Michal Starke (Masaryk University)

Much of the research in Nanosyntax has centered on morpho-syntax, showing that a principled universal algorithm allows an explanatory approach to this domain. This is done with tools traditionally associated with syntax: last-resort movement, pied-piping, the functional sequence, etc. Less discussed is the fact that the same algorithm applies in traditional syntactic domains, often allowing a new angle on well-known phenomena. These lectures will start by discussing such cases. Even less discussed is the fact that Nanosyntactic work has implications for the theory of formal semantics. The second part of the lectures will be an exploratory foray into those implications, sketching a different approach to the (compositional) semantics enterprise.

Pavel Caha

Furkan Dikmen (Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS, UMR7320: BCL)

This course explores what morphosyntactic form can tell us about natural language ontology and semantic composition. It focuses on cases where morphology obscures distinctions relevant for interpretation, including many-to-one form–meaning mappings and mismatches between morphological marking and semantic content. It asks whether such patterns reflect only variation in the expression of a stable set of semantic distinctions, whether they provide evidence about which distinctions grammar encodes and how universal those distinctions are across languages.

Heather Newell (Université du Québec à Montréal)

This class will focus on how different morphosyntactic analyses impact what the interface and the phonology are called upon to explain, as well as how different phonological analyses impact what the morphosyntax is called upon to explain. We will discuss how DM and Nanosyntax may differ in their predictions regarding phonological domains, and how underspecified autosegmental underlying representations of vocabulary items compare to allomorphic and readjustment rule analyses of surface variation. Phenomena to be discussed include pronominal and verbal syntax, allomorphy, and phonology.

Anastasiia Vyshnevska