News
Exciting things are always afoot.
Probability and Meaning 2020
We gave a talk at the Probability and Meaning conference, hosted by the University of Gothenburg in October 2020. In this talk, we undertake a side-by-side comparison between image captioning and reference game human datasets and show that they differ systematically with respect to informativity.
The related paper can be found here:
https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/2020.pam-1.14.pdf
It can be cited as:
Coppock, Elizabeth, Danielle Dionne, Nathanial Graham, Elias Ganem, Shijie Zhao, Shawn Lin, Wenxing Liu and Derry Wijaya (2020). Informativity in Image Captions vs. Referring Expressions. In C. Howes, S. Chatzikyriakidis, A. Ek and V. Somashekarappa (eds.): PAM 2020: Proceedings of the Conference on Probability and Meaning, pp. 104–108.
Published in Language!
An article entitled “Universals in Superlative Semantics” by Elizabeth Coppock, Elizabeth Bogal-Allbritten, and Golsa Nouri-Hosseini has been published in Language, the official journal of the Linguistic Society of America! Click here to read it.
Abstract:
This article reports on the results of a broad crosslinguistic study on the semantics of quantity words such as many in the superlative (e.g. most). While some languages use such a form to express both a relative reading (as in Gloria has visited the most continents) and a proportional reading (as in Gloria has visited most continents), the vast majority do not allow the latter, though all allow the former. It is argued that a degree-quantifier analysis of quantity words is best suited to explain why proportional readings typically do not arise for quantity superlatives. Based on morphosyntactic evidence, two alternative diachronic pathways through which proportional quantifiers may develop from quantity superlatives are identified.
Ying Gong presents at LFRG
On Wednesday, September 23rd, Ying Gong presented her work in progress on degree abstraction in Mandarin at LFRG (LF Reading Group) at MIT.
Abstract: According to Beck et al. (2004), not all languages with degree predicates have degree abstraction. A language with a negative setting of their degree abstraction parameter (DAP) is one in which degree variables cannot be bound in the syntax. Mandarin, along with Japanese, Yoruba, Mòoré, and Samoan, is argued to be a [-DAP] language with degree predicates Beck et al. (2010). Recent work, however, has argued for degree abstraction in Japanese (Shimoyama, 2012; Sudo, 2015), and Yoruba (Howell, 2013). We argue that Mandarin has degree abstraction too, contraKrasikova (2008), Beck et al. (2010) and Erlewine (2018). We rebut the previous arguments and present positive evidence from degree questions, wh-correlatives (subequatives), scope interactions with modals (exactly-differentials and little-sentences), and attributive comparatives.
Prof. Coppock receives UROP Outstanding Mentor Award
Prof. Elizabeth Coppock was honored to win a UROP Outstanding Mentor Award for Summer 2020!
Poster to be presented at Experiments in Linguistic Meaning (ELM)
Danielle Dionne wins ‘Best Lightning Talk’ at WeSSLLI!!
Huge congratulations to Ph.D. student Danielle Dionne, who won 'Best Lightning Talk' at the Web Summer School in Logic, Language and Information (hosted by Brandeis this summer, in lieu of NASSLLI). She presented her research on cross-linguistic variation in pragmatics, focussing on what happens when one language lacks a simple, one-word equivalent for a single word in another language.
We are incredibly proud of her for this fantastic achievement!
Welcome to Ying Gong!
We are very lucky to have BU Ph.D. student Ying Gong working with us this summer. She will be concentrating on degree abstraction especially in Mandarin.
Summer humanities UROP approved for Tomiris Kaumenova
We are thrilled to be welcoming Tomiris Kaumenova to our group for the summer. She will be investigating degree abstraction in Mooré and Ende. Congratulations to Tomiris and to us!
Paper officially accepted at Language!
Our large cross-linguistic study on the interpretation of quantity superlatives has officially been accepted for publication at Language! We are very excited.
The paper, entitled Universals in Superlative Semantics, and authored by Elizabeth Coppock, Elizabeth Bogal-Allbritten, and Golsa Nouri-Hosseini, reports on the results of a broad cross-linguistic study on the semantics of quantity words such as many in the superlative (e.g. most). While some languages use such a form to express both a relative reading (as in Gloria has visited the most continents) and a proportional reading (as in Gloria has visited most continents), the vast majority do not allow the latter, though all allow the former. It is argued that a degree-quantifier analysis of quantity superlatives is best suited to explain why proportional readings typically do not arise for them. Based on morphosyntactic evidence, two alternative diachronic pathways through which proportional quantifiers may develop from quantity superlatives are identified.
You can read the accepted version here.
Poster accepted at ELM!
Danielle Dionne and Elizabeth Coppock have had their abstract accepted as a poster at the very first Experiments in Linguistic Meaning conference, to be held in Philadelphia. The title of the submission is:
Tattoos as a window onto cross-linguistic differences in scalar implicature
From one of the reviews: "This poster is NOT about tattoos, much to my relief. (The title will surely turn away interested consumers.)"