The event will be held via Zoom: https://ubc.zoom.us/j/69594923041?pwd=dzlsSXZlUDZPVzJ6b0R6Z2MxbWYvZz09 (Meeting ID: 695 9492 3041 | Passcode: 269834). Dr. Maria Polinsky (University of Maryland) is the featured speaker for the joint UBC and SFU LinguisticsNOW colloquium. She will present a talk entitled, “Though these be exceptions, yet there is method in them”.
Abstract: Natural language allows us to express universal statements, and languages also have means of expressing exceptions to such generalizations, via exceptive constructions. English examples include “Everybody but Sandy laughed” and “Everybody laughed except Sandy”. Linguistic means of expressing exclusion have received modest attention from philosophers of language and semanticists, whose focus has been primarily on English. Beyond that small body of work, little is known about exceptive constructions across the world’s languages: how they are built, what their distribution is within and across languages, and how they compare to other constructions expressing comparison or contrast. In this paper, I present and analyze the expression of exception in several natural languages with the overarching goal of defining the range of variation in exceptives. I address the structural contrast between free and connected exceptives, phrasal and clausal exceptives, and coordinated and subordinated exceptives. I conclude by a series of open questions: general issues of ellipsis, the acquisition of exceptive constructions, the predictability of different types of exceptive constructions on independent principles, and case marking in exceptive phrases.