For decades, many linguists have framed the study of language in terms of a language faculty, a specialized cognitive ‘organ’ unique to humans. In the last decade, even the most stalwart proponents of this view have come to acknowledge the existence of other factors in the organization of human languages. In this talk, I will concentrate on two of these factors, embodiment and competition, drawing examples from the morphology of spoken and signed languages. Neither is unique to language, nor especially human or cognitive in nature. Their role in the structuring of languages points to a new research paradigm in the study of language, in which no single factor is privileged and the importance of any one of them is gauged only by the insights it provided, not by its uniqueness to language.
While in verb-initial Old Irish, topicalization was achieved via left dislocation and focalization was achieved through clefting, the older Continental Celtic languages achieved such pragmatic information structuring through movement into the left periphery of the clause (though the right edge of the clause could also be a target for such purpose). This paper commences with an inspection of relative clause syntax in Continental Celtic while outlining what we can tell about other movement mechanisms in the clause and then goes on to explore the architecture of the left periphery in these languages. This exploration provides some insight into the prehistoric development of verb-initial clausal configuration in Insular Celtic. Some comparative attention is also paid to the architecture of the left periphery in other Indo-European languages and it is found that the Continental Celtic languages have a role to play in determining the degree of articulation to be reconstructed for the left periphery of proto-Indo-European itself.
"Speakers of German enjoy forming compounds and the German language is infamous for long words like 'Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz". Even though compound formation is an easy task for speakers, the linguistic analysis of the semantic relations of the stems of a compound is a complex task. This talk will discuss possibilities of how we can use compound analysis for a deeper understanding of cultural change, discuss data-driven methods, and present empirical evidence from large German newspaper corpora. The talk will present: 1. a quick overview of the different word formation processes in German, 2. different heuristics for the semantic analysis of compounds, 3. analysis of distributional patterns of stems in large corpora, and 4. possibilities of a data-driven identification of the semantic relations between the stems."
Abstract: "Linguists have been teaching the general public for several decades now that traditional conceptions of "bad" versus "good" grammar are not based on scientific argumentation, but certain fashions laid down by assorted thinkers mostly in the eighteenth century. However, the public remains convinced that most speakers of English go about speaking it "wrong." In this talk, I try to present the linguist's perspective in a new way, showing that while all people must learn standard grammar for public purposes, nonstandard grammar is distinct, but not logically mistaken."
Dr. Barrett will talk about Maya understandings of the dead, funerary practices, and ways of communicating with the ancestors, and then discuss the emergence of rock and hip hop music performed in Mayan languages and the ways they emphasize the ancestors in their music.
El Dr. Barrett explicará como los Mayas se comunican con sus ancestros, las prácticas funerarias que los mayas tienen y sus pensamientos en cuando a los muertos. También hablará sobre como los ancestros tienen un rol en la inspiración de la música Maya y como el rock y hip hop ha influenciado a esta cultura.
Dr. Barrett will talk about Maya understandings of the dead, funerary practices, and ways of communicating with the ancestors, and then discuss the emergence of rock and hip hop music performed in Mayan languages and the ways they emphasize the ancestors in their music.
El Dr. Barrett explicará como los Mayas se comunican con sus ancestros, las prácticas funerarias que los mayas tienen y sus pensamientos en cuando a los muertos. También hablará sobre como los ancestros tienen un rol en la inspiración de la música Maya y como el rock y hip hop ha influenciado a esta cultura.
