Mayfest
Each year the graduate students of the Linguistics Department of the University of Maryland organize a two-day workshop, Mayfest, focusing on a different aspect of language and linguistic theory.
Mayfest brings together 8-12 leading researchers to present their work in relation to the theme, leaving ample time for active discussion. It is typically held in the first week of May, Friday to Saturday.
Mayfest 2025: Constraints on Meaning
This year our Mayfest, on the 16th and 17th of the month, asks about constraints on meaning. It appears that certain meanings are lexicalized in some languages, but not others, while other meanings are not lexicalized in any language. What are the universal gaps? We hope to consider this question with “logical” vocabulary, such as quantifiers, connectives, modals, attitude predicates, and focus operators. For observed universals, we can ask why they hold. Are they due to: constraints in the grammar; biases in acquisition; learnability considerations; processing restrictions; pragmatic principles; or other sources? In at least some cases, restrictions may result from how the semantics interacts with other components of grammar, or with language-external cognitive systems. Our aim is to bring together researchers who are studying constraints on meaning from a wide range of perspectives.
Past Mayfests
- 2024 - The Science of Linguistic Diversity
- 2023 - Howard's Beginning
- 2020+2 - Hindsight
- 2019 - 24th Workshop on the Structure and Constituency of the Languages of the Americas
- 2018 - NayFest
- 2017 - Semantics and Linguistic Theory 27
- 2016 - Context
- 2015 - Morphest
- 2014 - A Big Ten Deal
- 2013 - Linguistically Predictable: When, How and Why Do We Predict in Language?
- 2012 - The Role of Computational Models in Linguistic Theory
- 2011 - The Interpretation of Pronouns
- 2010 - Bridging Typology and Acquisition
- 2009 - Moving Beyond Truth Conditions: The Computation of Meaning
- 2008 - Island Perspectives
- 2007 - Where, When and Why is Hierarchy Needed?
- 2006 - Language Learning Fest: Counts, Cues, Constraints and Computation
- 2005 - WH-fest
- 2004 - CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing
- 2002 - The Minimalist Fact
- 2001 - Cognitive Neuroscience of Language
- 2000 - Syntactic Effects of Changes in Inflectional Systems (DIGS VI)
- 1999 - Morphology
- 1998 - Minority Languages in the Twenty-first Century: Perspectives on Basque Language
- 1997 - Optimality Theory Workshop