Daniel Puthawala
Title: Putting Parsing Theories to the test: Investigating Ellipsis and Parsing using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation
Abstract:
This project pilots the use of a psycholinguistic technique, Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP), in an attempt to find a way to break a theoretical deadlock between two competing theories of parsing with respect to Ellipsis. As will be discussed in more detail below, these studies both expect the same kind of results from existing psycholinguistic experimental studies pertaining to ellipsis. In this paper, I make the argument that these studies may, in fact, be misconstruing incremental parsing effect sush as subject confusion due to the lack of sufficient focus cues in self-paced reading tasks as measures of syntactic complexity in the ellipsis site. If RSVP proves a viable experimental technique for controlling for incremental parsing while simulating prosodic focus cues in a similar visual format to the existing body of experimental work, then it will be possible to design an experiment to test the major existing parsing theories of elliptical parsing, and determine which, if either, may be more empirically supported.
Yuhong Zhu
Title: A metrical analysis of light-initial tone sandhi in Suzhou
Abstract:
This paper proposes a metrical analysis of Suzhou checked-tone sandhi patterns. I argue that tone sandhi in Suzhou can be accounted for using two types of trochaic feet, syllabic and moraic trochees. My main claims are:
(i). So-called ‘checked tones’ are synchronically plain short vowels in monomoraic syllables.
(ii). The second syllable can play a role in sandhi patterns, but only following monomoraic/light syllables.
Syllable quantity of the first (strong) syllable causes the relevant sandhi domain to alternate between syllabic and moraic trochees.
This study addresses a key issue in prosodic typology, viz. the interaction of tone, syllable quantity, and metrical structure.
