What is MOTH?

The Montréal-Ottawa-Toronto-Hamilton Syntax Workshop (MOTH) is an annual linguistics workshop dedicated to syntax research. This workshop aims to bring together linguistic graduate students from Central Canada who wish to present their ongoing work on syntax and its interfaces. The locations for MOTH rotate annually. For its 13th run, The Department of Linguistics and Languages and ARiEAL Research Centre at McMaster University is hosting! 

Date: April 11th, 2026

Location: LR Wilson Hall 1057 at McMaster University.

This year's invited speaker is Antonio Fábregas from Norwegian University of Science and Technology! 

Title:  Spanish futures are not evidential, but Spanish has evidentiality

Abstract:  Several recent approaches have argued that Spanish futures encode inferential evidentiality. In this work, I argue through strictly grammatical phenomena that this conclusion is not correct and Spanish futures are modal forms, as previously proposed in many other works. However, the behaviour of the closely related conditional shows that it contrasts with the future in crucial respects, showing that this form is used to encode indirect evidentiality in at least some contexts. I argue that the reason that conditionals, but not futures, have evidential uses is that conditionals morphologically contain imperfective indicative forms. I show that imperfective indicative independently encodes indirect evidentiality in Spanish. Futures are never evidentials because they do not contain imperfective in their structure, and conditionals can be evidential because they contain them.

Personal Website: https://sites.google.com/view/antoniofabregas/home 

Qu’est-ce que MOTH ?

L'atelier de syntaxe Montréal-Ottawa-Toronto-Hamilton (MOTH) est un atelier linguistique annuel dédié à la recherche en syntaxe. Cet atelier vise à rassembler les étudiant.e.s diplômé.e.s en linguistique du centre du Canada qui souhaitent présenter leurs travaux en cours sur la syntaxe et ses interfaces. Les emplacements de MOTH changent chaque année. Pour sa 13e édition, le Département de linguistique et de langues et le Centre de recherche ARiEAL de l'Université McMaster organisent l'évènement ! 

Cette année, MOTH aura lieu la fin de semaine du 11e avril 2026 à l'Université McMaster.

Your MOTH 12 Organizers

Email: mothmcmaster2026@gmail.com