Mayfest 2025

Constraints on meaning.

Friday and Saturday, May 16 and 17, we host our annual Mayfest, a workshop that brings together researchers from a variety of disciplines and perspectives to discuss fundamental issues in linguistics. This year we ask 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. This year we invited ten researchers who are studying constraints on meaning from a wide range of perspectives, both analytical and experimental:

Pranav Anand / Professor, University of California Santa Cruz 
Tanya Bondarenko / Assistant Professor, Harvard University [unable to attend]
Alexandre Cremers / Researcher, Vilnius University   
Rachel Dudley / Assistant Professor, University of California San Diego   
Paloma Jeretic / Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania 
Tyler Knowlton / Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Delaware 
Viola Schmitt / Professor, Humboldt-University Berlin / MIT
Benjamin Spector / Research Director, CNRS Institut Jean Nicod 
Wataru Uegaki / Reader, University of Edinburgh 
Aaron Steven White / Associate Professor, University of Rochester

Abstracts of the talks, as well as the program, can be viewed here, where you will also find directions to and registration for the event.