Maria Polinsky, Harvard University

“Does English Have Resumptive Pronouns?”

 Co-sponsored by the Linguistics Program and the UK Department of English

Venue: Niles Gallery, Fine Arts Library

This seminar aims to present the major structural features of the Rusyn language ­(phonological and morphological) that make it what it is: it is East Slavic, related to but not the same as Ukrainian, and also something special, almost a bridge between East and West Slavic. That something special is in great part attributable to long contact with other languages and their speakers, but also to certain linguistic innovations that are not identifiable simply as the result of borrowing from other languages.

"Contact-Induced Drift: Ergative Splits and Parallel Development in Lowland Mayan Languages"