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Sabine Laszakovits

[saˈb̥iːnə la'sakovit͜ʃ]

Updates

October 19–21, 2018
I'll present a talk "On possessed relative clauses in Kyrgyz" at WAFL 14.
August 11–12, 2018
I'll present a talk "Case Theory in Minimalist Grammars" at Formal Grammar 23.
May 2018
I've passed my Qualifying Exams.
March 2–4, 2018
I've presented a talk "On the Difference Between Turkic Possessors and Subjects" at ConCALL-3. My abstract has been awarded a $300 student travel stipend.
Fall 2017 – Spring 2018
I'm part of the Binational Bimodal Bilingual project.
Summer 2017
Fieldwork in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

What I do

I'm a Ph.D. student of linguistics at UConn.
Previously, I've studied linguistics and computer science in Vienna, Austria.

I work on theoretical and mathematical syntax, and I'm especially interested in Turkic languages and fieldwork on less-familiar languages. See below for a list of topics I've worked on.

Download my full CV   (January 2018)

Projects

Please email me for copies of non-linked attachments.

I'm always looking forward to receiving comments. Please don't hesitate to reach out!

A formal account of Dependent Case Theory
I formalize DCT into Minimalist Grammars (Stabler 1997) with MSO-constraints on derivation trees (Graf 2013), and I argue that a formalization based on licensing by covert movement is not possible as it increases the complexity class of natural language. I provide a formalism that allows to circumvent this problem (to suspend the SMC) without incurring this blow-up in complexity.
  • Manuscript, May 2018.
  • Formal Grammar 23 in Sofia, Bulgaria — August 11–12, 2018.
    • Proceedings paper, to appear.
German impersonal passives
German has passives that retain accusative case and must receive a generic interpretation. I argue that they are impersonal actives.
  • Manuscript, May 2017.
Turkish nominalized clauses
I argue against possessor raising in Turkic based on differences in the distribution of genitive case in possessors vs subjects of relative clauses.
  • ConCALL-3 at Indiana University, Bloomington, IN (talk) — March 2–4, 2018.
  • WAFL 14 at MIT, Cambridge, MA (talk) — October 19–21, 2018.
I analyze clause-type triggered differential subject marking in Turkish by arguing that factive nominalized argument clauses are complex NPs with a silent head noun.
  • TU+2 at Indiana University, Bloomington, IN (poster, cancelled) — Nov 19–20, 2016.
  • ConSOLE 25 in Leipzig, Germany (talk) — Jan 4–6, 2017.
The real(is) distinction in before- and after-clauses.
(with Marcin Dadan, Kadir Gökgöz, Jayeon Park, Yongsuk Yoo)
We compare before- and after-clauses in German, French, Japanese, Polish, Korean, and Turkish. We provide a uniform analysis for the different morphological strategies these languages use to mark before clauses. We argue that the intra-language differences between before and after are due to different selectional properties for mood, which stems from realis vs. irrealis presuppositions.
  • GLOW 39 in Göttingen, Germany (poster) — Apr 5–7, 2016.
  • FASL 25 at Cornell University, NY (talk) — May 13–15, 2016.
    • Proceedings paper, to appear.
Turkish polar question particle
Based on evidence from conditionals I argue that the question particle "mI" triggers movement of the focused constituent.
The German relative pronoun "welch-" is an agreeing complementizer.
(with Dalina Kallulli)
  • CGG 24 in Madrid, Spain (talk) — May 28–29, 2014.
  • RALFe at Paris 8, France (talk) — Oct 9–10, 2014.
    • Handout
Turkish accusative as topic marker.
  • ÖSKL 6 in Vienna, Austria (talk) — Nov 30–Dec 1, 2013.

Contact

The best way to reach me is by email. (I don't check my Facebook account regularly.)

You can write to me in English or German or French. I can read Turkish and SerBoCroatian, but I'll struggle to compose a response.

My preferred pronouns are she/her/hers.