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X-WR-CALNAME:Linguistics Colloquium Speaker: Kyle Johnson
X-WR-TIMEZONE:Eastern Time (US & Canada)
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260612T081209Z
UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_44083134775752
DTSTART:20231116T213000Z
DTEND:20231116T233000Z
DESCRIPTION:The Department of Linguistics proudly presents Dr. Kyle Johnson
 \, from the University of Massachusetts\, Amherst.  Dr. Johnson will speak
  on "Implicit Objects as Incorporated Theta-roles".\n\nSome verbs are capa
 ble of being used without an expression of their arguments. The direct and
  indirect objects of eat and throw are standard examples.\n(1)  a. Marlys 
 ate cake.\n          Marlys ate.\n      b. Marlys threw the ball to Sam.\n
           Marlys threw the ball.\n\nThe meanings of eat and throw preserve
  the θ-roles that cake and to Sam bear\, even when those arguments are no
 t present.Those θ-roles are understood to be existentially closed. They a
 re said to be implicit when this happens. The ability for a θ-role to be 
 implicit seems to be idiosyncratically controlled by the verb\, but it doe
 s not extend to external arguments. Tomake an external θ-role implicit\, 
 a valency changing operation is required.An external/internal argument con
 trast of this sort is also found inmany kinds of Noun Incorporation constr
 uctions.The lexically idiosyncratic nature of making a θ-role implicit al
 so seems to be a feature of someNoun Incorporation constructions.Martí (2
 015) argues that the syntax and semantics of Noun Incorporation underlies 
 making a θ-role implicit. I will pursue that thesis in this talk. I will 
 suggest that we should think of θ-roles as being kinds of nominals\, and 
 sketch a syntax thatmakes sense of that idea.One of its consequences is th
 at θ-roles can undergo Incorporation\, and this is how implicit arguments
  are achieved.\n\nKyle graduated with a BA in psychology from the Universi
 ty of California-Irvine in 1981. UC\, Irvine had an interesting group of c
 ognitive psychologists at that time working on learning theory\, attention
 \, and visual perception. The cognitive science group included linguists -
 - Mary-Louise Kean\, Peter Culicover\, Bernard Tranel\, Ed Matthei\, Ken W
 exler\, and Stephen Crain\, who was a graduate student. Dr. Johnson learne
 d about linguistics from them and went on to study it at MIT\, where he go
 t a PhD in 1985. On his way to the position he now has at UMass\, he taugh
 t\, and mostly learned\, at the University of Connecticut at Storrs\, UC-I
 rvine\, UCLA\, University of Wisconsin at Madison and McGill University. H
 is specialization is in syntactic theory. \n\nFunded in part by the GPSAFC
  and Open to the Graduate Community.
GEO:42.4486;-76.4854
LOCATION:Morrill Hall\, 106
SUMMARY:Linguistics Colloquium Speaker: Kyle Johnson
URL;VALUE=URI:https://events.cornell.edu/event/linguistics_colloquium_speak
 er_kyle_johnson
CATEGORIES:Lecture
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