Fall 2022 – Mondays 2-3:20pm on ZOOM and Baldy 617
August 29 – The lab’s Fall 2022 Kickoff
September 5 – Labor Day – CANCELLED
September 12 – Semantic Research book: late-breaking changes – Jürgen
September 19 – Existing datasets fair (data looking for researchers!) – Jürgen
September 26 – MesoSpace and CAL updates – Jürgen
October 3 – SULA dry runs – Jürgen & Luis
October 10 – CANCELLED
October 17 – Bergen (2019): “Do gestures retain mental associations with their iconic origins, even after they become emblematic? An analysis of the middle-finger gesture among American English speakers” – Sarah MacDougall
October 24 – dry run NAMED Kyoto paper – John & Jürgen
October 31 –
November 7 – cancelled (meeting on Wednesday with SynSem, see below!)
November 9 @ 12:30 – Joint meeting with SynSem – Jürgen on modification and “semanticophobia”
November 14 –
November 21 – Saima’s dissertation updates
November 28 – Tamara’s dry run for the Signed languages workshop at ALT14: “I don’t get the point: Methodological issues with Secondary data collection in Signed Language Typology”
December 5 –
December 12 –
TO BE SCHEDULED:
- Face management and social emotions (Jürgen)
- The linguistics of dreams and dream diaries (Jürgen)
- Dissertation proposal progress (Tamara)
- Dissertation proposal progress (Magalí)
- Recent publications by Len Talmy
- David Kemmerer’s book
Spring 2022 – Wednesdays 4-5:20pm on ZOOM and Baldy 617
2 February – The lab’s Spring 2022 Kickoff
9 February – Juergen on the psycholinguistics of gender in German (Dye et al. 2017, 2018)
16 February – Juergen and Saima on argument realization in Hindi
23 February – Magalí on discourse relations
2 March – Speed dating with prospies
9 March – Tamara: lit review on pointing in signed languages cum brainstorming for ALT abstract on methods for sign language typology
16 March – Luis: practice talk on tenselessness in Shawi
23 March – Spring Break
30 March – John and Juergen: review of Associated Motion volume (Guillaume & Koch Des 2021)
6 April – Dr. Letizia Cerqueglini (Tel Aviv University): “Aṣ-Ṣāniʿ Arabic Space and Time in Language and Cognition: Horizontal Plane and Vertical Axis”
13 April – Jürgen Bohnemeyer: i) Bromham, Lindell, Russell Dinnage, Hedvig Skirgård, Andrew Ritchie, Marcel Cardillo, Felicity Meakins, Simon Greenhill, and Xia Hua. (2022). Global predictors of language endangerment and the future of linguistic diversity.; ii) Mollica, Francis, Geoff Bacon, Noga Zaslavsky, Yang Xu, Terry Regier, and Charles Kemp. (2021). The forms and meanings of grammatical markers support efficient communication.
20 April – Jürgen Bohnemeyer: Mollica et al (2021) continued.
27 April – Laura Hambridge and Jürgen Bohnemeyer: Preliminary modeling results of the CAL Language & Cognition subproject
4 May – Laura Hambridge and Jürgen Bohnemeyer: Preliminary modeling results of the CAL Language & Cognition subproject – Part II
11 May – Cancelled
25 May – Jürgen on temporal attitude (Kahnemann 2011, “Thinking fast and slow”)
Potential topics:
- Juergen on the cognition and linguistics of dreams
- John: dissertation proposal update
- Luis on switch reference in typology and Shawi
- End of semester: Juergen’s dryrun
- Updates from Magalí, Saima
- Possible reading sessions: Talmy papers; Talmy’s book on attention direction; Kemmerer’s book on neurolinguistic typology
Fall 2021 – Wednesdays 2:30-3:50pm on ZOOM
1 September – The lab’s Fall 2021 Kickoff
8 September – Conventionalization I: meaning in interaction. Semantic Research manuscript chapter 1 (Bohnemeyer ms.)
15 September – Tamara Grosso: QP Updates
22 September – Conventionalization II: Lewis (2002 [1969]) – Discussion led by Brian Hayden
29 September – Jürgen Bohnemeyer: Professionalism talk on the academic job interview – 4-5:20pm
6 October – Conventionalization III: Clark (1996) Ch 3-4 – Discussion led by Brian Hayden
13 October – Michael Sullivan: “Using Complex Vectors to Infer Semantic Data” – 4-5:20pm
20 October – Conventionalization IV: Atkin (2010); Clark (1996) Ch 6 – Discussion led by Jürgen Bohnemeyer
27 October – cancelled
3 November – Kathryn Hudson on textual and inter textual theories
10 November – Jürgen Bohnemeyer’s dry run
17 November – cancelled
24 November – cancelled: Thanksgiving break
1 December – Conventionalization V
8 December – Luis Ulloa and Jürgen Bohnemeyer on TAM
Spring 2021 – Mondays 10-11:20am on ZOOM
1 February – The lab’s Spring 2021 Kickoff
8 February – Ideas for new research/projects
15 February – Coupé (2018) – Magalí / Coupé et al. (2019) – Juergen
22 February – Cancelled
1 March – Juergen: “The innovation of functional expressions”
8 March – Juergen: “An evolutionary approach to the typology of functional expressions” (Copenhagen dry run)
15 March – Fauconnnier (2011, 2012) – Juergen / Levshina (2020) – Magalí
22 March – Juergen: “Temporal remoteness markers in a tenseless language” (Understanding Human Time Workshop dryrun)
29 March – Juergen: “CASSI: Causatives At the Syntax-Semantics Interface: New data, new models”
5 April – Brian Hayden: “Stone as Bleached Paragon in English Compounds”
12 April – Guillermo Montero-Melis: “Exploring the semantic structure of (Dutch) motion verbs”
19 April – Kiyono Fujinaga: “The synchronic and diachronic development of Japanese benefactive constructions” (practice talk)
26 April – Juergen Bohnemeyer (tbc): discussion of two papers on the evolution of word order:
- Robert and Levinson (2017) Conversation, cognition and cultural evolution
- Ferrer-i-Cancho (2017) The placement of the head that maximizes predictability, an information theoretic the placement of the head that maximizes predictability
- Goldin-Meadow et al (2008) The natural order of events: How speakers of different languages represent events nonverbally
3 May – Tamara Grosso: QP presentation
10 May – Saima Hafeez: “Causation and agentivity in Urdu: A literature review” (working title)
Potential Topics:
- Attitudes toward time and how they shape the lives and work of academics
- Student research updates?
- Saima’s Literature Review
- Papers on indefiniteness in ASL
- New paper by Talmy!
- Left-overs from the fall – more on
- The typology of (nonverbal) predication (pace and contra Stassen 1998)
- Levshina (2018)
- Talmy’s book: ‘Targeting system of language’
- David Kemmerer’s book: Concepts in the Brain: The View From Cross-linguistic Diversity
- Cross-cultural/linguistic research on emotions
Fall 2020 – Fridays 10-11:20am (alternative time at 12-1:20pm) on ZOOM
4 September – The lab’s Fall 2020 Kickoff
11 September (at 12pm) – Luis Ulloa: dissertation research updates
18 September – Juergen: discussing reviews on the planned Emergent Interface book.
25 September (at 12pm) – Joint session with the SynSem lab on telicity and definiteness presented by Juergen Bohnemeyer, Tamara Grosso and Stephanie Evers.
2 October – Updates from Erika.
9 October – Updates from Anastasia.
16 October – Juergen: The future of (semantic) typology.
23 October – Updates from Magalí.
30 October (at 12pm) – Talk invitation – Muhammad Abdul-Mageed: A Needle in a Haystack? Toward Neural Micro-Variation at Scale
6 November –The typology of predication: Remarks on Stassen 1997 (Juergen).
13 November – Tamara update on sign language research methodology.
20 November – Tbc: Levshina 2018 (presented by Juergen) / dissertation updates from Ali / Dissertation defense presentation dry run by Stephanie
27 November – Thanksgiving break
4 December – Updates from Saima
11 December – Crosscultural studies on emotions (Juergen)
Potential Topics:
- Levshina 2018: Habilitation thesis on communicative efficiency and causatives
- Talmy’s book: ‘Targeting system of language’
- David Kemmerer’s book: Concepts in the Brain: The View From Cross-linguistic Diversity
Spring 2020 – Tuesdays 5-6:20pm — Baldy 617
28 January – The lab’s Spring 2020 Kickoff :
- Getting to know each other
- Topics to be discussed during the semester
- come enjoy some mediterranean food
4 February – Stephanie dissertation update: grammaticalized perfective marking and definite articles
11 February – Adrian Riccelli reports on his research
18 February – Rissman & Majid research on instruments and thematic roles (Anastasia & Erika)
25 February – Theories of concepts (Erika)
3 March – NO LAB
6 March (Special Friday session) – “Speed-dating” research summaries
10 March – Talmy (2020): Semantic Unilocality
17 March – SPRING BREAK NO LAB
24 March – Check-in and planning
31 March – Papers from the anniversary issue of Linguistic Typology 2016
7 April – Typology of instruments (Anastasia)
14 April –
21 April – Magalí project update: Yucatec dispositionals
28 April 29 April (Special Joint Meeting with Phonlab) 4pm-5.30pm – Recent studies on sound change and functional load in phonology
5 May –
12 May –
Potential Topics:
- Talmy’s book on ‘Targeting system of language’
- Why linguistic typology? (papers from the anniversary issue of Linguistic Typology 2016)
- Dissertation/QP reports: Ali, Anastasia, Erika, John,
- workshop on Time management
- Information tracking in discourse from a functionalist perspective
- Clause-final particles in Yoloxochitl Mixtec
- Nowak & Plotkin 2000 paper on the evolution of syntax
- Language evolution: phonemic contrasts and morphophonemic rules
- Matthew Dryer – new methodology for typological sampling
Fall 2019 – Thursdays 12:30-1:50pm — Baldy 617
29 August – First meeting of the semester, introduction and discussion of future lab activities.
5 September – Lab cancelled – Juergen is at ALT
12 September – Ali and Saima’s field reports
19 September – Gricean notions of informativeness – Kehler and Cohen 2012 – Frank and Jaeger 2017
26 September – Juergen dry run on Tenselessness (A joint session with Dr. DiCanio’s ‘Work in Progress’ seminar).
3 October – Canceled – Juergen is away to the Tenselessness workshop.
10 October – Workshop on data archiving and sharing through platforms such as Open Science Framework
17 October – Erika’s progress report
24 October – Juergen: evolution of functional categories (A joint session with Dr. DiCanio’s ‘Work in Progress’ Seminar).
31 October – Stephanie Evers’s Progress report (A joint session with Dr. DiCanio’s ‘Work in Progress’ Seminar).
7 November – Tamara Grosso: Locative expressions in signed languages, a cross-linguistic comparison (Authored by Sarah Eberle)
14 November – Juergen: Project ideas fair – three ideas for new projects in search of enterprising researchers
21 November – Juergen: modeling typological data for exploring linguistic evolution (two papers by Gerhard Jäger and colleagues).
28 November – No lab – Thanksgiving week
5 December – Spatial metaphors of time. The following papers are discussed:
- Boroditsky, L. & A. Gaby. (2010). Remembrances of Times East: Absolute Spatial Representations of Time in an Australian Aboriginal Community. Psychological Science 21(11) 1635–1639.
- Bohnemeyer, J. (2010). The Language-Specificity of Conceptual Structure: Path, Fictive Motion, and Time Relations. In B. Malt & P. Wolff (Eds.), Words and the mind: How words capture human experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 111-137.
- Pitt, B. & Casasanto, D. (2019). The correlations in experience principle: How culture shapes concepts of time and number. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
- Casasanto, D. (2016). Temporal language and temporal thinking may not go hand in hand. In B. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk (Ed.), Conceptualizations of time (pp. 169-186). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
12 December –
Potential Topics:
- readings on the overlap between semantics, discourse and pragmatics
- readings on sign language typology
- LSA practice talks after DEC 12th
- (manner) adverbs
- agentivity
Spring 2019 – Wednesdays 2-3:20pm (or Friday 2-3:20/3:30-4:50) — Baldy 617
30 January – Juergen’s Stanford talk dry run: ‘The semantic typology of causatives: quantitative evidence and pragmatic explanation’. Classes cancelled!
15 February (Friday 2-3.20pm) – First meeting of the semester, nibbles & coffee, season’s preview, Juergen’s Tokyo & Stanford travelog.
20 February – Juergen – The distribution and evolution of motion framing constructions.
27 February – Stephanie’s dissertation proposal pep prep
8 March – Prospective student day Speed Dating event
15 March (Friday) – Toronto workshop dryruns (Juergen and Erika)
20 March SPRING BREAK NO LAB
29 March (Friday) – Causality readings Part 1 (presented by Ali, Erika, and Juergen):
- Haspelmath, M. (2016). Universals of causative and anticausative verb formation and the spontaneity scale. LINGUA POSNANIENSIS LVIII(2): 33-63.
- Levshina, N. (2016). Finding the best fit for direct and indirect causation: a typological study. LINGUA POSNANIENSIS LVIII(2): 65–82.
- Neeleman, A. & H. van de Koot. (2012). The Linguistic Expression of Causation. In M. Everaert, M. Marelj, and T. Siloni, eds.,The Theta System: Argument Structure at the Interface, OxfordUniversity Press, Oxford, UK, 20-51.
- Rappaport Hovav, M. (2014). Lexical content and context: The causative alternation in English revisited. Lingua 141: 8-29.
3 April – Tagliamonte & Baayen (2012): Pros and cons of mixed effects regression, random forests, and conditional inference trees.
10 April NO LAB THIS WEEK (conflicting meetings, Cog Sci, Linguistics Colloquium)
19 April – Saima’s dissertation proposal brainstorming
26 April (Friday) – Juergen dryrun: Agentivity symposium
1 May JB AWAY
9 May (Thursday) – John Shuey: On motion framing (QP Day practice talk).
15 May – 1) Erika: ICLC practice talk. 2) Erika & Jürgen: Kehler & Cohen 2018 (http://aardvark.ucsd.edu/language/convention.pdf).
Potential Topics:
- Erika – event structure and aspectual coercion (Croft, Michaelis papers)
- Len Talmy’s new book “The targeting system of language.”
- Anastasia – project report
- Ali – Field trip report
- Ali, Juergen – RRG conference and ICLC dryruns.
- Juergen – Professionalism topic on time management
- Juergen – Liberating syntactic typology from its weird pre-modern folk theory of semantics.
- Causality-related readings:
- Levshina, N. (2016). Finding the best fit for direct and indirect causation: a typological study. LINGUA POSNANIENSIS LVIII(2): 65–82.
- Martin, F. (2018). Time in probabilistic causation: Direct vs. indirect uses of lexical causative verbs. In: Uli Sauerland and Stephanie Solt (eds.),Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 22, vol. 2, ZASPiL 61, pp. 107–124. ZAS, Berlin.
- Neeleman, A. & H. van de Koot. (2012). The Linguistic Expression of Causation. In M. Everaert, M. Marelj, and T. Siloni, eds.,The Theta System: Argument Structure at the Interface, OxfordUniversity Press, Oxford, UK, 20-51.
- Rappaport Hovav, M. (2014). Lexical content and context: The causative alternation in English revisited. Lingua 141: 8-29.
- Robustness of cognition readings:
- Woodward – 2006 – Sensitive and Insensitive Causation
- Lombrozo – 2010 – Causal–explanatory pluralism: How intentions, functions, and mechanisms influence causal ascriptions
- Hitchcock – 2012 – Portable Causal Dependence: A Tale of Consilience.
- Vasilyeva et al. – 2018 – Stable Causal Relationships are Better Causal Relationships
- Gerstenberg et al. – 2015 – How, whether, why: Causal judgments as counterfactual contrasts.
- Grinfeld et al. – 2018 – Causal Responsibility and Robust Causation
Fall 2018 – Wednesdays 2-3:20pm, Baldy 603
29 August – First meeting for Fall 2018
5 September – Juergen ICSC Dry run, Erika on Embodied Construction Grammar
12 September – NO LAB (Juergen away)
19 September – NO LAB (CogSci event)
21 September (Friday @ 3.30pm) – Ali & Juergen field reports
26 September – Juergen UBC colloquium dry run (Counterfactuals in Yucatec)
3 October – Monique Flecken lab-fest: event representation in language and cognition (Presentations by Juergen, Erika, and Ali)
10 October – Juergen: “Inside the macro-event property”
19 October (Friday @ 3:30pm)- Presentations of 4 papers on whether iconicity effects in grammar can be reduced to frequency-based iconicity. Presentations are given by Ali, Anastasia, Erika, and Juergen
24 October – Stephanie’s AMPRA dry run, Juergen on “iconicity in Yucatec causatives: frequency vs. complexity”
31 October – No lab this week
7 November – Dr. David Braun’s presentation of his paper: “Questions are not Answers”
14 November (Friday at 3:30pm) – Yu Li: “degree expressions in Zauzou”
21 November (THANKSGIVING, NO MEETING)
30 November – 1. Anastasia (Field work report), 2. Juergen (discussion of advising models)
5 December – 1. Juergen & Erika: Talmy’s Windowing of Attention chapter, 2. Kate: LSA dry run
14 December – 1. Juergen : motion macro-event property (Practice run), 2. Saima: Proposal brainstorming
Potential topics:
- Stephanie dissertation proposal brainstorming
- Majid lab-fest, von Stutterheim lab-fest,
- Juergen on Event Semantics for RRG,
- field report (Anastasia),
- dissertation proposal brainstorming (Saima),
- dissertation updates (Ali, Anastasia, Erika),
- Erika on Frame Semantics, coherence and event representations
- more on Bayesian regression analysis (Kruschke 2015)
- professionalism topics
- Erin research
- Philosophy of Language appreciation day
Spring 2018 – Thursdays 1-2:20pm, Baldy 617
1 February: First meeting for Spring 2018
8 February:
- Kruschke: Doing Bayesian Data Analysis. Review of material covered last semester.
- The conquest of manipulable space: The case for a pan-simian geocentrism bias. (Juergen Bohnemeyer)
15 February: Kruschke: Doing Bayesian Data Analysis.
22 February: Regierfest: Terry Regier lab update
- Joe: Yang Xu, Terry Regier, and Barbara C. Malt (2016). Historical semantic chaining and efficient communication: The case of container names. Cognitive Science, 40, 2081-2094.
- Juergen: Terry Regier, Naveen Khetarpal, and Asifa Majid (2013). Inferring semantic maps. Linguistic Typology, 17, 89-105. [Preprint] [Supplementary material]
- Erika: Terry Regier and Yang Xu (2017). The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and inference under uncertainty. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, e1440. [Preprint]
1 March: CAL Language and Cognition update: new datasets, possible incorporation of linguistic predictors & sociocentrism survey
8 March: Spatial reference frames
9 March (Friday 2-3pm, 617 Baldy): Prospective student weekend – Speed Dating!
15 March: The history of linguistics: the jet perspective (Juergen)
22 March: Spring Break, no meeting
29 March: Erika dissertation proposal
5 April: Stephanie dissertation brainstorming
12 April: Anastasia dissertation update
19 April: Ali dissertation proposal workshopping
26 April: Myth-busting semantics for typologists – brainstorming (Juergen)
3 May: “Temporal remoteness markers in a tenseless language” SULA dry-run (Juergen)
10 May: Narrative relative clauses (brainstorming)
Fall 2017 – Fridays 2-3:20pm, Baldy 617
8 September: Doing Bayesian Data Analysis (Kruschke, 2015): Chapters 2, 4, 5
15 September:
1. Dry run: Juergen “Causality Across Languages: State of the Art”
2. Reading: Doran, R., Ward, G., Larson, M., McNabb, Y., & Baker, R. E. (2012). A novel experimental paradigm for distinguishing between what is said and what is implicated. Language, 88(1), 124–154.
(22, 29 September, 6 October: No lab)
13 October:
- Reading: Li P & Abarbanell L. (2018) Competing perspectives on frames of reference in language and thought. Cognition. 170:9-24.
- Doing Bayesian Data Analysis (Kruschke, 2015): Chapter 5
20 October: Saima Hafeez: QP Update
27 October: Doing Bayesian Data Analysis (Kruschke, 2015): Chapters 6 & 7
3 November:
- Stephanie QP Research Update
10 November:
- Saima Urdu Causality Research Update
- Doing Bayesian Data Analysis (Kruschke, 2015): Chapter 15
17 November: Dry run spectacular! Randi (AAA); Erika (ALT); Juergen (ALT)
1 December: Language Evolution/Complex Adaptive Systems
Spring 2017 – Tuesdays, 4-5:20 pm, Baldy 617
April 4Data talk: Ali
| January 31 | First meeting! |
| February 7 | Future in tenseless languages: Juergen Bohnemeyer |
| February 14 12:30-2:00 | Space Robots in love |
| February 21 | Data talk: Saima |
| February 28 | Data talk: Erika |
| March 7 | Data talk: Kate |
| March 10 2:00-3:30 | *Friday* Speed dating |
| March 14 | **SNOW DAY** Data talk: Holly |
| March 21 | Spring Break |
| March 28 | AAG Dryrun: Randi Moore (and Holly Data) |
| March 31 12:30-2:00 | Special cross-pollination: SemTyp and SynSem combined for future time reference |
| April 4 | Ali Alshehri |
| April 11 | Discussion: Li & Abarbanell in response to Haun 2006 |
| April 18 | BTLI Dryrun: Randi Moore |
| April 25 | QP Dryrun: Stephanie |
| May 2 | Event description with LSTM-RNNs |
| May 9 | IPrA Dryrun: Erika |
Other topics of interest:
Data discussions: Ali, Erika, Holly, Kate, Saima
Robot direction paper: Michael Spranger “The evolution of grounded spatial language”
Stats paper: Eager & Roy (2017) “Mixed effects models are sometimes terrible”
Iconicity LSA
Selected Papers to discuss:
Lupyan, G. & R. Dale (2010), Language structure is partly determined by social structure. PLOSone http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0008559
Li, P. & L. Abarbanell (submitted), Alternative spin on phylogenetically inherited spatial reference frames. http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/peggyli/files/liabarbanell_cups.pdf
Li, P. & L. Abarbanell (submitted), Competing Perspectives: Frames of Reference in Language and Thought. http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/peggyli/files/liabarbanellanimals.pdf
New papers from Terry Regier’s webpage:
Emily Cibelli, Yang Xu, Joseph L. Austerweil, Thomas L. Griffiths, and Terry Regier (2016). The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and probabilistic inference: Evidence from the domain of color. PLOS ONE 11(7): e0158725. [Preprint]
Terry Regier, Alexandra Carstensen, and Charles Kemp (2016). Languages support efficient communication about the environment: Words for snow revisited. PLOS ONE 11(4): e0151138.
Yang Xu, Terry Regier, and Barbara C. Malt (2016). Historical semantic chaining and efficient communication: The case of container names. Cognitive Science, 40, 2081-2094. [Supplementary material]
Terry Regier, Charles Kemp, and Paul Kay (2015). Word meanings across languages support efficient communication. In B. MacWhinney & W. O’Grady (Eds.), The handbook of language emergence (pp. 237-263). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
Terry Regier, Naveen Khetarpal, and Asifa Majid (2013). Inferring semantic maps. Linguistic Typology, 17, 89-105. [Preprint] [Supplementary material]
Semantic Typology Lab @ University at Buffalo 
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