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UID:16758-63bdb2aebbf74b7dc12b9f774697dd17@events.la.psu.edu
DTSTAMP:20260307T144346Z
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251205T090000
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SUMMARY:Deborah Morton, Frances Blanchette, and Madison Gillner
DESCRIPTION:\nTerms like anything and anymore have long fascinated lingu
ists. One of the central properties of interest is their apparent relian
ce on particular semantic contexts\, such as negation. For example\, the
re is a clear difference between the sentence “I didn’t see anything” an
d “I saw anything”\, the latter of which is unattested and may be judged
unacceptable by English users. Why would these terms be reliant on cont
exts such as negation in this way? Further complicating the picture\, th
ere is variation across dialects in the use and acceptability of the ter
m anymore. For most English users\, this term behaves similarly to anyth
ing in preferring to occur in contexts like negation. However\, some Eng
lish users in particular regions\, such as Central PA\, can use sentence
s like “Football is more popular than baseball anymore”\, with anymore o
ccurring in an apparently positive context—so-called “positive anymore”.
In this talk\, we use theoretical and experimental tools to explore the
distribution of terms like anything and anymore\, and to understand why
anymore—a time adverbial phrase—displays this type of regional variatio
n while anything does not. We further touch on broader issues related to
the utility of formal modeling in understanding lexical semantics and s
emantic variation.\n\nFor more details: https://events.la.psu.edu/event/
deborah-morton-frances-blanchette-and-madison-gillner/
X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:Terms like anyt
hing and anymore have long fascinated linguists. One of the central prop
erties of interest is their apparent reliance on particular semantic con
texts, such as negation. For example, there is a clear difference betwee
n the sentence “I didn’t see anything” and “I saw anything”, the latter
of which is unattested and may be judged unacceptable by English users.
Why would these terms be reliant on contexts such as negation in this wa
y? Further complicating the picture, there is variation across dialects
in the use and acceptability of the term anymore. For most English users
, this term behaves similarly to anything in preferring to occur in cont
exts like negation. However, some English users in particular regions, s
uch as Central PA, can use sentences like “Football is more popular than
baseball anymore”, with anymore occurring in an apparently positive con
text—so-called “positive anymore”. In this talk, we use theoretical and
experimental tools to explore the distribution of terms like anything an
d anymore, and to understand why anymore—a time adverbial phrase—display
s this type of regional variation while anything does not. We further to
uch on broader issues related to the utility of formal modeling in under
standing lexical semantics and semantic variation.
For more detail
s: https://events.la.psu.edu/event/deborah-mort
on-frances-blanchette-and-madison-gillner/
URL:https://cls.la.psu.edu/news-events/cls-speaker-series/
LOCATION:102 Foster Auditorium, Paterno Library
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