The concept of person is in many ways tied to speech acts. This is obvious just by exploring the interpretation of pronouns: 1st person pronouns are used to refer to the speaker, 2nd person pronouns are used to refer to the addressee, and 3rd person is used for individuals other than the speech act participants. […]

Words consist of a phoneme or letter sequence that maps onto meaning. Most prominent theories of both auditory and visual word recognition portray the recognition process as a connection between these units and a semantic level. However, there is a growing body of evidence in the priming literature suggesting that there is an additional, morphological […]

"Experimental evidence for context sensitivity in the nominal domain: What children and adults reveal" Abstract: Part of what it means to become a proficient speaker of a language is to recognize that the context in which we communicate with each other, including what a speaker’s intentions or goals are, affects the way we arrive at […]

Every year towards the end of the Winter Quarter, the Linguistics at Santa Cruz conference showcases the research of second and third year graduate students. This conference coincides with a visit to campus of prospective graduate students, and it always features as an invited speaker, a Ph.D. alum of the department. This year's invited speaker […]

Pronouns in Competition Long distance dependencies involving pronouns have figured prominently both in theories of competence and in theories of performance. Bringing these diverse lines of inquiry closer together is a challenging, yet fundamental, goal for linguistic theory. In this workshop we propose to study the role(s) that competition and optimality may play in these […]

Towards the end of the spring quarter each year, the Linguistics Undergraduate Research Conference (LURC) showcases the research of the department's undergraduate students. This conference always features as an invited speaker, a distinguished alumnus or alumna of the department.