de Lacy's Markedness book published

Paul de Lacy's book Markedness: Reduction and preservation in phonology was published in August by Cambridge University Press.

Markedness proposes a theory of why certain sound patterns never occur.  It also presents a large number of new empirical generalizations.  Paul de Lacy's seminar in Spring 2006 will focus on markedness in phonology.

A copy of the book is available in the linguistics department's library.  It costs $99 on amazon.com. 

Brasoveanu to Santa Cruz

Adrian Brasoveanu has accepted a temporary position as a Visiting Assistant Professor at UC Santa Cruz for the winter and spring quarters of the 2006-2007 academic year, with a possibility of renewal for one more year. He will teach Introduction to Linguistics (undergrad) in the winter quarter, and Introduction to Pragmatics (undergrad) and Mathematical Foundations (grad) in the spring quarter.
Congratulations, Adrian!

Glossolalia grant to de Lacy

In May, Paul de Lacy was awarded a University Research Council grant for his work on glossolalia ('speaking in tongues').   

QPs defended

Congratulations to those students who defended their Qualifying Papers over the summer:

· Daniel Altshuler: Filling the gap: The QI iamb and the typology of feet
· Heeshin Koak: Allomorph Selection of Korean Nominal Markers

· John Manna: Anaphora without Pronouns: Centering in Japanese
· Michael O'Keefe: Area identity: A theory of harmony
 

Fall 06 Seminars

Three seminars are being taught this semester:

1. Syntax Seminar (515): Mark Baker: [Details]

2. Phonology seminar (525): Alan Prince

3. Semantics seminar (535): Veneeta Dayal & Ken Shan

Porch Party: 8 Sept 5pm

Please join us on the porch of 18 Seminary Place on Friday Sep 8th at 5 p.m. to start off the new academic year, to welcome new students and visitors to the program and to catch up with old friends.
 

Akinlabi awarded NSF grant

In June, Akin Akinlabi was awarded a prestigious NSF grant to document Defaka [afn] and Nkoroo [nkx]. The grant starts on January 1, 2007 and will be in effect till December 31, 2009.

Schwarzschild promoted to professor

In June, Roger Schwarzschild was promoted to full Professor. Veneeta Dayal (the Linguistics Department Chair) comments: "It is a much deserved recognition of his contribution to research, teaching and service. Congratulations!"

Murray awarded Phillips fund grant

In May, Sarah Murray was awarded a Phillips Fund Grant for Native American Research by the American Philosophical Society.  The grant funded fieldwork for Cheyenne (chy).

For a report on Sarah's fieldwork, see the "Who's doing what" page: "Rutgers linguist will camp for fieldwork."
 

Dayal in India

Veneeta Dayal taught a two-week Introduction to Semantics at Jawaharlal Nehru University (India) during August 2006. She also led a workshop on 'Universals and Indefinites in South Asian Languages', the results of which are being prepared for dissemination under the authorship of Ruci Jadu, an acronym for the four institutions primarily involved in the organization of the workshop, namely Rutgers, Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Delhi University.
 

Research Groups at Rutgers

Adrian Brasoveanu will be presenting his paper titled: "Singular 'Donkey' Pronouns Are Semantically Distributive, Not Singular."  This presentation will be a practice talk for SuB 11, happening later this fall. The abstract is here:
http://ling.rutgers.edu/surge/