In a recent paper, Jennifer Spenader, Frank Richter and Janina Radó extend previous experimental work by Frank and Janina on negative polarity items in German to parallel data in English. In two experiments they investigated the ability of native speakers to distinguish different groups of NPIs:
J. Spenader, F. Richter & J. Radó (2014): Experimental Investigations of Licensing Environments for NPIs in English. In: Jack Hoeksema & Dicky Gilbers (eds.): Black Book. A Festschrift in Honor of Frans Zwarts. University of Groningen, pp. 301-310
The following job ad for either 1 postdoc or 2 doctoral positions has appeared on linguistlist.
Description:
The Linguistics section in the Department of English and American Studies (part of the College of Modern Philologies) of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University in Frankfurt am Main (Germany) has an opening for either one full postdoctoral or two halftime Ph.D. positions as Wissenschafterliche/r Mitarbeiter/in (E13 TV-G-U). The position(s) start(s) on September 1, 2014 and is/are initially restricted to a duration of 3 years.
Assif Am-David published a monograph based on his dissertation “A semantic typology of definiteness”. This book explores the crosslinguistic distributional patterns of definiteness markers. A distinction is drawn between semantic definiteness and morpho-syntactic definiteness marking. The semantic components of definiteness are arranged, similar to semantic maps, and language-specifically assigned to definiteness markers. This model is based on the results of an empirical study of Q’ekchi’, Otomi, Maori and Basque. The choice of a suitable sample for a typological study is also discussed.
Bibliographic information:
Am-David, Assif (2014): A Semantic Typology of Definiteness. Lampert Academic Publishing.
Jim Blevins created a website for the Emmonfest, which was celebrated a week ago here in Frankfurt. It includes the program of the event, a link to the text of Emmon Bach’s Friday morning talk, and links to photostreams. There is more to come in the near future.
As announced earlier, Goethe-University Frankfurt will host a symposium for Emmon Bach. The event is organized by Gert Webelhuth, Jim Blevins, and Joyce McDonough and will be held in Frankfurt on June 20-21 in IG-Farben Haus, Eisenhower Room.
Assif Am-David will present a talk on A semantic typology of definiteness markers next weekend at the 8th Days of Swiss Linguistics. This year’s conference title is Dynamics of Variation. The conference shall take place at the Zurich University, 19-21.6.2014.
