Second phase (volet fonctionnement)
Lisa Travis (McGill U)
Principal investigator
Syntax, PF-interface
Luis Alonso-Ovalle (McGill U)
Semantics
Alan Bale (Concordia U)
Semantics & Morphology
Heather Newell (UQAM)
Morphology, PF-interface
Glyne Piggott (McGill U)
Phonology
Bernhard Schwarz (McGill U)
Semantics
Junko Shimoyama (McGill U)
Syntax, LF-interface
Michael Wagner (McGill U)
Experimental linguistics, syntax, phonology, semantics, language processing, PF & LF interfaces
Collaborative members
Jessica Coon (McGill U)
Syntax, Morphology, Mayan, Fieldwork, PF-interface
Heather Goad (McGill U)
Phonology
Tom Leu (UQAM)
Syntax, Morphology, PF-interface
Post-doctoral researchers: Richard Compton, Alex Drummond, Emily Elfner.
External collaborators:
First Phase: David Embick (UPenn), Danny Fox (MIT), Angelika Kratzer (UMass, Amherst), Elisabeth Selkirk (UMass, Amherst).
Second phase: Daniel Büring (Universität Wien), Heidi Harley (University of Arizona), Kyle Johnson (UMass, Amherst), Arsalan Kahnemuyipour (U of T), Jason Kandybowicz (Swarthmore College), Alec Marantz (MIT), Lisa Matthewson (UBC), Norvin Richards (MIT), Hotze Rullmann (UBC), Andrés Salanova (U Ottawa), Satoshi Tomioka (University of Delaware), Kie Zuraw (UCLA)
Description of project
The goal of this cross-modular research group is to closely examine technical issues that arise at the two syntactic interfaces – PF and LF – when syntactic representations are interpreted by either the phonological component or the semantic component. The investigation pays particular attention to the implications to both the phonology and the semantics of expressions of the theory of cyclic Spell Out of phases (Chomsky 2001). The project contains three research axes:
I. The structure of words at the interfaces:
A. The Role of Head Movement in Building Words;
B. Phonological and Semantic Constituency Internal to Words;
C. Syntactic and Non-Syntactic Factors in Morpheme Realization.
II. The structure of sentences at the interfaces:
A. Phrasal Movement and Pronunciation;
B. Phrasal Movement and Interpretation.
III. The structure of discourse at the interfaces:
A. The Grammar of Implicatures;
B. The Marking of Discourse Topics.
Functioning of project
The research group functions as a connecting infrastructure for three existing research groups with individual weekly meetings: the Syntax-Phonology research group, the Syntax-Semantics research group, and the Experimental research group. Everyone is welcome to attend any of the weekly meetings. Several times a year all project members group comes together for workshops with visiting external collaborators.
On May 6-8, 2012 SIRG held its first workshop on Exploring the Interfaces: ETI 1: The structure of Words.
On May 23-25, 2013 SIRG held its second workshop on Exploring the Interfaces: ETI 2: Implicatures, Alternatives, and the Semantics/Pragmatics Interface
For more information or to be added to the email ist, contact maire.noonan [at] mcgill.ca (Máire Noonan)
Granting agency:
FQRSC 2012-SE-144646 (current)
FQRSC 2010-SE-130906 (first phase)