August 7, 2009: Yasutada Sudo, Wataru Uegaki

Time:

3:30pm, August 7, 2009

Place:

National Institute of Informatics (National Center of Sciences Bldg.),
12th floor, Classroom 2 (1213)

Talk 1

Speaker:

Yasutada Sudo, MIT

Title:

Shifted Indexicals in Uyghur (joint work with Kirill Shklovsky)

Abstract:

Since Schlenker's (1999) seminal work on Amharic, shifted indexicals are widely debated in natural language semantics, and data from various languages have been assessed (Anand 2006, Anand & Nevins 2004, Deal to appear, Fleck et al. 2009, Quer 2005, Schlenker 2002). In this talk, we present new empirical data of shifted indexicals in Uyghur, and suggest that it poses a number of problems for Schlenker's (2002) and Anand's (2006) theory of shifted indexicals and context shifting.

Talk 2

Speaker:

Wataru Uegaki, University of Tokyo

Title:

Attitudes de se and 'nearly free' control

Abstract:

Nearly free control (Jackendoff and Culicover 2003), exemplified
in (1), is a type of control pattern where, unlike obligatory
control, any NP in the local clause is allowed to be a
controller. (In addition, a split or a generic controller is
allowed.) However, unlike normal nonobligatory control, nearly
free control does not allow any NP outside the local clause, the
speaker or the hearer, to be the controller, as shown
in (1b-d). Furthermore, importantly, the verbs whose complements
show the nearly free control pattern are restricted to verbs of
communication or thought, such as _talk to_, _speak to_,
_discuss_, _mention_ or _think_ etc.

(1) a. John_i talked to Sarah_j about PRO_i/j/i+j/gen undressing
          himself_i/herself_j/themselves_i+j/oneself_gen in public.
   b. *Amy_k knows that John_i talked to Bill_j about PRO_k
          undressing herself_k in public. (long distance control)
   c. *Amy's_k strange behavior has been a concern of everybody.
          John talked to Bill about PRO_k undressing
          herself_k in public.  (discourse antecedent control)
   d. *John talked to Sarah about PRO_i/j undressing
          myself_i/yourself_j in public. (speaker/hearer control)

In this talk, I propose a novel analysis this control pattern:
Nearly free control is more restricted than normal nonobligatory
control because of the obligatoriness of de se interpretation
coming from a general semantic principle, which governs the
interpretation of attitude relations between individuals and
properties (Lewis 1979, Chierchia 1989). On the other hand, nearly
free control is less restricted than obligatory control because the
predicates appearing in this type of control lack (or are
underspecified as to) the argument oriented entailments associated
with their lexical semantics, unlike in the case of obligatory
control verbs.

August 7, 2009: Yasutada Sudo, Shifted Indexicals in Uyghur; Wataru Uegaki, Attitudes de se and 'nearly free' control