Category: Faculty News

New Publications from Chacón

Professor Dustin Chacón recently published two articles. The first, “Disentangling semantic prediction and association in processing filler-gap dependencies: An MEG study in English,” co-authored with Liina Pylkkänen (NYU), appeared in Language, Cognition and Neuroscience.

In this study, we examine plausible filler-gap dependencies (‘which counters did the maids clean?’) with sentences that have an unexpected thematic role (‘which mops did the maids clean __ fastidiously?’). We find that neural activity distinguishes these kinds of sentences ~800ms in right inferior frontal cortex. This is longer and in a different location than other plausible/implausible argument-verb relations (‘Do you think maids/mops clean fastidiously?’), which are distinguished ~400ms in left inferior frontal cortex.

The second article, “Evaluating the time courses of morpho-orthographic, lexical, and grammatical processing following rapid parallel visual presentation: An EEG investigation in English,” co-authored with Donnie Dunagan (UGA), Tyson Jordan (UGA), John Hale (UGA/JHU), and Liina Pylkkänen (NYU), appeared in Cognition.

In this paper, we examine how the brain responds to short sentences displayed for 200ms. We found that the brain distinguishes grammatical sentences (the dogs chase a ball) from scrambled alternatives (ball a chase dogs the) around ~300ms. We show that this brain response is different from brain responses sensitive to (il)legal letter strings, morphological form, and word frequency, suggesting a distinct stage of processing grammatical structure in short sentences read quickly.

Gong in Linguistic Inquiry

The winter issue of Linguistic Inquiry included a new journal article by Professor Mia Gong: “Case in wholesale late merger: Evidence from Mongolian scrambling“.

Takahashi and Hulsey (2009) suggest that wholesale late merger is controlled by case. This article presents novel evidence for this idea from Condition C reconstruction effects in Mongolian local and long-distance scrambling. Departing from previous accounts, I argue that the complexity of the phenomenon reveals that Condition C connectivity is related neither to the position of underlying binders nor to A/Ā-properties—scrambling bleeds Condition C, so long as the case requirement of the late-merged NP can be satisfied. Crucially, I motivate a hybrid case system for Mongolian in which accusative case is assigned as a dependent case. I show that this is both necessary and independently motivated, thereby introducing a fine-grained view of case into the wholesale-late-merger mechanism.

Sichel in the Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies

Professor Ivy Sichel saw a journal article appear in a recent issue of the Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies on “The double standard in Modern Hebrew,” co-authored with recent visitor to the department Professor Uri Mor (Ben Gurion University).

In this paper we analyze the social meanings associated with the new native vernacular (NNV) variety of Modern Hebrew as a complex positive stance, constructed via differentiation from its alternatives. NNV is reflexive, and it speaks for itself: for the authority of experience, as opposed to the traditional authority of the text. A speaker of NNV is necessarily an active agent in the propagation of the new collective and its values. We also explore the consolidation and dissemination of these values by cultural agents, focusing on a 1950s column by Dahn Ben Amotz, which presents snapshots of “everyday life” in multiple sites in Israel, as part of the modernist project of constructing a hegemonic folk identity. We show how variation in the use of spoken Hebrew, together with other tropes such as location and ethnic descent, are implicated in the construction of the new folk identity.

UCSC Alums and Linguists contribute to festschrift honoring Maria Polinsky

This month (January 2025) marked the publication of a rich and varied collection of research papers in linguistics in a festschrift honoring Maria Polinsky (Professor emerita at the University of Maryland). The volume, entitled Syntax in Uncharted Territories: Essays in Honor of Maria Polinsky, was published on the University of California’s open access eScholarship research repository. All papers in the collection are now available for download from the eScholarship platform. The collection was edited by Lauren Clemens (University at Albany, State University of New York), by Santa Cruz PhD alumna Vera Gribanova (Stanford University) and by Gregory Scontras (UC Irvine).

Among the papers in the volume is one co-authored by PhD alumna Ruth Kramer (Georgetown University) with Luke James Adamson (Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft). Their paper deals with the theoretical challenges posed by a passive-like construction in Jarawara (a language of Brazil), whose properties they link with recent research on Algonquian inverse systems. Also in the volume is a paper by professor emerita Sandy Chung. Sandy’s paper, titled “Antipassive in a Minimalist Universal Grammar” argues — drawing primarily on evidence from Austronesian languages — that antipassive should be deconstructed into two characteristic and independently varying properties: demotion of the internal argument, and voice marking.

Link to the full volume: [link]

Chacón in Bilingualism: Language and Cognition

Over the holidays, Professor Dustin Chacón saw an article—”Using word order cues to predict verb class in L2 Spanish”—come out in Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, the premiere journal in second language processing. Dustin shared this report with the Editors about the results, which were the product of a collaboration with his former PhD student Russ Simonsen (now Assistant Professor at Miami University):

Russ and I were interested in the frequently made claim that learners of Spanish struggle with psych verbs, like Me gustan las galletas (me.DAT like the cookies) ‘I like the cookies’, in which the experiencer argument is dative. This seemed unlikely to us, since this is one of the things that Spanish learners are taught very early on. Instead, we suspected that the difficulty might arise from learners not deploying the word order/case of argument NPs as a cue for the likely verb semantics. Following work by Carolina Gattei, we showed that both native Spanish users and highly advanced Spanish learners experience processing difficulty when a dative-first sentence is paired with a non-psych verb: A Juan le saludó María (to-John to-him greeted Mary) ‘Mary greeted John’, and vice versa for a nominative-first sentence paired with a psych verb: María le gustó a Juan (Mary to-him liked to-John) ‘John liked Mary’. But, we found that beginner and intermediate L2 learners do not show this sensitivity in real-time processing. We suggest that learners do likely know the structure of psych-verbs in Spanish, but they have facility in using grammatical cues to predict verb semantics like advanced and L1 Spanish users.

Wagers receives multicampus grant

Matt Wagers, Professor and Chair of Linguistics.

Professor Matt Wagers has been awarded $154,659 through the University of California’s prestigious Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives (MRPI) for his team’s project: Leveraging California’s Linguistic Diversity to Improve Large Language Models. The project will address how AI systems can better reflect California’s rich linguistic and neurocognitive diversity, and assess gaps in the accessibility of large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, for users outside standard linguistic norms. Capitalizing on a growing network of psycholinguists and language scientists at six other UC campuses, one of the goals of this project is to understand how to create AI tools that are more inclusive and equitable for California’s diverse population. Congratulations, Matt!

Read more about this in the UCSC Newscenter.

Andrew Kato and Eli Sharf at Amsterdam Colloquium

Andrew Kato (left) and Eli Sharf (right)

At the Amsterdam Colloquium 2024 this past December, PhD student Eli Sharf and undergraduate student Andrew Kato presented their latest research. Eli delivered a presentation titled “What Appositives Can Tell Us About Names and Definite Descriptions”. Andrew presented “Relative Quantification and Equative Scope-Taking.”

In addition, several other UCSC linguists and alumni presented their latest research as well: Natasha Korotkova (Utrecht), in collaboration with Pranav Anand, discussed joint research in their talk titled “Facts, Intentions, Questions: English ‘Coming-to-Know’ Predicates in Deliberative Environments.” Jack Duff (PhD 2023), in collaboration with Daniel Altshuler, presented “Reanalysis in Discourse Comprehension: Evidence from Reading Times”. Hitomi Hirayama (PhD 2019) presented “A Pragma-Semantic Account for Negative Island Obviation by wa in Japanese”, and Tom Roberts (PhD 2021) delivered a talk titled “Just-Asking Questions”.

The proceedings are available here.

1 2 3 … 52