European Union Center

Linguistics Seminar Series: Veneeta Dayal (Yale)

Event Type

Lecture

Sponsor

Department of Linguistics and the School of Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics

Location

LCLB Lucy Ellis Lounge

Date

Nov 3, 2025   4:00 pm  

Views

18

Originating Calendar

Linguistics Event Calendar

Join us for this exciting installment of the Linguistics Seminar Series!

• Talk Title: "The Left Periphery and the Status of Intonation in Grammar"
• Abstract:  In this talk I focus on two puzzles where intonation seems to be critical. 
  Puzzle 1: In languages like Hindi-Urdu, where a dedicated wh expression does not exist, overt 
  disjunction is needed for indirect question interpretation for polar questions.
  However, the disjunctive phrase becomes optional if the embedded question has the rising intonation 
  associated with matrix questions, a case of quasi-subordination in the sense of Dayal (2023).
  Puzzle 2: One view about rhetorical questions is that they are no different from ordinary questions in 
  their syntax and semantics, the different effects arising from the contexts in which they are uttered
  (Rhode 2006, Caponigro and Sprouse 2007). Experimental studies have shown that string identical 
  questions differ between information-seeking and rhetorical-question readings, depending on their 
  intonational contour.
  I build on the proposal about the interrogative left periphery in Dayal (2023), where question meaning is 
  built up incrementally in three steps: clause-typing at CP, centering at PerspP, illocutionary force at SAP. 
  These three steps reveal themselves in different types of embedding. Intonation crucially does not enter 
  the derivation at the level of CP and is not manifested in standard cases of subordination; it does enter at 
  the level of PerspP and is visible in cases of quasi-subordination; it is also present at the level of SAP 
  and manifests itself in matrix questions and questions under quotation. 
  The question I ask in this talk is the following: is there a way to formally represent the role of intonation 
  at the left periphery that does justice to the power it seems to have over the interfaces