Movie screening, 3/11 — Tote/Abuelo (“Grandfather”)
SLUM along with Carol-Rose’s “Languages of the World” course are screening Tote/Abuelo (or “Grandfather”) on March 11th at 8pm, followed by a talk and Q&A with the documentary’s director, María Sojob. The documentary is in Tsotsil and Spanish, with subtitles in English and will be shown over zoom.
Synopsis: In a last attempt to get closer to her only grandfather, María seeks to understand how love is lived in her Tsotsil culture, trying to unite her two worlds.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=412EOJKAbdA
Registration link: Registration link for Tote/Abuelo March 11th, 8pm: https://mcgill.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIlcuCgqTMtH9OGDI2-bLoOV2iRDKpHZuAD
SLUM + LING 215 presents: Menashe — 2/11
SLUM, together with Carol-Rose Little’s LING 215 (Languages of the World) class will be showing their first movie, Menashe in Yiddish with subtitles in English. Zoë Belk and Eli Benedict will provide a commentary and Q&A after the movie. The showing begins at 8pm EST on Thursday, February 11th and will be streamed over Zoom.
Link to register for Menashe: https://mcgill.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcsc-yurzIrHddEEz-Pqc8vfxQMSFGZR8aZ
Synopsis of Menashe: A year after his wife’s death, a widower faces pressure from his Hasidic community to give up his son for adoption unless he finds a new partner.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83UoZcdX__Y
SLUM+LING 215 Linguistics movie nights
The SLUM, together with Carol-Rose Little’s LING 215 (Languages of the World) class, are hosting three upcoming virtual movie nights, featuring movies in Yiddish, Tsotsil, and Haida. See poster below for details! Registration links in the poster are not clickable in this blog post, but are:
- Menashe – https://mcgill.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcsc-yurzIrHddEEz-Pqc8vfxQMSFGZR8aZ
- Tote/Abuelo – https://mcgill.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIlcuCgqTMtH9OGDI2-bLoOV2iRDKpHZuAD
- Edge of the Knife – https://mcgill.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIkd-yrrj8vEt3zOtJHpzynRB658l37Pn4S
McGill Linguists Save World
A number of us represented linguists at Marche Mondiale Climate Alarm/La Planete s’invite au Parlement last Saturday in Montreal. A report of the day can be found here.
Some pictures of the event were taken. Thanks Vanna and Michael!
In this photo (left to right) is Jason Borga, Emily KL, Tim O’Donnell, Jacob Hoover, and Mathieu Paillé.
In this pic, Michael’s kids have also something to say!
Beginning-of-year picnic
All McGill linguists, plus family and friends, are invited to our annual Beginning-of-Year picnic, to be held this year Sunday September 6th at noon at Parc Laurier in the Plateau. The picnic will be potluck style: please bring some some kind of dish and perhaps something to drink. Hope to see you all there!
Jonathan Bobaljik “Dependent Case and Case-Dependent Agreement” workshop, 1/29
McLing is pleased to announce that Jonathan Bobaljik will be visiting Montreal next week, sponsored by the Concordia LSA and McSIRG.
What: Mini workshop: “Dependent Case and Case-dependent Agreement” (presenting in part joint work with Mark Baker)
Coordinates: Thursday January 29th, 5:30–7pm in Linguistics 117; to be followed by a dinner reception in the Linguistics Lounge
In this tutorial/workshop, we’ll work through some of the evidence for treating case on an NPs as primarily reflecting syntactic configuration (transitivity / whether there is another NP in the same domain, Marantz 1991, Baker to appear) rather than by a relationship to a designated functional head (as in Chomsky 1981 et seq). Time and audience interest permitting, we will look at some of the following:
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critical examination of arguments that ergative case is ‘inherent’ (tied to a theta-role assigning head)
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arguments that case and agreement are not ‘two sides of the same coin’ but are distinct grammatical operations
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arguments that agreement depends (imperfectly) on case (Bobaljik 2008, Baker 2008), with attention to putative counter-examples
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different distribution of ‘active’ patterns in case vs. agreement (and the implications of this for the questions above)
Please RSVP to Jessica if you are interested in attending.
Information for the colloquium at Concordia is as follows:
Sasha Simonenko’s Dissertation Party
Sasha Simonenko successfully defended her dissertation on Friday 4. A party was held at Bernhard and Junko’s place to celebrate the event and, as usual, McLing reporters were in attendance to bring you some pictures.
Congratulations, Sasha!
- Sasha and Bernhard
- Everybody looking in a different direction
- So… tell me about direct referentiality…
- Sasha, James, Henrison and three ghosts
Zimmermannfest!
Following Thomas Ede Zimmermann’s colloquium talk last Friday, there was a party at Junko and Bernhard’s place. In the interest of our readership, McLing reporters rushed to the scene and came back with some pictures proving that, once more, good food, good company and interesting conversations go together.
- The team at work
- Yulia and Liz discussing the virtues of model theory
- The crowd, discussing Tarki’s truth definition.
- So… meaning postulates are cool, after all.
- Let’s see. Mr. X might be here or there.
- Ede is looking for a unicorn.
- Yes, there are 75 ball bearings that Mats owns me.
Pictures from Student Open House Party
Last Thursday, our current graduate students organized a party for the admitted students as part of our Open House. Many thanks to those who helped organize the evening. We hope to see some familiar faces in the coming school year!
(Photos courtesy of Yuliya Manyakina)
Pictures from the post-colloquium dinner
After Alan Yu’s colloquium on Friday, students, faculty, and alums made the trek to Petite Patrie for Indian food and homemade dessert, courtesy of Dan, Maayan, and Morgan. A good time was had by all. Some pictures, from Dan :
Language Exchange: Russian, 11/14 – RUSS and SLUM
Thursday, Nov. 14, 5:30-7:00
688 Sherbrooke, Room 495
SLUM’s second Language Exchange event will be happening this Thursday. This time we will be joined by the Russian Undergraduate Students’ Society, who will be talking a bit about the Russian language, Old Church Slavonic, the Cyrillic alphabet, and more. All are welcome and Russian-themed snacks will be provided.
Rajesh Bhatt’s visit
As we previously announced, Rajesh Bhatt visited the department to give a talk at the Syntax/Semantics Reading Group and a presentation in LING 417. McLing reporters attended both events and brought with them some pictures to share with you.
Apple picking re-scheduled
Where: Parc National du Mont-Saint-Bruno
330 Rang des Vingt Cinq Est
Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, QC
J3V 4P6
450-653-7544
the cost per adult is $6.00, children from 6 to 17 years are $2.75, and children under 6 years are free. This park offers apple picking, picnic tables (if anyone is interested), as well as a hiking trail. Everyone attending will meet in the parking lot behind the Linguistics Building at 10:00 am on Sunday the 6th.
Andria has posted a sign-up sheet in the photocopy room (109). If you are interested in attending, please sign-up by Friday, September 27th at noon. If you are planning on taking your car and have space for others, please indicate this on the sign-up sheet.
Hope to see you all there!
Apple picking on September 28th
What: Apple picking excursion!
When: Saturday September 28th
Where: Parc National du Mont-Saint-Bruno
330 Rang des Vingt Cinq Est
Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, QC
J3V 4P6
450-653-7544
This year’s apple picking excursion will take place on Saturday, September 28th at Parc National du Mont-Saint-Bruno; the cost per adult is $6.00, children from 6 to 17 years are $2.75, and children under 6 years are free. This park offers apple picking, picnic tables (if anyone is interested), as well as a hiking trail. Last year, we had to cancel due to weather, but this year the forecast looks sunny!
Everyone attending will meet in the parking lot behind the Linguistics Building at 10:00 am on Saturday the 28th.
Andria has posted a sign-up sheet in the photocopy room (109). If you are interested in attending ,please sign-up by Friday, September 20th at noon. If you are planning on taking your car and have space for others ,please indicate this on the sign-up sheet.
Hope to see you all there!
McGill Linguistics team at Terry Fox Run/Walk for cancer research

Departmental picnic – 9/7 at 12pm
Let’s celebrate the beginning of the academic year with an informal picnic!
When: Saturday, September 7th, 12 pm
Where: Parc La Fontaine http://goo.gl/maps/oHqmf (Well-served by public transportation: e.g., Buses #11, #24, #29, #97, #144; Metro Sherbrooke or Metro Mont-Royal)
What: Bring your own food and drink (as well as plates, cups, utensils, etc); sharing is encouraged! Balls, boules/bocce, frisbees, badminton rackets, jumping ropes, or any other games are welcome.
We’ll try to find picnic tables in the area just east of Avenue Calixa Lavalee (which runs north-south in the middle of the park), and south of the volleyball courts and the grey city building; it’s more or less in the center of the park (and the same place as last year).
All are welcome! You can find photos from previous years here.
Pictures from Friday night’s dinner
The dinner party after Kai von Fintel’s colloquium last Friday was a a lot of fun. Special thanks to Oriana, Sasha and Sepideh for making this party a possibility. Here are some pictures taken by Bernhard.