Mayfest / 2020(+2) Hindsight

Kermit the Frog learning about Chomsky from Jim Henson

All friends of the department are welcome to come. Just let us know you if plan to come in person, so we can plan accordingly. Attending in person requires registration.

Please register here!

Mayfest is a workshop that brings together researchers from a variety of disciplines and perspectives to discuss fundamental issues in linguistics.

In 2022, Mayfest is a view of our field through the lenses of those who, over the last 30 years, have studied and worked with Norbert Hornstein, a founder of our department. We have invited 13 student and faculty alumni – distinguished researchers in syntax, semantics, processing, neuroscience, computational models and acquisition – to gather at Maryland, after a two-year covid delay, and share with us their work and their perspective on linguistics. The meeting will be held on the College Park campus on May 13-14, 2022. Information about our speakers and our schedule of events is available below.

Our speakers

Alan Munn *93 / Associate Professor of Linguistics, Michigan State University
Alexis Wellwood *14 / Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Southern California
Cristina Schmitt *96 / Associate Professor of Linguistics, Michigan State University
Cilene Rodrigues *04 / Professor, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Dave Kush *13 / Assistant Professor of Linguistics, University of Toronto
David Poeppel / Professor of Psychology and Neural Science, New York University
Ellen Lau *09 / Associate Professor of Linguistics, University of Maryland
Jairo Nunes *95 / Professor of Linguistics, University of São Paulo
Jon Sprouse *07 / Professor of Psychology, New York University Abu Dhabi
Kleanthes K. Grohmann *00 / Professor of Biolinguistics, University of Cyprus
Maria Polinsky / Professor of Linguistics, University of Maryland
Masaya Yoshida *06 / Associate Professor of Linguistics, Northwestern University
Tim Hunter *10 / Associate Professor of Linguistics, University of California Los Angeles

Program

All presentations will be at the Language Science Center, 2130 H.J. Patterson Hall.

Friday May 13

9:00-9:30 - Registration and breakfast
9:30-10:20 - Alan Munn / What have labels ever done for us?
10:20-11:10 - Ellen Lau / Last hippocampus in Paris; or, How I learned to worry about what sentences are for
11:10-11:30 - Break
11:30-12:20 - Dave Kush / What Island violations are in the input? An unapologetically empirical investigation
12:20-2:00 - Lunch (free time)
2:00-2:50 - Cilene Rodrigues / Structural reduction in schizophrenia: Disintegration of person feature
2:50-3:10 - Break
3:10-4:00 - Tim Hunter / Distinguishing mildly context-sensitive modes of tree-building
4:00-4:50 - David Poeppel / A hard title is good to find

Saturday May 14

9:00-9:30 - Breakfast
9:30-10:20 - Alexis Wellwood / A window into the mind
10:20-11:10 - Cristina Schmitt / What can a child or a linguist do with so much variation?
11:10-11:20 - Break
11:20-12:10 - Kleanthes K. Grohmann / BIG Issues, Small Island: Bilectal investigations of grammar
12:10-1:40 - Lunch break
1:40-2:30 - Masaya Yoshida / Some Structural Matters
2:30-3:20 - Jon Sprouse / Three vignettes about movement and experimental syntax
3:20-3:30 - Break
3:30-4:20 - Robert Kluender and Maria Polinsky / Brandon & Hornstein (1986) revisited: From ritual to syntax
4:20-5:10 - Jairo Nunes / Edge features and wh-movement
6:00 - Party of the Whole