This lecture addresses the competition between vernacular languages and Latin, identifying sources of syntactic change and examining the role of sociolinguistic motivation. The focus is on the complex role played by translators, and the syntactic creativity that may occur as a result of calquing. The case study is concerned with the auxiliation/grammaticalization of amenazar (Spanish), […]

Linguistics research has traditionally been shaped by the idea of a native monolingual speaker. Research on bilingualism and language learning has also defined stages and features of bilinguals in terms of differences (‘advantages’ or ‘disadvantages’) with respect to native monolingual norms. However, real monolingualism is becoming rarer in our communities because more people learn other […]

Ao se discutir aquisição de linguagem, há que se perguntar “o que”, “como” e “por quê”. Em fonologia, devemos pensar na aquisição de unidades, estruturas, propriedades e processos. As produções infantis diferem em relação à forma adulta? O que essas diferenças querem dizer? Nesta apresentação, discuto implicações teóricas da aquisição de proeminência prosódica e de regras de juntura a […]

We first explore the challenge of enriching the concept of interfaces between syntax, semantics and pragmatics: it  is largely fixed,  innate and governed by simpliciity (economy).   Variation lies within modules, not across them. Then we argue: Grammar  can provide notations for thought, (Chomsky (2014)) for instance,  through an extension of X-bar theory  to mathematics which […]

In this talk, I offer insights from the Ontario Dialects Project in which I have been documenting ways of speaking in Ontario, Canada for nearly 20 years. As of 2020, the archive comprises 19 communities with representation from the largest city, Toronto to many localities in the Near North (e.g. Tagliamonte, 2013; 2014a). In addition […]

We use language to construct meaning. But what exactly do we construct, how, and for whom? These questions are often formulated as a choice between conceiving of meaning as involving something in the world versus something in the head. In this talk I argue that not only is this a false dichotomy, but more importantly, […]

[…] a theory of politeness is inevitably also a theory of impoliteness, since impoliteness is a non-observance or violation of the constraints of politeness. [Leech 2005: 18] A (im)polidez/(des)cortesia e a agressividade/ violência verbal integram um campo de estudos que tem despertado o interesse de várias áreas de saber, desde a Linguística à Psicologia, da […]

Mostraré aquí cómo los análisis sobre la historia del español en América se han ido desplazando desde la lengua hacia los hablantes, con toda la complejidad que ello implica. Las diversas miradas sobre la génesis de la presencia de la lengua española en la América a lo largo del siglo XX y del XXI, a […]

Proponemos hacer un pequeño recorrido histórico del proyecto Etnopragmática, que se inició en el año 1993 y, a la vez, reflexionar sobre las diferencias que lo caracterizan respecto de otras propuestas basadas, también, en la relación entre el lenguaje y la cultura. Para ilustrar esta perspectiva, vamos a especificar su afinidad con los postulados sobre […]

The potential of speech as a biomarker for health has been realized for diseases affecting respiratory organs, such as the common Cold, or Obstructive Sleep Apnea, for mood disorders such as Depression, and Bipolar Disease, and neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and Huntington’s disease. The recent progress achieved with machine learning methods trained with […]