑English
adult 'endstate' L2ers.
On the assumption
that child (L1 and) L2 acquisition is UG‑constrained, the finding that
adult L2 development exhibits identical subjacency‑violation patterns
as child (L1/)L2 development argues, contra J&N, that adult L2
acquisition is indeed UG‑constrained (Schwartz 1992, 2004). |
|
|
10/9 |
Mie Hiramoto University of
Hawai‘i
at Manoa
Department of Linguistics
|
Linguistic Performance in Hawai‘i
Comedy Shows: Language Stereotyping of Mock Filipino and Hawai‘i Creole
|
This study examines portraits of identity, class, and stereotyping as
performed in comedy shows in Hawai‘i based on data derived from the
videos of "Pidgin to da Max" and a performance by a local comedian,
Augie T. An analysis of portrayals of Filipinos and Hawai‘i
locals demonstrates that class identity and stereotyping are best
shown through use of 'salient' linguistic features. As
linguistic stereotypes often demonstrate language ideology, these
salient features are emphasized in the data, e.g., exaggerated forms
of Hawai‘i Creole and mocking the speech styles of Filipino immigrants
by the comedians. The findings show that the linguistic
resources the comedians draw on in order to perform local or Filipino
stereotypes seem to reflect Hawaii's local class stratifications.
That is, Mock Filipino performances versus use of Hawai‘i Creole is
evidence of linguistic stratification in Hawai‘i. Hawai‘i
Creole, as a covert prestige language, is often used to build
solidarity between performers and viewers, resulting in formation of
an in- and out-groups based on shared knowledge of local cultural
practices, styles, and manners of speech. Use of Mock Filipino,
in contrast, serves to marginalize FOB Filipinos regardless of the
accuracy of their portrayal through Mock Filipino, thus assuring a
lower social status for first generation immigrants. |
|
|
10/16 |
Jun Nomura
Jawee Perla
University of
Hawai‘i
at Manoa
Department of Linguistics
|
Early
sensitivity to information structure in Japanese
by Jun Nomura
|
|
10/23 |
Hiroko Sato
Piet Lincoln
University of
Hawai‘i
at Manoa
Department of Linguistics
|
Possessive
Constructions in Kove
by Hiroko Sato
Banoni Agreement
by Piet Lincoln
Read the
abstract...
|
|
10/30 |
Benjamin BergenUniversity of
Hawai‘i
at Manoa
Department of Linguistics
|
How language
learners keep from overgeneralizing
|
...In this talk, I will describe recent work with a promising
new experimental method that investigates how language learners use
the frequency with which words and grammatical structures co-occur to
determine when to generalize and when to restrain their
generalizations.
Read the full abstract |
|
|
11/6 |
James Crippen University of
Hawai‘i
at Manoa
Department of Linguistics
|
An Embarrassment of
Riches: The proliferation of
Tlingit Writing Systems
|
Tlingit, a Na-Dene (Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit) language of Southeastern
Alaska and neighboring parts of Canada, has a peculiarly large number
of writing systems both for the use of native speakers and for
transcription. Such an "embarrassment of riches" causes rifts among
the community of native speakers and impedes the spread of literacy by
making texts in one system difficult for users of another. I will
present a summary of Tlingit, particularly some salient issues in
phonetics and phonology, and then review some of the transcription
systems and orthographies. Following this I will offer some rough
methods for evaluating orthographies in context, and discuss some of
the technical problems related to computing and Unicode. Also I will
address the Not Invented Here problem in orthographic development. |
|
|
THURSDAY
11/8 |
Elizabeth
Barber
Professor Emerita Occidental College
|
New Evidence for
Early Trans-Eurasian Connections:
The Xinjiang Mummies and the Horsemen of the Steppes
Location: Korean Studies
Auditorium
Date/Time:
Thursday, November 8, 12:00-1:15pm
|
Long before the
Chinese established the famed Silk Road from the east (around 110 BC),
Caucasoid people were moving into Central Asia from the west, bringing
such western domesticates as wheat and wooly sheep and eventually
horses. The naturally mummified and spectacularly clothed bodies of
some of these Bronze Age people (dating roughly 2000-500 BC) have
provided much new evidence as to their origins, and have spurred
further efforts to analyse more thoroughly the linguistic fossils they
left behind. This evidence proves that Iranian-speakers had ridden
all the way to northern China during the Shang dynasty (1500-1100 BC),
spreading not only the use of the spoke-wheeled chariot but also a
number of rituals. Some of the horse-riders' rituals also ricocheted
westward, leaving fascinating traces in the cultures of Great Britain
and hence the United States-including the magician's pointed cap and
the child's
hobby-horse. |
|
|
11/13 |
Katsuo Tamaoka
Hiroshima University, Japan
International
Student Center
|
The processing
mechanism of Japanese canonical and scrambled sentences
|
Five
experiments conducted with native Japanese speakers (Tamaoka et al.,
2005) investigated scrambling effects on the processing of Japanese
sentences and priority information used among thematic roles, case
particles and grammatical functions...
Read the full abstract |
|
|
THURSDAY
11/15 |
Antonio Cheung University of
Hawai‘i
at Manoa
The University of
Hong Kong
Department of Linguistics
|
The Cantonese dative construction:
implications for processing
Location: St. John 11
Date/Time:
Thursday, November 15, 12:00-1:15pm
| ...This study employs a dual-task paradigm to compare
the comprehension and production of the canonical double-object dative
and the BA-construction. The BA-construction is found to be read
faster in a masked self-paced reading task, and is imitated more
accurately than the canonical construction in the elicited imitation
task. To account for such effects, it is suggested that using
alternative constructions facilitates processing and may be part of
the reason Cantonese retains a typologically rare word-order
configuration.
Read the full abstract |
|
|
11/20 |
Shinsho Miyara
University
of the Ryukyus
Visiting
Fellow at East-West Center
|
Syntax Meets
Phonology
—Structures of
the Clausal Scope of
Focusing and
Negation in Okinawan—
|
In
Okinawan, when participial constructions are either focused by a
particle du or put under the negation scope by a particle /ya/,
they occur as the complement of the matrix verb /s/ ‘do.’ In
contrast, when negative sentences and complement sentences are focused
by the particle du or put under the negation scope by the
particle /ya/, they occur as the complement of the matrix verb /a/
‘be.’ Okinawan is a sister language to Japanese and any tensed verb or
adjective form in this language contains a Mood morpheme in its final
position except the case of non-past negative form. I will present a
general phonological rule, which should be also applied to the
underlying representation of the non-past negative form in Okinawan.
Then, I will argue that a true generalization of clausal focusing and
negation in Okinawan stated above will be made only when the
application of this general phonological rule to all non-past negative
forms is identified. Subsequently, based on such a linguistically
significant generalization, structures of the clausal scope of
focusing and negation in Okinawan will be explored. |
|
|
11/27 |
Jason Lobel
University of
Hawai‘i
at Manoa
Department of Linguistics
|
Black Filipinos:
Endangered Languages, Endangered
Peoples
| Linguistics and politics,
life and death struggles, human rights violations, dead cultures,
moribund languages, shrinking populations. And a few photos for the
fun of it. The Philippines is home to around 25 ethnolinguistic
groups herein identified as Black Filipinos, elsewhere labeled
Negritos (lit. ‘little Black people’) or “hunter-gatherers” (even
though most of them aren’t anymore). During my two-and-a-half years
of fieldwork in the Philippines from 2005-2007, I visited almost 50
Black Filipino communities covering around 20 Black Filipino
languages. As an introduction, remembering that languages are spoken
by real people, I will first share some of my experiences with these
peoples, and pass on to my audience some of what these peoples have
shared with me about their plight, and how they have often been made
to suffer simply for looking different. After that introduction, I
will give an overview of the Black Filipinos’ languages within the
Philippine language family, and discuss some unique, noteworthy
features of several of these languages. The final part of the
presentation will be a show-and-tell of photographs that I have taken
of and with various Black Filipino groups. |
|
|
THURSDAY
12/6 |
Shigeo Tonoike
University of Hawai‘i at Manoa
Aoyama Gakuin University
|
Banning Covert Operations
|
The current linguistic theory known as the
Minimalist Program allows covert operation by which a syntactic object
is moved without a visible (audible) effect. While it is conceivable
that human language has in its arsenal such powerful machinery, it is
scientific common sense to assume the absence of such machinery until
its necessity is proven conclusively. Kayne (1998) is among the few
people who think that human language does not have such a mechanism
and demonstrates that the same effect can be achieved by silent
elements and massive movement. I am in complete agreement with Kayne’s
proposal in spirit, but sharply differ from him in execution.
In this talk I will take up the three
phenomena that Heim and Kratzer (1998) cite as evidence for covert
operation, namely, scope ambiguity, antecedent-contained deletion and
bound-variable anaphora, illustrated in the examples below and
demonstrate that they can be equally well (or even better) accounted
for by one overt operation (along with other already established overt
operations).
(1) a. Somebody offended everybody
b. I read every novel that you did.
c. No woman blamed herself.
I will do so by looking into the nature
of the operator-variable construction that these three phenomena have
in common. The result of the demonstration is that we can now say all
movement operations must be overt. (This makes our life much simpler
by ruling out hosts of proposals as impossible.) Furthermore, it has
far-reaching implications on any phenomenon that involves two elements
sharing the same intended reference, i.e., pronominals, reflexives,
reciprocals, PRO, and r-expressions (Binding Conditions of GB theory),
as well as relative pronouns (relativization). I will propose a
version of movement approach to these phenomena. If time permits, I
will give a sneak preview of the joint research in progress with
Professor Otsuka on relativization in Tagalog and Gaelic/Irish. |
|
|
MONDAY
12/10 |
Judy B. Bernstein
William Paterson University
&
Raffaella
Zanuttini
Georgetown University
|
Variation in
verbal agreement:
evidence from
two varieties of English
Location: St. John 11
Date/Time: Monday, December
10, 12:00-1:15pm
|
Data from English varieties suggests that (minimally) different
properties of a particular functional head may have the same
morphological realization. Appalachian English displays verbal -s
with plural lexical subjects. This pattern, the Northern Subject
Rule, arguably involves absence of number agreement between the
subject and the verb. We claim instead that in these varieties -s
reflects the presence of agreement and that the agreement displayed is
in person, not number. We further suggest that languages vary as to
whether verbal agreement is determined by N or D. |
|
|
12/11 |
Gabriel Correa University of
Hawai‘i
at Manoa
Department of Linguistics
|
The role of stress in the
acquisition of Spanish spirantization by native English Speakers.
Location: Moore 575 (Linguistics
Conference room)
|
This study investigates
the role that syllable stress plays in the acquisition of the Spanish
voiced stops /b d g/ and their spirantized variants /β
ð ɣ/
(beta, eth, gamma) by native English speakers. Two groups of native
English speakers studying Spanish were tested. The results reveal
that errors in spirantization (of the voiced stops) occur more
frequently in stressed syllables than in unstressed ones. |
|
