Dear all,
Regular talk next week
The next regular ComSyn talk, which is a shared talk with LUSH, will be on
Thursday 11 Nov, 16:15-17:30. It will be an in-person talk in the regular
location: Lipsius 207. Our speaker is Halima Husić (Ruhr-Universität Bochum),
who will speak on event nominals. All details, including title and abstract,
are included below.
Extra talk: Location
As announced earlier this week, there is also an extra ComSyn talk tomorrow:
Friday 5 Nov, 11:15-12:45, by Ur Shlonsky (University of Geneva). The location
is Lipsius 208.
We hope to see you tomorrow and next week!
Best wishes,
Lis & Maarten (ComSyn organizers)
Speaker: Halima Husić (Ruhr-Universität Bochum)
Title: Individuation and Countability of Event Nominals
Date: Thursday 11 November
Venue: Lipsius 207
Abstract: Derived nominals which carry an eventive meaning have been thoroughly
discussed in syntax and semantics with respect to a variety of phenomena
including verbal/nominal properties, argument structure, aspectual properties,
or polysemy. Considering nominal properties, such as pluralization, the issue
shifts to the count/mass distinction and the need to determine whether such
event nominals are count or mass. In this regard, several theories have been
put forward arguing that aspectual properties or the argument structure drive
the countability of such nominals. Thorough corpora studies have shown,
however, that the issue is not as clear-cut as assumed. On the contrary, event
nominals are subject to great variation. In my thesis I investigated 200
de-predicated nouns in COCA and identified generalizations regarding the
distinctive features that drive countability in event nominals and meaning
shifts which result in a change of countability as well. In this presentation
we will look into different ways of individuating event nominals and how these
cases differ from ordinary counting constructions. We will show that the
distinction between individuation and countability is essential in
understanding how the count/mass distinction is manifested in eventive nominals.
