General Linguistics Colloquium (WiSe 2021/2022)


Programme, Winter term 2021/2022

Day, place: wednesdays, 16:15-17:45,

in BigBlueButton (stud-ip, goettingen)

organized by Götz Keydana and Stavros Skopeteas






27.10.2021. Start-up meeting



03.11.2021. Lieke Hendriks (University of Göttingen):

The changing gender marking system in Brabantic dialects: Proposing an emergent focus-based Differential Argument Marking system



10.11.2021. Daniel Krausse (University of Newcastle):

What if my topic is controversial? A dissertation on complex predicates in Australian and Oceanic languages


The literature surrounding the term 'complex predicate' is vast. For decades, descriptive linguists have been using the term to refer to various kinds of constructions, such as serial verbs, coverb constructions, auxiliary constructions as well as phrasal verbs. More recently, theoretical linguists have tried to propose a rigorous distinction between complex predicates and other constructions. Who is right? Who has the better arguments? In my dissertation, I attempted to achieve the impossible in linguistics: To unite descriptive and theoretical approaches and arrive at a definition that includes both views. The result is a dissertation which provides a Minimalist account of serial verbs in Oceanic languages and coverb constructions in Australian languages, based on fieldwork material from the representative languages Vurës (for Oceanic) and Wagiman (for Australian).





17.11.2021. Sabrina Meier:

The immediacy marker ʔVta in Mono-Alu (Oceanic), what (else) it seems to do and an idea to have more fun eliciting aspect marking and more


The core function of the immediacy marker is tense marking on the verb. Outside the verb complex, its functions are less clear. Challenges to a unified semantic analysis and possible similarities to iamitives are discussed. Finally, I present an experimental design for the investigation of immediacy and other TAM marking (and much more), that relies neither on translations nor speakers' judgements and that yields highly naturalistic data.






24.11.2021. Prudence de Pontbriand (University of Göttingen):

French Absolute Constructions in Romance Perspective. Word order and null subjects.



01.12.2021. Thomas Laurs (University of Göttingen):

Schwierigkeit lateinischer Texte und ihre Messung



08.12.2021. Gennaro Chierchia (Harvard University):

talk in LinG, see https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/colloquium/447513.html



15.12.2021. BA/MA-Alumni meeting Ι: Melvin Pötzsch & Sebastian Buck (Göttingen):

Sebastian Buck: Nach der Linguistik - Ein Erfahrungsbericht aus dem Quereinstieg


Melvin Pötzsch: Variation und vertikaler Wandel: Ortsdialekte als linguistische Datenschätze



22.12.2021. Georg Höhn (Göttingen):

Source preposition allomorphy in Calabrian Greek (Greko) and its theoretical implications



12.01.2022. Raffaella Zanuttini (Yale University):

talk in LinG, see https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/colloquium/447513.html



19.01.2022. BA/MA-Alumni meeting ΙΙ: Irenäus Kulik (Göttingen):

Welcome to the machine. Oder: Sprachwissenschaft studiert - und dann?!



26.01.2022. Saverio Dalpedri (University of Göttingen):

Two of a kind? On the history and prehistory of resultative adjectives in Old Indo-Aryan



02.02.2022. Ana Arregui (University of Massachusetts, Amherst):

talk in LinG, see https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/colloquium/447513.html



09.02.2022. Chris Kennedy (University of Chicago):

talk in LinG, see https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/colloquium/447513.html