13 March 2016

Conditionals

http://xkcd.com/1652/

ACAL 47

The 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics is being hosted by the University of California, Berkeley on March 23-26. UMass is represented by:

Rodica Ivan and Deniz Ozyildiz who are giving the paper “The Somali microscope: pronouns, determiners and possession.” (Their abstract is here,)

William Bennett, Kristine Yu and alumnus Wendell Kimper with Christopher Green who are giving the paper “Acoustic correlates of harmonic classes in Somali."

Alumna Rose-Marie Déchaine, who is giving the paper “Shona root classes: implications for the lexicon and beyond,” and, with Herman Keupdjio, “Compound pronouns in Bamileke Medumba"

Lisa Selkirk who is giving the paper “Edge-sensitivity in Bantu sentence topology: Luganda, Xitsonga, Bemba"

Leland Kusmer who is giving the paper “Prosody and the conjoint/disjoint alternation in Tshivenda"

Alumna Meredith Landman who is giving the paper “Quantification in Kipsigis"

Alumnus Ken Safir gives the paper “Actual clauses in Lubukusu and what they mean for a symmetric theory of clausal complementation."

You can learn more about the conference here.

Julianne Chaloux gets internship in the SCALE workshop

Former Linguistics RA Julianne Chaloux has been offered a summer internship position in the annual SCALE workshop hosted by Johns Hopkins University's Human Language Technology Center Of Excellence. Congratulations, Julianne!

Berezovskaya at MIT

UMass visitor Polina Berezovskaya will present “ `Small Degrees’: Degree Modification in Nenets” at the MIT LingLunch on March 17th.

Chomsky in Las Vegas

http://www.theonion.com/article/noam-chomsky-announces-las-vegas-residency-52508

TESOL Teacher Training course this summer at Hampshire

TESOL Teacher Training Course
Summer 2016 @ Hampshire College JUNE 6—July 1, 2016
tesol.hampshire.edu [2]

Teaching ESL/EFL (English as a Second Language/English as a Foreign Language) has become a growing field as cultures and economies globalize. The ultimate goal of this course is for participants to be prepared for actual teaching situations and be confident as TESOL instructors/tutors. Acquiring a TESOL certificate can lead to teaching opportunities around the world.

Now in its fourth year, the TESOL TEACHER TRAINING COURSE AT HAMPSHIRE COLLEGE is a proven training ground for students and professionals interested in global education. Through the course, you'll develop a philosophy of teaching values and practices, learn from peer teaching and peer feedback, plan lessons and other teaching materials, and practice action research skills to understand what goes on in the foreign language classroom. Our practice-based approach is grounded in a comprehensive overview of the history of methods for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, along with a critical examination of the underlying principles of these methodologies.

TUITION AND FEES
Tuition: $2,500
Room: $904

MEALS
Participants can chose to purchase meals daily in our dining commons
and/or chose to prepare their own meals in their condo-style living
quarters.

APPLY NOW! Applications are accepted on a rolling basis

IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER
April 3 / Priority Deadline for all applications
April 11 / Tuition Discount Deadline (all payments must be received in
order to receive 15% tuition discount)
May 1 / Application Deadline (application materials must be submitted)
May 15 /  Payment Deadline (all payments must be submitted)

QUESTIONS? Email tesol@hampshire.edu

Why you should make UMass your destination abroad

An article about UMass by visiting student Alberto Moron Hernandez has appeared in Manchet — the newsletter of the Department of Linguistics and English at the University of Manchester.

SALT 26 program announced

The University of Texas at Austin, who is hosting the Twenty-Sixth meeting of Semantics and Linguistics Theory in early May, has just released the program and UMass is well-represented:

Alumnus Florian Schwarz, with Jérémy Zehr, Cory Bill, Lyn Tieu and Jacopo Romoli will present the paper “Presupposition projection from the scope of `none’: universal, existential, or both?"

Alumnus Chris Davis who, with Eric McCready, will present the paper “Expressives and Alternatives"

Alumnus Luis Alonso-Ovalle is presenting the paper “Are All Concessive Scalar Particles the Same? Probing into Spanish “Siquiera."

Jon Ander Mendia will present the paper “Reasoning with Partial Orders."

Alumna Suzi Lima will present the paper “On object denoting nouns: defining atoms"

Alumnus Kyle Rawlins, with Aaron Steven White, will present the paper “A computational model of S-selection” and, with Justin Bledin, the paper “Epistemic resistance moves."

For more information, go here.

Call for papers: ESSLLI

*ESSLLI 2016 STUDENT SESSION*

Held during the 28th European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information

Bolzano, Italy, August 15-26, 2016

*EXTENDED Deadline for submissions: March 15th, 2016*
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=essllistus2016

*ABOUT:*
The Student Session of the 28th European Summer School in Logic, Language, and Information (ESSLLI) will take place in Bolzano, Italy, August 15th to 26th (http://esslli2016.unibz.it). We invite submissions of original, unpublished work from students in any area at the intersection of Logic & Language, Language & Computation, or Logic & Computation. Submissions will be reviewed by several experts in the field, and accepted papers will be presented orally or as posters and selected papers will appear in the Student Session proceedings by Springer. This is an excellent opportunity to receive valuable feedback from expert readers and to present your work to a diverse audience.

*ORAL/POSTER PRESENTATIONS:*
Note that there are two separate kinds of submissions, one for oral presentations and one for posters. This means that papers are directly submitted either as oral presentations or as poster presentations.
Reviewing and ranking will be done separately. We particularly encourage submissions for posters, as they offer an excellent opportunity to present smaller research projects and research in progress.

*SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:*
Authors must be students, and submissions may be singly or jointly authored. Each author may submit at most one single and one jointly authored contribution. Submissions should not be longer than 8 pages for an oral presentation or 4 pages for a poster presentation (including examples and references). Submissions must be anonymous, without any identifying information. More detailed guidelines regarding submission can be found on the Student Session website:
http://www2.sfs.uni-tuebingen.de/esslli-stus-2016/.

*SPONSORSHIP AND PRIZES*
As in previous years, Springer has kindly agreed to sponsor the ESSLLI student session. The best poster and best talk will be awarded Springer book vouchers of 500€ each.

*FURTHER INFORMATION:*
Please direct inquiries about submission procedures or other matters relating to the Student Session to marisa.koellner@uni-tuebingen.de and rziai@sfs.uni-tuebingen.de.

ESSLLI 2016 will feature a wide range of foundational and advanced courses and workshops in all areas of Logic, Language, and Computation. For further information, including registration information and course listings, and for general inquiries about ESSLLI 2016, please consult the main ESSLLI 2016 page: http://esslli2016.unibz.it.

Frana gets the De Vincenzi prize

Ilaria Frana has received the Marica De Vincenzi prize for best paper by an Italian researcher selected for IGG (Incontro Grammatica Generativa). The paper was “Mica as a Common Ground Management operator” (collaborative work with Kyle Rawlins). The prize is offered by “Fondazione Marica De Vincenzi Onlus”. WHISC as acquired the celebratory group picture from the event (from left to right: Nino Grillo, Francesca Foppolo, me and Carlo Gerace.)

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EvoLang 2016

For the first time in 12 years the Evolution of Language (EvoLang) conference is taking place in the United States. There is still time to register, so don’t let this unique opportunity pass you by. EvoLang 2016 is organized by the University of Southern Mississippi and will take place March 21st-24th in New Orleans, LA at the Lavin-Bernick Center on the Tulane University campus. A wide variety of disciplines
will be represented, including: linguistics, psychology, anthropology, primatology, biology, animal behavior, and computer science. The conference opens with a variety of workshops and there is an opening night reception at Mardi Gras World with food and an open bar that is included in your registration. Some notable attendees include Simon Kirby, Tecumseh Fitch, and Terrence Deacon, as well as our plenary speakers. If you are interested in attending please visit our website http://www.usm.edu/gulfcoast/evolang-2016 to register and see the schedule of speakers. Make sure you sign up for the banquet at the Audubon Tea Room on Thursday night. There will be live music and amazing food. Registration is closing soon, so make sure to register ASAP.