News

Exciting things are always afoot.

New paper on distributivity via reduplication in Mandinka!

By Elizabeth CoppockAugust 20th, 2024in News

The Proceedings of Triple A 10 have just been published, including a contribution by BU PhD student Ousmane Cisse and Prof. Elizabeth Coppock entitled "Reduplicated distributivity in Mandinka".

Here is a PDF of the published paper, and here is the video of our talk:

 

Cite as: Cisse, Ousmane and Elizabeth Coppock (2024). Reduplicated Distributivity in Mandinka. In Jeanne Lecavelier, Niklas Geick, Mira Grubic, Prarthanaa Bharadwaj and Malte Zimmermann (eds.), Proceedings of Triple A 10 (2023), 75--89.

 

Abstract

Reduplication is commonly exhibited by markers of distributivity. Although distributivity markers can either mark the key (as determiner each does, as in each child saw a lion) or the share (as with binominal each, as in the boys saw a lion each), it has been conjectured that distributivity markers formed through reduplication are always markers of the share, rather than the key. Here we discuss a case that challenges but ultimately vindicates this conjecture. In Mandinka (spoken in Senegambia), reduplicating a nominal with interposition of the morpheme -woo- gives rise to a distributive reading. We investigated the semantics of the X-woo-X construction and found that it behaves as a key-marker, but also as a share-marker. We take these findings to support an analysis on which X-woo-X signals 'simultaneous distributivity', simultaneously marking both key and share.

Boston University represents at ACAL 55!

By Elizabeth CoppockMay 26th, 2024in News

BU linguistics came in force to ACAL 55 in May 2024 at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, contributing four talks:

  • Andre Batchelder-Schwab and Chris Collins: "Classification of Tschila"
  • Nairan Wu: "Remnant movement and word order constraints in Khoekhoe (Nama-Damara)"
  • Jackson Kellogg and Jonathan Barnes: "Word- and phrase-level prosodic structure in Amharic"
  • Ying Gong and Elizabeth Coppock: "No need for the Degree Abstraction Parameter in Mooré" (slides)

Professor Coppock presents in Ghana

By Elizabeth CoppockMarch 26th, 2024in News

Professor Coppock gave an invited talk at the University of Ghana in Accra, for a meeting of a German-based international network of researchers on definiteness. The focus of the workshop was on definiteness-marking and clausal determiners in Akan and other languages of West Africa. For bare nouns in Akan vs. ones marked by the definiteness marker nó, Coppock advocated for a fresh approach, forgetting about the familiarity vs. uniqueness distinction, inspired by recent work on bare nouns in Mandarin.

The handout is available here.

There were many interesting talks. Samson Korsah is pictured here leading a discussion on Gã.

Among the discoveries of the trip was that there is a stunningly beautiful tree outside the linguistics department at the University of Ghana:

Gong & Coppock publish in Natural Language Semantics!

By Elizabeth CoppockJanuary 17th, 2024in News

Ying Gong and Elizabeth Coppock have published an article in Natural Language Semantics showing the existence of degree abstraction in Mandarin. Could degree abstraction actually be a universal feature of natural language?? Even if not, we have some rock-solid arguments that degree abstraction exists in Mandarin despite previous claims to the contrary.

Officially published version at Natural Language Semantics here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11050-023-09217-w

Here is a link to the accepted manuscript (no paywall).

Paper on Degree Abstraction in Mandarin accepted at Natural Language Semantics!

By Elizabeth CoppockDecember 19th, 2023in News

Ying Gong and Elizabeth Coppock's joint work on degree abstraction in Mandarin, Is Degree Abstraction a Parameter or a Universal? Evidence from Mandarin Chinese will appear in Natural Language Semantics!

Abstract:

Mandarin Chinese, along with Japanese, Yoruba, Moore, and Samoan, has been argued to lack 'degree abstraction', a configuration at LF involving lambda abstraction over a degree variable. These languages are claimed to have a negative setting for a hypothesized 'Degree Abstraction Parameter'. Recent work, however, has argued for degree abstraction in Japanese and Yoruba, and degree abstraction has been detected in a number of additional languages. Could it in fact be universal? Here, we focus on the case of Mandarin, and argue that Mandarin has degree abstraction too. We offer three arguments in favor of degree abstraction in Mandarin, based on attributive comparatives, comparatives with embedded predicates, and scope interactions with modals. We also rebut prior arguments for the lack of degree abstraction in Mandarin, considering degree questions, measure phrases, and negative island effects. Taken together, these results show that degree abstraction is not a parameter along which Mandarin and English vary, and suggest rather that degree abstraction may be universally available.