Past Talks and Proseminars

Spring 2021

Thursday, March 25
3:30-5:00pm
Ambrocio Guttiérez Lorenzo (UT Austin)
Complement clauses in Teotitlán del Valle Zapotec: why are they unique and how might typology support our understanding of them even without defining them? 

Monday, March 29
3:30-5:00pm
Hilaria Cruz (University of Louisville)
Abstract: The complex exponence relations of tonal inflection in San Juan Quiahije Eastern Chatino verbs

Thursday, April 1
12:40-2:00pm
Joseph Dupris(University of Arizona)
naat ?a maqlaqsyalank hemkank’la: Sustaining tribal sovereignty through community-based language research

Friday, April 9
11:00am-12:20pm
Jalon Begay (University of New Mexico)
Reconceptualizing Navajo word formation and holoxemic relations

Friday, April 21
4:00-5:30pm (MT)
Rachel Weissler (University of Michigan)
Cognition and Sociolinguistic Knowledge of African American English
Join via Zoom: 

Fall 2020

Wednesday, December 9
4:00-5:30pm

Miriam Aguilar (Naso; Universidad de Panamá)

Natalia Bermúdez (University of Chicago)

Centering Indigenous Methodologies in Linguistic Fieldwork: Creating the Naso Cultural Encyclopedia

Spring 2020

Wednesday, January 22
4:00pm, CLRE 302
Valentina Schiattarella, University of Naples & Fullbright Visitor to CU Linguistics
Title: "Reference System in Siwi (Berber, Egypt)"

Wednesday, January 29
4:00pm, MUEN D430/D28
Lifeng Jin, Ohio State University
Title: "Modeling Syntax Acquisition with Cognitive Constraints"

Friday, January 31
4:00-5:30pm Presentation and roundtable discussion
5:30-6:30pm Social hour with light bites
Roundtable with SoundHound: Insights on Lingusitics Roles in Speech Recognition Technology
*Special off-campus location: SoundHound Boulder (1468 Pearl St, Suite 200)*

Tuesday, February 18
6:00pm, CASE Auditorium
David J. Peterson
Title: An Evening with Language Creator David J. Peterson

Do you conlang? Linguist David J. Peterson created the Dothraki and Valyrian languages for HBO's Game of Thrones, as well as languages for The Witcher, Thor: The Dark World, Doctor Strange, Into the Badlandsand more. Join us as he talks about the linguistic tools he uses when he envisions, develops and evolves new languages.

Note: This event is sponsored by the CU Undergraduate Linguistics Club; it is a ticketed event, but tickets are free. Reserve your free tickets at the Eventbrite link above.

Monday, February 17th
4:00-5:30pm
MUEN D430/D28
Sebastian Schuster, Stanford University
Title: "Modeling Utterance Interpretation in Context"

Wednesday, February 19th
4:00-5:30pm
MUEN D430/D28
Adina Williams, Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research / New York University
Title: "Is the association of nouns to gender classes truly arbitrary?"

Wednesday, April 1
4:00-6:30pm
British Studies Room
Shalini Shankar, Northwestern University
Title: "The Imperfect Futures of Generation Z: Spelling Bees and Childhood in the New Millennium"
Note: This event is co-sponsored by the CU Literacy Practicum, the Department of Linguistics, and the Department of Anthropology. 

 

Wednesday, October 9
4:00pm

Hale 230

William Croft, University of New Mexico

Meagan Vigus, University of New Mexico

Title: "Extending Semantic Annotation Schemes across Languages: Balancing Diversity and Comparability"

 

Thursday, November 7
5:00pm [with reception to precede the talk at 4pm]

Humanities 150

Undergraduate Distinguished Speaker: Sharese King, University of Chicago

Title: "The Linguistic Construction of Race and Place in Rochester, New York"

Note: this event is co-sponsored by the departments of Anthropology, English, Communication and Women's Studies. 

Wednesday, January 23
4:00pm

Clare Small 209

William J. C'Hair, Chairman of the Northern Arapaho Language & Culture Commission of Wyoming

James Sleeper, Language Lead for the Southern Arapaho of Oklahoma

Discussion: "2019: The UN International Year of Indigenous Languages, and the Future of Native American Languages"

This event is co-sponsored by the Center for Native American & Indigenous Studies (CNAIS) 

 

Monday, February 4
4:30pm

Clare Small 209

Hannah Haynie, Colorado State University

"Language Diversity: Space, Time, and Influences on Design"

 

Wednesday, February 6
4:30pm

Clare Small 209

Shahar Shirtz

"(Re-)expanding Typology: Intra-linguistic Variation, Discourse"

 

Monday, February 11
4:30pm

Clare Small 209

Danielle Barth
"Kinship: Morphological Change, Kintax, and a Typology of Human Reference"

 

Friday, February 15
4:00pm

Hellems 247

Vsevolad Kapatsinski, University of Oregon
"Explaining morphological change: Productivity, competition, and the contents of the grammar"

 

Wednesday, February 20
4:00-5:30pm

Clare Small 209

Remi van Trijp, Sony Computer Science Laboratories Paris

"What Are Constructions and What Can They Do?"

 

Wednesday, April 17
4:00-5:30pm

Clare Small 209

Jonathan Owens, University of Bayreuth

"Integrating Stability into Historical Linguistics: Arabic and its Paradoxes"

Wednesday, December 5
4:00-5:30
Antti Arppe

University of Alberta

What can a small corpus tell us? (with the help of computational modeling): Case studies in morphological complexity, syntactic argument structure, and word order in Plains Cree

 

Monday, October 1

4:00-5:30

Jeremy Calder

Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow

Department of Linguistics

University of Colorado, Boulder

The fierceness of fronted /s/: Social and linguistic influences on a variable among San Francisco drag queens

 

Monday, October 15

4:00-5:30

Claire Bonial

Computational and Information Sciences Directorate

Army Research Laboratory (ARL)

Event semantics in text constructions, vision, and human-robot dialogue

 

Monday, November 5

4:00-5:30

Lisa Rutta (with Angie Howard, Maisy Wieman, and Melissa Little)

Ops and Technical Project Management, SoundHound

Linguistic Roles in Speech Recognition Technology: Optimizing for Success!

 

Wednesday, December 5

4:00-5:30

Antti Arppe

University of Alberta

What can a small corpus tell? (with the help of computational modeling) - case studies in morphological complexity, syntactic argument structure, and word order in Plains Cree

Monday, February 5

4:00-5:30

Agnès Celle

Paris Diderot University

Surprise in Questions

 

Monday, March 12

4:00-5:30

William Croft

Professor of Linguistics, University of New Mexico
A mental space analysis of tense and modality: A progress report

 

Monday, April 16

4:00-5:30

Special location: Hellems 199

Lynne Murphy

University of Sussex

Separated by a Common Language?: The Complicated Relationship between American and British English

[Co-sponsored by the Departments of Linguistics, Communication, and English]

 

Wednesday, April 18

4:00-5:30

Jalon Begay

University of New Mexico and University of Rochester

Breaking with Tradition, (Re)assessing Navajo Word-Formation: A Case Study

 

Friday, April 20

3:00-4:30 
Special location: Hellems 137

Evangelia (Lila) Adamou

Senior Researcher, Comité National de la Recherche Scientifique

Simplification and Complexification Processes in Language Contact: Evidence from the Romani-Spanish Bilinguals in Mexico

 

Monday, April 30

3:00-4:30 
Special location: Hellems 285

Miikka Silfverberg

Post-Doctoral Scholar, CLEAR, CU-Boulder 

Neural Models for Word Inflection and Phonology

Monday, December 10

4:00-5:30 

Holly Keily

Ph.D. Candidate in Linguistics

University at Buffalo

Title: Representational gesture when it’s not expected: Can referent characteristics predict gesture?

 

Wednesday, November 15

4:00-5:30 

Oana David

Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow

University of California, Merced

Title: The Role of Grammar in Computer-aided Metaphor Research

 

Tuesday, October 31

3:30-5:00 in MUEN D430 [note special location] 

Yejin Choi

Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering

University of Washington

Title: From Naive Physics to Connotation: Modeling Commonsense in Frame Semantics

A video of the talk is available here.

 

Monday, October 30

4:00-5:30

Katherine Demuth

Distinguished Professor of Linguistics

Co-director, Child Language Lab

Macquarie University

Title: Prosodic Effects on the Acquisition of Grammatical Morphemes

 

Monday, September 18

4:00-5:30 (with reception following the talk)

British Studies Room [note special location]

LingCircle Capstone Speaker

Ray S. Jackendoff

Seth Merrin Professor of Philosophy
Co-director, Center for Cognitive Studies

Tufts University

Title: Relational Morphology in the Mental Lexicon

Note: Prof. Jackendoff's visit is jointly sponsored by the Institute of Cognitive Science. He will give a talk in the ICS Distinguished Speakers series on Friday, September 15.

Wednesday, February 22

Profs. Michaelis and Scarborough

Proseminar: Surviving the Synthesis

Monday, February 27

Marjorie McShane
Associate Professor

Department of Cognitive Science

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Title: The Strategic Incorporation of Linguistic Analysis into Modern NLP

Wednesday, March 22

Profs. Narasimhan and Hulden

Proseminar: Planning a Thesis / Writing a Prospectus

Monday, April 3

Melvatha Chee

University of New Mexico
Title: Child acquisition of the Navajo verb construction

Monday, April 10

4:00-5:30 in Hellems 199 

James Pustejovsky
TJX/Feldberg Chair of Computer Science
Department of Computer Science and Volen Center for Complex Systems 
Brandeis University

Title: The Semantics of Doing and Seeing in Simulated Worlds

Click here for a PDF of the slides from the talk

Click here for a video of the talk

Click here for a video of the Q&A session

Wednesday, April 12

Prof. Hall

Proseminar: Publishing in Journals

Wednesday, April 19

Profs. Fox and Raymond

Proseminar: Developing Courses and Syllabi

Thursday, April 27

4:00-5:30 in Hellems 181

Christopher Cox

Assistant Professor

Department of Linguistics

Carleton University

Title: Templates, paradigms, and morphological typology: Perspectives from Dene languages

Monday, May 1

Meichun Liu  (劉美君)
Professor and Head

Department of Linguistics and Translation

City University of Hong Kong

Title: The Chinese Mind: What does Chinese Tell us about Grammar?

Monday, November 7, 4:00pm

Hellems 229

Gary Miller

Department of Linguistics

University of Florida

Exceptional Case Marking in Gothic and Old English

Wednesday, February 10, 4:30

Hellems 285

Graduate Workshop: Converging on Inclusive Excellence

Wednesday, March 2, 3:00-5:15

Visual Arts Complex (VAC) 1B88 

Inclusive Excellence Discussion followed by Proseminar Panel Session 

  • Converging on Inclusive Excellence II (3:00-4:00)
  • Preparing for the job market: Rebecca Scarborough (4:00-4:15)
  • Collaboration: Zygmunt Frajzyngier (4:15-4:30)
  • Web presence: Laura Michaelis and Jonnia Torres (4:30-4:45)
  • Goal setting: Andy Cowell, Martha Palmer (4:45-5:00)
  • General discussion: 5:00-5:15

Friday, September 25, 12:00

Muenzinger D428

Dan Everett

Dean of Arts and Science, Bentley University

Grammar and the Culturally Articulated Unconscious

The above lecture is jointly sponsored by Linguistics and the Institute of Cognitive Science.

Monday, October 26, 4:00

UMC 386

William Croft

University of New Mexico

Force-dynamic Image Schemas and their Analysis

Monday, December 7, 4:00

UMC 386

Zygmunt Frajzyngier

University of Colorado, Boulder

Yer in, yer out: Exaptation of an Epenthesis Rule into Morphology

Monday, Feb 2, 4:00
CLRE 209
Astrid De Wit
University of Colorado Boulder and University of Antwerp
The Present Perfective Paradox across Languages

Monday, Feb 9, 3-4:30
MUEN D430
Chung Hye-Han
Simon Fraser University
Synchronizing Structure and Meaning Using Tree Adjoining Grammar

Wednesday, February 18, 4:00
CLRE 209
Bhuvana Narasimhan
University of Colorado Boulder
Proseminar: Interdisciplinary Research

Wednesday, March 4, 4:00
Hellems 285 (the LING conference room)
Nick Williams
University of Colorado Boulder
Proseminar: Workshop on Constructing a Web Presence (you will set up a website during  this event)
Note: This is a joint Proseminar and Graduate Teacher Program event.

Wednesday, March 11, 4:00
CLRE 209
Rebecca Scarborough
University of Colorado Boulder
Proseminar: Managing Teaching, Coursework and Research

Friday, Mar 13, 12:00
Institute of Cognitive Science Colloquium Series
MUEN D428/430
Adele Goldberg
Princeton University
Explain me this: how we Learn what not to Say
Note: This talk is jointly sponsored by the Institute of Cognitive Science.

Monday, April 6, 4:00
CLRE 209
Michael Barlow
University of Auckland
Idiolects and Exemplars

Wednesday, April 8, 4:00
CLRE 209
Martha Palmer,
University of Colorado Boulder
Proseminar: Wowing both your Thesis Proposal Committee and a Conference Audience

Monday, Sep 8, 4:00
CLRE 209
Zygmunt Frajzyngier
University of Colorado
Subject but no object: asymmetry in grammatical relations of noun phrases

Monday, Sep 15, 4:00
CLRE 209
Kris Stenzel
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro/University of Colorado
The Mission (1986)

Monday, Sep 22, 4:00
HLMS 267
Gary Miller
University of Florida/University of Colorado
What Makes Germanic Germanic?

Monday, Oct 13, 4:00
HLMS 267
Irina Vagner
University of Colorado
Language Revitalization on the Web: Developing Algonquian Resources

Friday, Oct 24, 4:00
Eaton Humanity 125
Paul Kiparsky
Stanford University
Modeling Syntactic Drift

Monday, Nov 3, 4:00
HLMS 267
Andy Cowell
University of Colorado
Topic Initiation, Addition and Control: A Multi-modal Perspective from Arapaho

Monday, Nov 10, 4:00
HLMS 267
Suzanne Kemmer
Rice University
Light Rains Down: A Corpus-based Study of the Fictive Motion of Light in English

Monday, Nov 17, 4:00
HLMS 267
Kris Stenzel
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro/University of Colorado
Butterflies 'leaning' on the doorframe: The expression of location, position, and movement in Kotiria and Wa'ikhana (Eastern Tukanoan)

Monday, September 23
Orin Hargraves
Independent Lexicographer and CU Department of Linguistics
Clichés Considered Computationally

Thursday, October 10, 11-12:15
VAC 1B90
Gary Miller
University of Florida
External Influences on English Morphology and Syntax

Wednesday, October 23
Recruiting Event: English Language Fellow and English Language Specialist programs, Georgetown University and US Department of State
Margarita McAuliffe
Office of English Language Programs, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, US Department of State

Monday, November 11
Amy H. Liu
CU Department of Political Science and Center for Asian Studies
The Politics of Gendered Languages: Third-Person Pronouns and Women's Rights

Wednesday, November 13
Career Advising Session

Monday, November 18
Verónica Muñoz Ledo
Linguistic doctoral candidate, UC Santa Barbara
Problems of Categorization: The 'Middle Voice' in SLP Huasteco

Monday, Feb 3, 4:30
HLMS 241
Ewan Dunbar
Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, Ecole Normale Supérieure/Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris.
Computational Approaches to Theoretical Problems in Phonology

Friday, February 7, 4:00
HLMS 241
Philip Roberts
University of Oxford
Theoretical Computational Phonology in Practice

Monday, February 10, 4:00
HLMS 241
Gaja Jarosz
Yale University
Learning Probabilistic Phonology: Integrating Theoretical, Computational, and Developmental Perspectives

Friday, February 14, 4:00
HLMS 241
Kevin Cohen
University of Colorado
Phonology meets Computation meets Fieldwork

Monday, February 17, 4:00
HLMS 241
Mans Hulden
University of Helsinki
Where's the Leak? Formal Verification in Phonology

Friday, February 21, 3:00
HLMS 241
Arturas Ratkus
University of Vilnius, Lithuania
Gothic Modifiers in -ata and Inflectional Variation in the 'Strong' Paradigm

Wednesday, March 5
Proseminar: Grant Writing and Networking
Martha Palmer

Monday, March 10, 4:00
HLMS 241
Dr. Anna Marie Trester
Georgetown University
Life after a Linguistics Degree: Career Paths and Professional Development

Monday, April 21, 4:00
HLMS 141
David Peterson, MA
Game of Thrones Language Design
The Man I Saw: External Constraints on Relative Clause Construction in Created Languages for the Big and Small Screen

Monday, April 28
HLMS 241
Linguistics Circle Capstone Speaker: Johan Van der Auwera
University of Antwerp
Modality and Mood: A Pair Apart