about
The Circle is a weekly forum dedicated to discussion of the descriptive, experimental, and theoretical study of syntax and semantics, featuring presentations of ongoing research by members of the Berkeley Linguistics Department and other departments, as well as discussion of previously published works.
when
Fridays, 3:00-4:30pm
where
Room 1303 (Dwinelle)
Recurring link.
organizers
Margaret Asperheim
Hei Vangz
University of California, Berkeley
Department of Linguistics
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Fall 2025
PAST MEETINGS:
7 november
Daniel Aremu (Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main)
Towards an Operator-Particle Approach to exclusive association with focus in Yorùbá
Recently, the phenomenon of exclusive association with focus has received much attention, especially in relation to its syntax-semantics properties (Lee 2005, Hirsch 2017, Quek & Hirsch 2017, Branan & Erlewine 2023, Bassi et. al. 2022, Yip 2025, Aremu 2025a,b, a.o.). There have been two major approaches to exclusive focus association, particularly adfocal exclusive association (as in: Adam ate only RICE). The first is the Op-Particle Approach, which assumes that in an adfocal-only association with focus context, the exclusive interpretation is licensed by a high covert exclusive operator (ONLY, which may be overtly realized with the adverbial-only), and not the adfocal-only itself (= Adam ONLY ate only RICE). Afocal-only is claimed to be merely a concord element, which signals the presence of the exclusive operator, ONLY. The second approach, the Quantifier-Particle Approach, on the other hand, assumes that the exclusive semantics remains on the adfocal-only, which type-shifts to compose with its focus associate (forming a QP), and then quantifier-raises to a propositional position for exclusive interpretation. The latter approach has been proposed for Yorùbá by Yip & Adedeji (forthcoming) and Yip (forthcoming).
In this talk, after introducing the two approaches and the predictions they make, I will briefly discuss Yip and Adedeji’s argument for Yorùba. Then, I will provide counter-arguments that support an Operator-Particle Approach to exclusive association with focus in Yorùbá, instead of the Quanitifier-Particle Approach. Furthermore (if time permits), I will show that, contrary to earlier studies (ibid.), the adfocal-only in Yorùbá is not just a concord element. Rather, it is responsible for parameterizing the evoked alternatives for different exclusive scalar interpretations. Finally, I will highlight some open questions that need further investigation.
ZOOM ONLY
31 october
No meeting this week!
24 october
Melissa Cronin (Stanford University)
What does it mean for 'used to' to be a past habitual?
`Used to' is a periphrastic form that is descriptively known as a `past habitual.' Formally, little attention has been paid to the semantics of `used to.' In this talk, I formally unpack these two descriptive notions of past temporal reference (`past') and `habitual' as it pertains to `used to,' ultimately arguing that `used to' is a spellout of three operators: a semantically tenseless T that enters the derivation without a temporal value of its own, a retrospective aspectual operator that encodes the backshifted semantics of 'used to'(together giving rise to the past temporal reference component), and an imperfective operator that also subsumes a semantics for habituality (following Deo (2020)). To motivate each component, I present novel data bearing on how `used to' differs from the simple past form, as well as show how my account improves upon Boneh \& Doron (2012), who provide the only other formal account for `used to.' First, with respect to the habituality component, I argue that `used to' is sensitive to a `length requirement,' meaning that the event time of `used to' must be `sufficiently long'; formally, I argue that the event time of `used to' must exceed a contextually-determined threshold for length, which I include in the imperfective operator for `used to.' I use this data (and subsequent formalization) to argue against Boneh & Doron's (2012) construal of the habituality component for `used to,' where they argue for a designated habitual operator, rather than subsuming habituality under imperfectivity. Secondly, with respect to the past temporal reference component of `used to,' I show that `used to,' unlike the simple past form, must receive a backshifted reading. This generalization, in turn, leads me to argue that past temporal reference for `used to' is formalized via a combination of a T, which provides the perspective time, and retro, which backshifts from that time; ultimately, I show that this combination of T + retro doesn't obviate backshifted readings. I use the data from this generalization to show that Boneh & Doron's account (a T whose temporal value is fixed to TU + retro) does not provide full empirical coverage.
NO ZOOM THIS WEEK!
17 october
Peter Jenks (UC Berkeley)
Pronouns and personhood in Thai
The pronominal system of Thai is famous for its size, with dozens of socially licensed forms, and its apparent openness, as kinship terms and names can be freely used in indexical contexts as well as with total disregard to Condition C. This has led to the conjecture that Thai either lacks pronouns altogether, making it an important potential exception to the plausible universality of pronouns, or that Thai pronouns lack person features more specifically. I propose a universal definition of pronoun as a presuppositionally or contextually restricted variable and show that Thai clearly does have pronouns by this definition. I then show that Thai has person features, based on a careful look at patterns of 'person overlap', by which pronouns can be used in either 1/2 or 2/3 contexts. These findings support the conclusion that all languages not only have presuppositionally restricted variables, or pronouns, but that all presuppositionally restrict those variables by making reference to the conversational context, i.e., with person features. I end by offering suggestions about what historical factors led to Thai losing the 'strict' pronominal system which is otherwise nearly universal, and what might accounts for the absence of Thai-like uses of pronouns more broadly.
10 october
Phil Shushurin (New York University)
Rethinking Adjacency: deriving linear constraints in the Russian Noun Phrase (and beyond)
In Russian Noun Phrase, which is head-initial, (non-adjectival) dependents generally exhibit ascending orders (i.e. high arguments follow low arguments, (1)), with one major exception: non-possessor/author genitives must be adjacent to the nominal head (2) irrespective of the properties of other dependents.
(1) kommentarij k Sankhja-karike Gaudapady
comment.NOM to Sankhyakarika.DAT Gaudapada.GEN
‘Gaudapada’s comment to Sankhyakarika’
(2) torgovlja angličan opiumom
trade.NOM English.people.GEN opium.INS
‘English people’s trade in opium’, ‘opium trade run by the English’
I will show that examples like (1) constitute genuine counterexamples to Janke and Neeleman’s (2010) and Belk and Neeleman’s (2017) Case Adjacency account. I formulate a novel generalization, Complement-Descending Generalization, according to which in head-initial structures, c-selected and non-agreed phrases may only merge as complements or in descending structures. Such effects are notably absent in head-final structures. To account for this generalization, I propose that different linearization algorithms may target one and the same phrase. These algorithms can create linearization conflicts in head-initial structures but not in head-final structures. I demonstrate that this account successfully explains adjacency effects and can be extended to encompass further phenomena, such as Adjectival Adjacency, as well as some other left-right asymmetries.
3 october
Bernat Bardagil Mas (Ghent University)
Interlocutor morphology in Mỹky
Mỹky is a language isolate spoken in southern Amazonia, in the western region of Brazil's state of Mato Grosso (Monserrat 2010; Bardagil 2023). One of the morpheme slots on the right edge of the Mỹky polysynthetic verb displays a morphological alternation, with one form corresponding to a speaker and addressee of the same category, and another form to interlocutors of different categories. In this talk, I explore a proposal to account for this alternation as an instance of morphological indexing of speech act-level participants.
26 september
No meeting. AMP is happening!
19 september
Aidan Katson (UC Santa Cruz)
Expanding the nominal in English ACC- and POSS-ing nominalizations
Clausal nominalizations, like English ACC- and POSS-ing nominalizations, are structures which exhibit both verbal and nominal properties. A classic observation is that these properties trade-off with one another: as a nominalization exhibits more verbal properties, it has fewer nominal ones (Chomsky 1970). Syntactic approaches capture this by proposing that clausal nominalizations have a single "mixed extended projection" composed of both verbal and nominal functional elements (Abney 1987, Hazout 1990, 1995, Borsley & Kornfilt 2000, Alexiadou et al. 2011, Kornfilt & Whitman 2011, a.o.). As such a mixed extended projection is "filled up" with more verbal material, there is less room for nominal material. More formally, and assuming parallelism between functional domains (e.g., Szabolsci 1984, Abney 1987, Grimshaw 1990), the strongest example of this view is that a verbal functional head to blocks its nominal counterpart: if a nominalization contains v, it better not contain n; if it has C, it better not have D, and so on. A less restrictive alternative maintains that differently sized verbal projections are nominalized by different heads, but that this does not vary by head (see Alexiadou et al. 2007, Iordăchioaia & Soare 2008, Alexiadou et al. 2011, Iordăchioaia 2020). Rather, nominalizations can contain a “full” nominal spine, from n to DP, or a “defective” one, being nominalized by only D (Iordăchioaia 2020). n is argued to nominalize verbal material which does not project above a certain height (AspP and below), while D a verbal spine which projects to the functional domain (T and C), crucially predicting that nominalizations of TPs and CPs should necessarily only include D, and not exhibit behavior associated with lower nominal functional material. I present novel data on English ACC- and POSS-ing gerunds in measurement constructions to complicate this view that there is a necessary trade-off in nominal and verbal material and properties within nominalizations. By extending both classic and recent work on the syntax of partitives and pseudopartitives (e.g., Selkirk 1977, Falco & Zamparelli 2019, Toquero-Pérez 2023) to the novel ground of measurement constructions with gerunds, I argue that despite containing extensive verbal functional structure (up to TP, in the case of the ACC-ing gerund), both gerunds also sport a full nominal functional spine, from n to D. I propose, therefore, that any sized verbal projection can have not a mixed, but a "stacked" extended projection, predicting a full nominal spine, from n to DP, to be possible over an arbitrarily large verbal spine.
12 september
Eli Sharf & Emily Knick (UC Santa Cruz)
On focus and the perfect aspect
The perfect aspect famously gives rise to different readings (e.g., McCawley, 1971; Mittwoch, 1988; Iatridou et al., 2001; Pancheva, 2003). This talk is concerned with the difference between the universal (U) perfect (1a), which entails that the eventuality holds at the reference time, and the experiential (E) perfect (1b), which doesn't contribute this entailment.
(1a) For 5 years, Esme has been married. (U) ⊨ Esme is married
(1b) Esme has been married. (E) ⊭ Esme is married
Previous accounts propose that sentences without a temporal adverbial like (1b) can be interpreted as experiential, but not universal (Iatridou et al., 2001; Portner, 2003). We make two novel empirical contributions that show that the distribution of the U-perfect is more nuanced. First, universal readings arise in the absence of a temporal adverbial when there is focus on the perfect participle (2). Second, we observe that focused sentences like (2) imply that the eventuality has held for a long interval. We analyze this length implication as an instance of domain focus that associates with covert even exhaustification (Shank, 2004, Chierchia, 2006), where the focused domain is of the left boundary (LB) of the perfect time span (PTS).
(2) A: Esme recently got married. / Esme is going to be married on Sunday.
B: Wait, Esme has [BEEN] married. (U) ⊨ Esme is married.
These two empirical observations lead us to the generalization that the U-perfect is only licensed when the LB is specified. From this, we trace the unavailability of the U-perfect in (1b) to competition between the present perfect and the simple present: the U-perfect is ruled out when semantically equivalent to the simple present. Since both adverbs (1a) and the length implication (2) make the U-perfect more informative than the simple present, it can surface. In sum, we argue that a full account of the perfect requires reference to both focal alternatives and competition.
5 september
Round Robin! Join us and share your syntax-semantics stories.
29 august
No meeting. Happy new semester!
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