[PLing] Jezik & Linguistic colloquium series: Deniz Özyıldız, June 4 @ 13pm

[Jezik&Linguistics Colloquia]

Dear all,

We are pleased to invite you to the next event in the Jezik & Linguistics
Colloquium series, which will take place on *Thursday, 4 June, at 13:00
CEST*, in classroom P7 in the Kompas building in Rožna Dolina. You can also
join via Zoom
<https://ungsi.zoom.us/j/64991526498?pwd=hwxlPSVBIZbdkwqBqQk8Eb2MHqaE38.1>.

*Deniz Özyıldız* (University of Stuttgart) will give a talk titled *“How to
embed polar questions in Akan”* (joint work with Jeanne Lecavelier,
University of Potsdam).

*Abstract:*

This talk focuses on embedded polar questions in Akan (Kwa, Ghana), which
has a single complementizer "sɛ".  This complementizer introduces
declaratives and interrogatives alike, in (1a) and (1b) respectively.

(1) a. Ama susu sɛ Mike dii nkonim.
Ama thinks sɛ Mike ate victory
Ama thinks that Mike won.

b. Ama bisaa sɛ Mike dii nkonim.
Ama asked sɛ Mike ate victory
Ama asked whether Mike won.

Some verbs, like English "know", are compatible with declarative and with
interrogative complements ("x knows that/whether p"). We might then expect
sentences like (2), where the verb "nim" translates "know", to be ambiguous
between embedded declarative and interrogative readings. But this is not
what we find: (2) has an embedded declarative reading but not an embedded
interrogative one.

(2) Ama nim sɛ Mike dii nkonim.
Ama knows sɛ Mike ate victory
a. Available: Ama knows that Mike won.
b. Unavailable: Ama knows whether Mike won.

Polar question embedding under verbs like "nim" requires alternative
strategies, despite the fact that "sɛ" clauses do, in general, introduce
them, e.g., in (1b). The talk will focus on why the intended reading is
absent in (2), and on the different polar question embedding strategies
that Akan has to offer, including with "nim".

This is all important for methodological and empirical reasons (How to
elicit sentences with embedded polar questions at all?) as well as for
theoretical ones. Embedded polar questions have been taken as the gold
standard in some theorizing about clause embedding (Egré 2008), as they
can't be mistaken for free relatives and do not exhibit exhaustivity
effects. But, there are also severe semantic and pragmatic restrictions on
their distribution (Adger & Quer 2001, Paillé & Schwarz 2019) and
intriguing questions about their force and form (McCloskey 2006, Woods
2016, Bhatt & Dayal 2020, a.o.).


We hope to see you there!

Best,

Artem Novozhilov, on behalf of the linguistics community at the University
of Nova Gorica
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