Second language development can be viewed as a complex and dynamic process in which learners follow non-linear trajectories and develop their language over a period of time (Larsen-Freeman, 2006). Intrinsic to the view of Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST), a system is composed of hierarchical, interdependent subcomponents (learner, learner language, and environment) in dynamic relation...
1 week ago
Nearly overnight, we found ourselves adapting to a new normal: constantly worrying about loved ones, balancing life-at-home, and teaching and learning in “Brady Bunch” boxes. At first, I must admit, it was alarming. We all thought it: If cameras and videos are off, are the students even there? And more importantly, are students learning? ...
1 week ago
This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about one of our students who has disclosed to my CT (Cooperating Teacher) that she has been living on her own for the past two semesters and works full time to support herself. Due to her work schedule, she goes through periods of time when she is unable to attend classes, and other periods of time when she can. She asked my CT to reach out to her oth...
1 week ago
I see Y reading the comments her teacher left on her paper. She uses Google Translate to add perfectly spelled words clarifying a detail about her grandmother’s aspiration to become literate. At least this is how I imagine Y to have prepared her college essay. I have not met Y. But I am certain that she never expected her writing to be the focus of a teachers’ planning meeting. 1 week ago
With or without cameras on, my students always feel out of reach to me. There is a screen--and a few boroughs, in some cases even states or countries--between us. I can’t tell how they’re feeling; I can’t watch their faces or their hands as they work on a piece for our writing class. The whole enterprise has started to feel epistolary. I am never sure if my recipient is going ...
1 week ago
The few existing accounts of the semantics of ordinal numbers attribute to them all or almost all of the semantic properties of superlatives. This work discusses a construction problematic for existing theories of ordinals: the ordinal superlative construction (e.g. Joel climbed the third highest mountain). Existing theories give ordinals and superlatives such similar semantics that they s...
1 week ago
Xiang (2021) notes the following puzzle: plural wh-questions involving certain collective predicates are predicted to carry a uniqueness presupposition (Dayal 1996), yet intuitively they don’t (cf. Gentile & Schwarz 2020). She proposes that such questions have ‘higher-order readings’ (Spector 2007, 2008), and crucially that they have answers naming boolean conjunctions. I show that f...
1 week ago
This paper is an attempt at a synthesis of two superficially conflicting approaches to non-maximality: the issue-based approach (Malamud 2012, Križ 2015, Križ & Spector 2021 a.o.), which generates clear-cut truth conditions once the issue parameter has been fixed, and the strict/tolerant approach (Burnett 2017 a.o.), on which non-maximal construals involve vagueness. I argue that there a...
1 week ago
Some sentences with presupposition triggers can be felicitously uttered when their presuppositions are not entailed by the context, whereas others are infelicitous in such environments, a phenomenon known as Missing Accommodation / Informative Presupposition or varying Contextual Felicity Constraints (CFCs). Despite an abundance of recent quantitative work on presuppositions, this aspect o...
1 week ago
This paper explores seemingly puzzling subject-verb agreement patterns with Finnish numeral noun constructions (NNCs, e.g. three birds) in subject position, which can occur with singular or plural verbs. This alternation is not predicted by current theories. Building on properties of Finnish independent of NNCs, I argue that the Finnish data can be reconciled with prior analyses if we anal...
1 week ago