Two dissertation proposals in one week! (Liz Coppock last Tuesday and Doug Ball today) That's a record. Did you first-years know that we take attendance at dissertation proposals?

It appears that Lauren Hall-Lew narrowly escaped merger with a certain Lauren Squires at the recent Interdisciplinary Conference on Culture, Language, and Social Practice hosted by CU-Boulder. Check out the near encounter HERE.

Welcome back to Diane Jakubowski, who is started today as a member of the department staff. Diane is going to replace Gretchen while she's away on maternity leave.

Quote of the Week: `You all remember my beautiful donkeys...' uttered by Adrian Brasoveanu during last Friday's seminar.

Rumor has it that Elizabeth Traugott is off to Freiburg to teach for a few weeks. More about that as we find out details...

Chizuru Ito is giving a paper at the upcoming 17th Japanese Korean Linguistics Conference being hosted by UCLA. Her paper is titled: Argument Unification and Sharing: The Syntax of the Quasi-Existential Construction.

Like many of you we used to believe that birds are stupid. But we have found some disturbing evidence to the contrary: HERE.

These are called 'imponderables'... (I'm still wondering why)

• I planted some bird seed. A bird came up. Now I don't know what to feed it.
• I had amnesia once -- or twice.
• I went to San Francisco. I found someone's heart. Now what?
• Protons have mass? I didn't even know they were Catholic.
• All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
• If the world were a logical place, men would be the ones who ride horses sidesaddle.
• What is a "free" gift? Aren't all gifts free?
• They told me I was gullible and I believed them.
• Teach a child to be polite and courteous in the home and, when he grows up, he'll never be able to merge his car onto the freeway.
• Experience is the thing you have left when everything else is gone.
• One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people.
• My weight is perfect for my height -- which varies.
• I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not sure.
• The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity.
• How can there be self-help "groups"?
• If swimming is so good for your figure, how do you explain whales?
• Show me a man with both feet firmly on the ground, and I'll show you a man who can't get his pants off.
• Is it just me--or do buffalo wings taste like chicken?

For events farther in the future consult the Upcoming Events Page.

• FRIDAY, 2 NOVEMBER

  • Speech Lunch

    Speaker: Laura Staum-Casasanto
    12:00

  • Department Colloquium

    Doug Ball
    Clause Structure and Argument Realization in Tongan: Evidence from Clitics (Dissertation Proposal Talk)
    3:30 PM, MJH Room 126

  • Berkeley Linguistic Anthropology Working Group

    Marco Jacquemet (University of San Francisco)
    Transidiomatic Confusion: Communicative Breakdowns in Asylum-seekers' Hearings
    4-6PM, Gifford Room, Berkeley

  • UCSC Linguistics Colloquium

    Jon Sprouse (UC Irvine)
    Acceptability, grammaticality, and the role of experimental syntax
    4:30PM, Silverman Conference Room, Stevenson College

  • Memorial Lecture for Richard Rorty

    Juergen Habermas
    "' And to define America, her athletic democracy...'
    Richard Rorty: Philosopher and Language-Shaper"
    5 PM in Cubberley Auditorium
    Sponsored by the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages

  • Weeky Social!

    5:00 in the department lounge.
  
  
• MONDAY, 5 NOVEMBER
  

  • Stanford Phonology Workshop

    Anne Pycha (UC Berkeley)
    Title TBA
    3:15 PM, Linguistics Chair's office, MJH

  • CSLI Reading Group on Logic and Language

    "A study of machine translation and its possible relations with logic"
    Reading List
    4:00 PM, Cordura 104


• THURSDAY, 8 NOVEMBER
  

  • CSLI CogLunch

    Keith Devlin (CSLI) (the NPR 'Math Guy')
    "Two kinds of math - and how to teach them"
    12:00 PM, Cordura Hall 100

  • Stanford Psychology of Language Tea (SPLaT!)

    Laura Staum Casasanto
    Using Social Information in Sentence Processing
    5:15 cheese and crackers; 5:30 talk
    MJH 126


• FRIDAY, 9 NOVEMBER

  • Speech Lunch

    Speaker: Lauren Hall-Lew
    12:00

  • Construction of Meaning Workshop

    Mirella Lapata (University of Edinburgh)
    Modeling Local Coherence
    3:30 PM, MJH Room 126

  • Weeky Social!

    5:00 in the department lounge.
  
  
• UPCOMING EVENTS (always under construction)
• LINGUISTIC DEPARTMENT EVENTS PAGE
• Got broader interests? The New Sesquipedalian recommends reading or even subscribing to the CSLI Calendar, available HERE.
• WHAT'S HAPPENING AT UC SANTA CRUZ?
  
• WHAT'S GOING ON AT UC BERKELEY?
  

The Stanford Blood Center is reporting a shortage of O-, O+, A-, A+, B-, and AB-. For an appointment: http://bloodcenter.stanford.edu/ or call 650-723-7831. It only takes an hour of your time and you get free cookies. The Blood Center is also raising money for a new bloodmobile.

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