Author: tdrobert

Congratulations to alum Sally Mirken Teeple (B.A., 2006) and grad student Dave Teeple, who were married on the evening of July 7, in the back yard of Sally’s parents in San Juan Capistrano. Here are photos of Sally, Dave, and their wedding party.

Congratulations to Pranav Anand and Nikki Vamosi, who were married on September 15! Here is Pranav’s report:

The civil ceremony took place in the Cowell Redwoods on the afternoon of the 15th, and was attended by immediate family. In the spirit of things linguistically related, I discovered after making the cake that marzipan (the base for the little fruit) is a word with mysterious etymological origins. The OED traces it to Italian marzapane, but here the record becomes blurry. One theory breaks this up into Martius panis (`bread of Mars’), an homage to the castles on medieval cakes. Another traces it to the matapanus, or mataban, a coin stamped with the image of an enthroned Christ. A third source suggests that this word gained a sense referring to the volume contained in a small box (reflected in the fact that several regional Romance languages still use a variant to denote a small box, and thereafter the prototypical contents of such boxes — candy. It was further suggested that mataban is a borrowing from the Arabic mawthaban, meaning “the king that sits still.” However, a completely different history has been advanced, connecting the Burmese city of Martaban, famous for its glazed jars. What’s the right story — Martian bread, a coin that becomes a box, or a jar? As one of the sources just cited closes, “nobody has a better idea.” Regardless, these tales serve to remind us how plastic word sense is.

Prominently featured in the Fall 2007 issue of the UC Santa Cruz Review is Judith Aissen. The article “Saving Endangered Languages” is devoted to language endangerment, Judith’s linguistic research on Tzotzil, and her involvement in teaching speakers of Mayan languages in Mexico and Guatemala how to analyze and help preserve their languages. Also in the same issue is an article about Yi Zhang, an assistant professor of computer science whose research on information retrieval from massive data bases has involved several Linguistics grads. The current issue of the Review is not yet online; watch for it here.

Thorbjörg Hróarsdóttir joins the Linguistics Department as an LRC visitor for 2007-08. Thorbjörg’s B.A. and M.A. are from the University of Iceland, Reykjavik; her PhD is (1999) from the University of Tromsø in Norway. Since 2005, she has been a Researcher in the Department of Language and Linguistics at University of Tromsø, and affiliated with Tromsø’s Center for Advanced Study in Theoretical Linguistics (CASTL), where she leads a 6-year project on Syntactic Architecture funded by the Norwegian Research Council. The project aims to test current theories of syntax against empirical evidence from OV languages, Scandinavian syntactic systems, and syntactic change. She is the author of Word Order Change in Scandinavian: From OV to VO (John Benjamins, 2000) as well as articles on syntactic change and on the syntax of Scandinavian languages. Thorbjörg’s office is Stevenson 239. Please welcome her and her family.

Alum Eduardo Neal (B.A., 2007) climbed Mount Kilimanjaro this summer. He reports:

Uhuru Peak sits at the top of Mt Kilimanjaro at 725 million miles above sea level–or so it would seem from the descriptions I had heard from people who had never been there, but who knew someone who knew someone… The mountain is the tallest one that is not part of a range and it is the highest point in Africa. As many of you know, Uhuru Peak used to be invisible to the naked eye. Until relatively recently it was covered by the glacier that has now retreated and currently only covers part of the mountain. The climb is extended over a period of at least 5 days for acclimatization (I took the customary 6). The easiest route, Morangu (also known as the Coca Cola route) is surprisingly gradual, but I’m afraid it also means long hiking days. The route I took, Rongai, is the next one up in difficulty and rewards you with short days and nice long rests.

Regardless of the route taken, summit day starts at midnight. This is so that the scree under your boots is frozen and you can get to the rim of the crater (Gilman’s point) in a reasonable five hours (???!!!). From there, another 1.5 hours to the highest point at Uhuru, just in time to watch the sunrise.

At first, I set sight on the big dark, barely visible shape of a distant mountain above. The big prize. After a couple of hours I had to stop looking at it because it was clearly not getting any closer. At this point the top was no longer my goal. Gradually, the big prize had become placing my foot where Betuel, my guide, had just put his. It was awful. But at no point was there even a question that I would make it. Not submitting was not an option. And right on schedule, at about 6:30 am, there I was, looking at the sunrise from the top of Africa. I have never seen a more beautiful thing (nor worked so hard to get it).

Junko Ito has recently become an editor of Natural Language and Linguistic Theory (joining Michael Kenstowicz as one of the two p-side editors). But UCSC linguists on the s-side need not feel abandoned; one of Junko’s fellow editors is UCSD’s John Moore (UCSC Ph.D., 1991).

The aim of Natural Language and Linguistic Theory is to provide “a forum for the discussion of theoretical research that pays close attention to natural language data. The journal actively seeks to bridge the gap between descriptive work and work of a highly theoretical, less empirically oriented nature.”

The NLLT editors have recently announced that in addition to full-length articles and reviews, the journal will also open a platform for short squibs and discussion pieces.

Armin Mester is co-editor (with Ellen Woolford) of Advances in Optimality Theory, a new series produced by the London-based Equinox Publishing which aims to provide a central outlet for new work in OT. Contributions in phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and other subfields of linguistics are all welcome. The series is open to a broad variety of research and pedagogical projects, including studies with a broad typological focus, studies dedicated to the detailed analysis of individual languages, and studies on the nature of Optimality Theory itself.

The first volume of the series Hidden Generalizations, by John McCarthy, appeared in April 2007. It develops a radically new conception (“Chain Theory”) of what an output candidate in OT consists of, and argues that the revised theory solves the problems raised by phonological opacity. Further planned volumes of the series include a monograph on “Elsewhere” in phonology by Eric Bakovic (UCSC B.A., 1993).