Events

Prof. Dr Michal Starke (Masaryk University): "Cutting French verbs and gluing them back together".

Abstract: Descriptively, French has many "irregular" verbs, as well as a mildly complex combination of suffixes on verbs. I aim to show that both irregular verbs and the combination of verbal suffixes follow a regular underlying system, and that this system can be elegantly derived by using phrasal spellout, the elsewhere principle and the functional sequence provided by syntax.

Jack Lynch (Rutgers University): Shakespeare Forger and Cretan Liar : Puzzling over William Henry Ireland

I discuss the challenges of using bibliographical evidence to tell the truth about someone who was almost always lying. Most of our evidence about the life of William Henry Ireland is books and manuscripts that have passed through his hands -- but he was such a compulsive and pathological liar that anything he said must be doubted and anything he touched is suspect. The result is a strange version of the Cretan Liar's Paradox, in which we're forced to glean the truth from documents that refuse to give it.