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Sesquipedalian #7

the SESQUIPEDALIAN 				       Volume V,  No. 7
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'More than you ever wanted to know'		       November 17, 1994


 	           ^/^/^/ LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM \^\^\^

This Friday the colloquium will NOT be in the regular place.  To the
great benefit of all of us in Bldg. 460, this week's colloq will be
held in the department conference room.  Nov. 18, Friday, 15:30,
Margaret Jacks Hall (bldg 460), room 146:

              On Maori `he' and the Uses of Indefinites
                            Sandy Chung
                University of California, Santa Cruz

At the heart of the Kamp/Heim theory of indefinites is the claim
that indefinites are not inherently quantificational, but instead
acquire their quantificational force from the larger structures
in which they happen to occur.  In this theory, the existential
force of indefinites that lie within the nuclear scope of an
operator, or within the scope of no operator at all, is attributed
to one or more processes of default existential closure.
	Heim (1982) explores two different routes for achieving this
existential closure: a structural route, in which an existential
quantifier is adjoined to the relevant domains in Logical Form
(Chapter 2), and an interpretive route, in which the existential
reading falls out from the satisfaction conditions that constrain the
building of files in file-change semantics (Chapter 3).  Though Heim
ultimately opts for the interpretive route, she observes that the
choice is rather weakly motivated.
	In this talk I discuss some Maori facts which seem to offer
further evidence for an interpretive over an LF approach to
existential closure.  Indefinite DP's in Maori are headed by one of
two determiners, `tetahi' (pl. `etahi') or `he'.  The distribution of
`tetahi' is roughly equivalent to English `a'; the distribution of
`he' is known to be severely restricted.  Drawing on recent work by
Chung, Mason, and Milroy, I show that the occurrence of `he' is
constrained by three conditions, one restricting its morphosyntactic
distribution; another, its role in discourse structure; and the third
--I claim-- the structural configurations in which it can occur in
Logical Form.  The statement of the third condition, I contend,
requires us to assume that default existential closure is not
structurally implemented in Logical Form, but rather occurs
subsequently, in the interpretation.

	 	 ^\^\^\ FELLOWSHIPS/ASSISTANTSHIPS /^/^/^

-- IRCS: The Institute for Research in Cognitive Science (IRCS)
invites applications for postdoctoral fellowships.  Deadline for
applications is February 1, 1995.  To apply, please send a cover
letter indicating your proposed research, including a statement about
how you would benefit from working in our interdisciplinary
environment, your resume, and have two or three referees send letters
of reference directly to
	Postdoctoral Fellow Selection Committee
        Institute for Research in Cognitive Science
        University of Pennsylvania
        400C 3401 Walnut Street
        Philadelphia, PA 19104-6228
The University of Pennsylvania is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity
Employer.

-- USC: A Postdoctoral position in psycholinguistics is available
immediately, to join an interdisciplinary lab that is part of the
University of Southern California's Neural, Informational, and
Behavioral Sciences (NIBS) Program.  The focus of research is sentence
and discourse processing in normal aging and Alzheimer's Disease,
particularly the role of working memory in these processes.  The
candidate must hold a Ph.D. in Psychology, Linguistics, or related
field, and have expertise in the use of on-line methods in language
comprehension.  The research is funded by the National Institute of
Aging, with a salary of $28,000 plus benefits.  This is a one-year
position with a possible renewal for the subsequent two years of the
grant.  Send a letter of application and a curriculum vitae to
	Maryellen MacDonald
	Hedco Neuroscience Building
	University of Southern California
	Los Angeles, CA 90089-2520
	phone: (213)740-6181
	email: mcm@gizmo.usc.edu

                     ^/^/^/ TRUE LINGUISTICS \^\^\^

-- A reader reports that the following message was spray-painted on
several large pieces of lumber lying on the ground at UCLA:

			'HOLE -- DO NOT REMOVE'

		    ^\^\^\ JOB ANNOUNCEMENTS /^/^/^

(REDUNDANCY NOTICE: For fuller listings of these and other jobs, don't
forget to check the Jobs binder in the Greenberg Room, and the file
'jobslist.txt' on the CSLI directory /user/linguistics.)

-- DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY: At Dublin City University, we run a degree
programme in Applied Computational Linguistics. Corpus Linguistics is
one of the modules on the second year curriculum.  Due to unforeseen
circumstances, we find ourselves without anyone to teach the course in
corpus linguistics in the Jan-March 1995 term.  The entire module is
approx 25 hours and the objective of the course is to familiarize
students with the study of language based on machine readable corpora.
It was envisaged that the course would consist of an introduction (3
hours), overview of statistical methods of corpus analysis (4 hours),
followed by overview of applications of corpora in lexicography,
terminography, linguistic research, computational linguistics (taggers
and parsers), speech processing and machine translation combined with
practical work (a total of 18 hours).  As you can see, the outline is
fairly general, giving a lot of scope for changes.  Would anyone be
interested in giving this module to our students?  We imagine that
such a person might come to the university for 2 or 3 visits of a few
days at a time and give the course in intensive bursts.  If you are
interested, please contact Professor Michael Townson at Aston
University.  Professor Townson has joined the staff of Dublin City
University and is head of the School of Applied Languages.  His
telephone number is -44 21 359 36 11 ext 4225 (office in Birmingham)
or -353 1 704 5193 (office in Dublin), email: M.R.TOWNSON@ASTON.AC.UK

-- INDIANA UNIVERSITY: Assistant professor of Spanish Linguistics
(sociolinguistics and phonology).  Tenure-track position pending
funding.  Start date: August 15, 1995.  Ph.D. in hand or expected by
date of appointment.  Teaching duties include graduate and
undergraduate courses in linguistics and undergraduate language
courses.  Some supervision and coordination of teaching assistants
required.  Should provide evidence of excellent research potential,
effective teaching, and fluent command of Spanish.  OPI certification
a plus.  The committee will begin reviewing applications on December
10.  Selected candidates will be interviewed at the MLA and/or LSA.
Send letter of application, cv, and three letters of recommendation to
	Professor Joseph M. Sobrer, Chair
	Department of Spanish and Portuguese
	Indiana University
	Boomington IN 47405

-- OHIO UNIVERSITY: Tenure-track assistant professor of German.
Starting date: September 1, 1995.  Ph.D./Contemporary German
Literature preferred; Interest in directing a study abroad program in
Austria; German for the Professions desirable.  Demonstrated
excellence in undergraduate language teaching; Native or near-native
proficiency in German.  Contact
	Maureen Weissenrieder, 
	Chair, Modern Languages
	Ohio University
	220 Ellis Hall 
	Athens OH 45701-2979
Will interview in Atlanta at ACTFL, 11/18/94.  Application deadline:
November 15, 1994.

-- UCSD: Revised Announcement.  The Department of Linguistics at UCSD
seeks to fill an open-rank (tenure/tenure-track) position effective
July 1, 1995, for a linguist capable of teaching formal semantics and
with a proven research record in formal semantics, which could include
the semantics/syntax interface.  Salary will be commensurate with rank
and experience and will be based on current University of California
scales.  A letter of application, cv, and a representativ e
publication or manuscript, and the names and addresses of three
referees should be sent to
	UC San Diego
	Open Search Committee
	Department of Linguistics, 0108
	9500 Gilman Drive
	La Jolla CA 92093-0108
Application materials must be received by February 1, 1995.  This
announcement supersedes our October LSA Bulletin announcement and our
August departmental notice of a tenured position in formal
semantics/syntax.

(REDUNDANCY NOTICE: For fuller listings of these and other jobs, don't
forget to check the Jobs binder in the Greenberg Room, and the file
'jobslist.txt' on the CSLI directory /user/linguistics.)

                        ^/^/^/ INSTA-PRIZE \^\^\^

FISCAL YEAR: Why are 1987 dollar bills worth more than 1986 dollar
bills?  First correct answer to my mailbox wins this week's
insta-prize.

Answer to BACK TO THE CLASSICS: Paul plays the guitar, John the drums,
and George the piano.


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