Category: Alumni News

Tom Roberts accepts computational linguistics position at Utrecht

Tom Roberts (PhD, 2021) has recently accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Computational Linguistics in the Department of Languages, Literature, and Communication at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, starting in November 2023. Tom’s research focuses on the semantics-pragmatics interface, especially of attitude verbs and speech acts, and how these can (and can’t) vary across languages. This won’t be much of a move for Tom, as he has been just down the road from Utrecht as a postdoc at the University of Amsterdam since leaving UCSC, so he will thankfully not have to give up his omafiets (a roadster bike, literally “grandma bike”).

Erik Zyman’s research in the news

Erik Zyman (PhD, 2018), currently Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of Chicago, was recently featured in Tableau, the University of Chicago’s humanities magazine. He described his research in syntax:

As a theoretical syntactician, he is interested in “identifying the fundamental operations that build syntactic structure in human language.” One basic operation, which linguists call Merge, combines two words or phrases into a larger unit. Although Merge is fundamental to many versions of generative syntax—an approach according to which grammar is governed by deep laws—Zyman says the operation is difficult to define with precision while both satisfying the relevant conceptual requirements (elegance, simplicity, and others) and accounting for the properties that the relevant syntactic structures have in human language. In a forthcoming article in the journal Syntax, Zyman says he “develops a novel formal definition of Merge that overcomes some drawbacks of previous ones while building on their strengths.”

Zyman aligns himself with a tradition of seeking order beneath complexity: “The second-century Alexandrian syntactician Apollonius Dyscolus was convinced that syntax is fundamentally orderly and rationally comprehensible. Nearly two millennia later, Noam Chomsky, building on a view of Galileo’s, stated that ‘Nature is in fact simple and it’s the task of the scientists to show how that’s the case.’ I agree with both of them.”

Erik Zyman

Professor Erik Zyman (on the right)

Bennett at HISPhonCog

Last week, Professor Ryan Bennett presented a talk at HISPhonCog in Seoul, entitled “Syllable position in secondary dorsal contrasts: an ultrasound study of Irish.” While there, he had the opportunity to catch up with some past and future students in the department. Maho Morimoto (PhD, 2020) also presented at the conference, and incoming PhD student Hanyoung Byun was in attendance as well.

HisPhonCog

Maho Morimoto, Hanyoung Byun, Ryan Bennett (from left to right)

WCCFL 41 takes place at UC Santa Cruz

This past weekend (May 5-7) saw over 125 linguists from around the world convene in and around Stevenson College for the 41st West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL 41). They presented 42 talks and 39 posters, on a wide range of topics in theoretical phonology, syntax, and semantics. Two special sessions brought together specialists on phi-features and deixis and anaphora; one virtual poster session enabled presenters not able to attend in person to participate; three invited speakers gave plenary talks on social gender and nominal structure, locality at the morphology-phonology interface, and demonstrative expressions.

The photo gallery below captures the lively spirit of the conference, which featured a conference dinner and other social events, alongside the talks and posters. For some attendees, the conference ended in a visit to the giant redwoods at Henry Cowell State Park, where a special session on “root structure” was held (video courtesy of fourth year PhD student Dan Brodkin).

In addition to many current faculty and students, alumni Andrew Hedding (PhD, 2022), Aaron Kaplan (PhD, 2008), and Line Mikkelsen (PhD, 2004) were present. Some other past members of the department were also in attendance, but were not captured photographically, including Vera Gribanova (PhD, 2010) and Boris Harizanov (PhD, 2014).

One person appears in only a couple of these photos, because she was behind the camera, fourth-year PhD student Yaqing Cao.

WCCFL 41 was made possible by the generous support of the Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz and the Department of Linguistics, as well as the tremendous dedication and hard work of many linguistics graduate students and LRC Coordinator Maria Zimmer.

Colin Hirschberg receives Dean’s Undergraduate Award

Colin Hirschberg, who received a BA in linguistics in Fall 2022, has been awarded a Dean’s Undergraduate Award for his thesis on “Restrictions on Mandarin bei-passives,” supervised by Professor Jess Law. Only 10 Dean’s Awards, which come with a $100 prize, are made in the Humanities Division each year. 

The WHASC Editor asked Colin to briefly describe what he discovered in his thesis research:

“This thesis examines Mandarin passive sentences, demonstrating that they have an additional requirement not shared with active sentences. Passive verbs must be marked for a change of state, though, this requirement seems to be relaxed when the subject describes a sentient individual, like a human. This work attributes the constraints on passives to a general notion of affectedness. An individual is affected when they undergo a change of state. Sentient individuals can undergo more types of abstract changes of state than non-sentient ones, so despite the ostensibly relaxed affectedness requirement, a passive sentence does express a change of state, just an abstract emotional one rather than a physical one like in. That passive subjects are more constrained by affectedness than the corresponding active objects not only refutes the meaning equivalence between active and passive sentences; this also reaffirms a longstanding observation in linguistics that the subject position is structurally prominent.”

Congratulations, Colin!

Colin Hirschberg

Colin Hirschberg

Banana slug linguists in York

Shayne Sloggett (BA, 2010), currently Experimental Officer in Psycholinguistics in the Department of Language and Linguistic Science at the University of York, recently hosted fellow banana slug Deniz Rudin (PhD, 2018) in York. Deniz, who is currently Assistant Professor in Linguistics at the University of Southern California, gave a colloquium talk in the department entitled “Whose fault is faultless disagreement?” While there, they had some time to take in the air and culture of the medieval part of the city.

Deniz in York

Professor Deniz Rudin in York, England, a 12th-century church to his right

Andrew Hedding accepts syntax position at UW

andrew hedding

Professor Andrew Hedding

Andrew Hedding (PhD, 2022) has accepted a position as Assistant Professor of syntax in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Washington, starting in fall 2023. Andrew’s dissertation investigated how abstract categories such as focus are represented in grammar, with special attention to the connection between wh-movement and focus movement. It integrated evidence from San Martín Peras Mixtec, an Indigenous language of Oaxaca, speakers of which Andrew has been collaborating with since 2017, in Mexico and California. The dissertation committee was composed of Professors Jess Law, Ivy Sichel, Maziar Toosarvandani (chair), and Michelle Yuan (UC Santa Diego).

Congratulations, Andrew!

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