Lectures – Discovering Linguistics — Linguistic Discoveries

Programme 2024/25

Since 2022/23, we changed the way DLLD works. We now invite one lecturer per semester to give three lectures (two online, one on campus) on different aspects of their work. The focus is on the journey they take to find what they’re searching.

Semester 1 2024/2025: Pritty Patel-Grosz (Oslo): From Linguistics to Super Linguistics

More information soon!

31 October 2024: Cross-linguistic inquiry at the syntax semantics interface (online)
08 November 2024: Expanding linguistics as a science: dance (online)
22 November 2024: The search for universal primate gestural meanings (online)

Semester 2 2024/2025: Silvio Cruschina (Helsinki): Incorporating variation in syntactic theory

In this lecture series we will deal with the approaches and research methods that incorporate variation in syntactic theory. The first two lectures will be online through Zoom and will focus on some core assumptions of Generative Grammar about its object of study and the source of data. In the third session, which will be on campus, we will look at how the study of the interfaces between syntax and other components of the grammar (semantics, pragmatics, and prosody) can help us answer our research questions about syntactic variation. A common thread through all lectures is the perspective and methodological changes that have characterized the generative investigation in recent decades, which have also shaped my career and ‘journey’ as a linguist.

20 Februari 2025: When the answer you seek is within you: Syntactic theory and introspection (online)

In this session, we will discuss some fundamental tenets of Generative Grammar: since the object of the investigation is the competence of the speaker, intuitions or judgments provide the necessary evidence for the phenomena that are to be explained by the theory of grammar. In fact, the use of introspection and grammaticality judgements also characterized my early work on focus and syntactic variation.

03 April 2025: Numbers matter: Quantitative and experimental studies (online)

Starting from the 1990s, attempts have been made to combine the focus on variation with an interest in more naturalistic and complex data, moving away from the initial tendency to analyse idealized data. The focus of this lecture will be on these new approaches, which have resulted not only in the adoption of quantitative and experimental methods of investigation, but also in a systematic focus on different types of speakers in a diversity of contexts such as multilingualism and language contact.

08 May 2025: Reinforcements arrive! Syntax and its interfaces with meanings and sounds (on-site)

In this final lecture, we will look at the advantages of bringing interfaces into the study of syntactic variation (including microvariation). Indeed, syntactic phenomena of variation can be better understood and explained if semantic properties, pragmatic differences or prosodic distinctions are taken into account. We’ll focus on specific case studies from Italian and Italian dialects (e.g. question particles, wh-questions, and focus types).