Abstract: In studying linguistic knowledge and the cognitive processing that uses this knowledge, linguists and psycholinguists have looked for ways to find out what is cognitively "real" that underlies the patterns found in language and linguistic behavior. We are generally faced with the problem of being on the outside looking in. Each method of acquiring […]

The Linguistics Department's annual Linguistics Undergraduate Research Conference (LURC) will be held Friday, May 29th, from 12:45 - 4:45pm in the Stevenson Fireside Lounge. The Distinguished Alumnus speaker will be Aaron White (2008), who is a fifth year PhD student in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Maryland. We hope you will attend.   12:45 p.m. Refreshments 12:55 […]

Grant Goodall: "Grammar and working memory: How experimental syntax can help us tell the difference" The use of formal experiments to measure sentence acceptability, known as “experimental syntax”, is able to capture many fine-grained grammatical contrasts, but it also captures effects that have long been thought to be extra-grammatical, such as those induced by increased […]

About eight times each year the department hosts colloquium talks by distinguished faculty from around the world. More information on the talk will be available soon. 2014 - 2015 Speakers FALL 2014 October 17th Jane Grimshaw, Rutgers December 12th Adam Albright, MIT WINTER 2015 January 16th Claire Halpert, University of Minnesota January 23rd Valentine Hacquard, […]

We propose a new semantics and pragmatics for epistemic statements which builds on the systems of Yalcin (2012) and Moss (2015), but offers several empirical advantages. The key improvements stem from (a) modeling information states using probabilistic graphical models, a framework for knowledge representation that is highly influential in psychology, AI, and philosophy; and (b) […]