Linguist List recently announced the release of Eve Clark's First Language Acquisition (Cambridge University Press, 2009). Congratulations, Eve! (But what exactly does "a new edition of a previously announced book" mean?)

Jen Hay has been visiting the department for a couple of weeks. Yesterday, she gave an informal demo of the latest ONZEminer software at the Spoken Syntax Lab at CSLI. And last night, she gave an impressive presentation at SPLaT: "Usage-based representations: Evidence from New Zealand English /r/-sandhi" (see below).

If you're interested in meeting with Jen (jen.hay@canterbury.ac.nz), you'd better act fast, because she's leaving tomorrow...

Yes, by popular demand, Finnish Humor returns to the New Sesquipedalian. Check out this all-star encore performance by The Helsinki Complaints Choir:



And the critical acclaim was immediate:

• Whenever a Nokia mobile phone rings I start to sing: "soittoäänet kaikki yhtä ärsyttäviä", so my family has already learnt this small phrase... :D -madaraszi
• "And the Finnish language is bloody difficult to learn!" Nice. -Liralei
• Csak csekk, csak csekk, csak csekk :) -webberke
• lmao! i do that too -dgrant625
• Kyllä tämä hän oli hyvä kappale :D Terveisiä ruotsista. Voititte viime kerralla että älkää enää valittako. Too bad to all you who don't speak finnish, it was so much better than when I read the subs. -matmund2
• I especially loved the complaint about people standing at the end of escalators! And the daily paper IS too thick! -mopsi987

Jen Hay explaining /r/ at SPLaT!


Jen Hay exclaiming /argh/ on a grueling hike with linguists and families

As announced previously, Ben & Jerry created the "Yes Pecan!" ice cream flavor for Obama. Now, suggestions are being solicited for George W. Bush. Here are some of the current entries:

• Grape Depression
• Abu Grape
• Cluster Fudge
• Nut'n Accomplished
• Iraqi Road
• Chock 'n Awe
• Wire Tapioca
• Impeach Cobbler
• Guantanmallow
• imPeachmint
• Heck of a Job, Brownie!
• Neocon Politan
• Rocky Road to Fascism
• The Reese's-cession
• Cookie D'oh!
• The Housing Crunch
• Nougalar Proliferation
• Death by Chocolate and Torture
• Freedom Vanilla Ice Cream
• Chocolate Chip On My Shoulder
• Credit Crunch
• Mission Pecanplished
• Country Pumpkin
• Chunky Monkey in Chief
• WMDelicious
• Bloody Sundae
• Caramel Preemptive Stripe
• I broke the law and am responsible for the deaths of thousands with nuts

For events farther in the future consult the Upcoming Events Page.

FRIDAY, 6 FEBRUARY

• Speech Lunch

  Stacy Lewis
  "The role of ambiguity avoidance in (near-)mergers."
  12:00pm, ExL Lab

• Ling/Phil/Psych Colloquium

  Susan Carey (Harvard Psychology)
  "The Origin of Concepts"
  3:30pm, Building 420, Room 041

• Reception for Susan Carey

  5:00-6:00, Psychology Lounge (1st floor of Building 420)

MONDAY, 9 FEBRUARY

• Phonology Workshop

  Alex Jaker
  "Opacity, Level Ordering, and Tonal Feet in Dogrib"
  4:00pm, MJH Chair's Office

• Special Department Seminar

  Amy Rose Deal (UMass, Amherst)
  "Modal Aspectual Meaning"
  5:00pm, MJH 126

TUESDAY, 10 FEBRUARY

• Department Colloquium

  Amy Rose Deal (UMass, Amherst)
  "Ergative Case and the Transitive Subject"
  12:00pm, MJH 126

THURSDAY, 12 FEBRUARY

• CCRMA Winter Concert

  An evening of electronic music of all kinds at CCRMA's quarterly concert. Performances and works by: Nicholas Bryan, Rocco Di Pietro, Andy Greenwood, Craig Hanson, Max Mathews, Larry Marotta, Jieun Oh, Fernando Lopez-Lezcano, Jason Sadural, and Cobi van Tonder.
  8:00pm, CCRMA Stage, The Knoll, Free Admission

FRIDAY, 13 FEBRUARY

• No Colloquium

• Department Social

  4:00pm, the lounge

SATURDAY-MONDAY, 14-16 FEBRUARY

• Berkeley Linguistics Society

  all day, 371 Dwinelle Hall, UC Berkeley

SATURDAY, 14 FEBRUARY

• Jean-Claude Risset birthday celebration with Mari Kimura

  A celebration of Jean-Claude Risset's 70th birthday. Performers: Jean-Claude Risset and violinist Mari Kimura. Works by Risset, Kimura, Bach and Nancarrow
  8:00pm, CCRMA Stage, The Knoll, Free Admission

MONDAY, 16 FEBRUARY

• President's Day

  No classes! Go to BLS! Hit the beach! :-)

TUESDAY, 17 FEBRUARY

• Semantics Workshop

  Edit Doron (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
  The Interaction of Adjectival Passive and Voice
  10:30am, MJH 126

UPCOMING EVENTS (always under construction)

LINGUISTIC DEPARTMENT EVENTS PAGE

Got broader interests? The New Sesquipedalian recommends reading, or even subscribing, to the CSLI Calendar, available HERE.

WHAT'S HAPPENING AT UC SANTA CRUZ?

WHAT'S GOING ON AT UC BERKELEY?

10TH ANNUAL SEMANTICS FEST
on Friday and Saturday, March 13-14, ALL DAY
Stanford

"The Construction of Meaning"

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS
DEADLINE FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6th, 5 PM

The Construction of Meaning Workshop is pleased to sponsor the Tenth Annual Stanford Semantics Fest. We will celebrate this milestone by making the Semantics Fest a two-day event, which will include presentations by Construction of Meaning Workshop alumni as well as current participants.

The Semantics Fest is intended to promote discussion and collaboration among all those in the Stanford community interested in the semantics and pragmatics of natural language, as well as their interface with other modules of grammar. We encourage contributions from all those who are participants in the Construction of Meaning Workshop or members of the Stanford community who share these interests.

Abstracts are invited for 20 minute talks (plus 10 minutes discussion) on any topic touching on semantics and pragmatics in natural language. All abstracts should be submitted as plain text or pdf in 12 point font and be no more than 1 page long; a second page may include references. Abstracts are due by 5pm on FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6th. All submissions should be emailed to sven.lauer .. stanford.edu. Notification of acceptance will be made about two weeks later.

Additional information about Workshop events, including a preliminary listing of Spring Quarter events is posted on the workshop's web site:

http://www-linguistics.stanford.edu/semgroup/

Many future announcements will only be made to the workshop's mailing list, semantics@lists.stanford.edu. To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your subscription options, or get general information about the mailing list visit this URL:

https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/semantics/

The Stanford Blood Center is reporting a shortage of types O-, A-, and AB-. For an appointment, visit http://bloodcenter.stanford.edu/ or call 650-723-7831. It only takes an hour of your time and you get free cookies. And the Blood Center recently got a new bloodmobile. Check it out HERE

Want to contribute information? Want to be a reporter? Want to see something appear here regularly? Want to be a regular columnist? Want to take over running the entire operation? Write directly to sesquip@gmail.com.