Lauren Friedman’s Honors Thesis received the Virginia Voss award from the Honors Program and the Matt Alexander Prize from the Linguistics Department due to its outstanding quality.

The thesis, entitled “The loss of Old English Null Expletive hit/it“, explores the loss of the null expletive it, or rather the changes that led to the requirement of an overt expletive hit/it in constructions which lack an overt thematic subject in Spec, IP of a clause. From the descriptions and analyses of OE considered in this study, along with an analysis of EPP (Extended Projection Principle) properties in OE (Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou 1998, Holmberg 2005, Jaeggli & Safir 1989), the thesis argues that OE is in stage 3: null true expletive it is possible across paradigms while null thematic and null quasi-arguments are restricted in use.  Additionally, I contend that despite the possibility for null subjects in OE, the EPP is checked is checked by Move XP (i.e. insertion of an overt category in the subject [Spec, IP] position).

Lauren has been an active member of the department and the undergraduate club over the last several years. She leaves the University of Michigan to attend graduate school in Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Congratulations and good luck, Lauren!

Vera Irwin has been awarded a dissertation writing fellowship from the Sweetland Writing Center.

Congratulations, Vera!

Eric Brown has been received a FLAS fellowship from the Center for Southeast Asian Studies to continue his work on Thai.

Congratuations, Eric!

Brook Hefright has received a Fullbright Fellowship to conduct fieldwork on language contact and ethnic identity among the Bai people of Yunan Province, China.

Congratulations Brook!!

Cati Fortin was named as a 2008 recipient of the highly competitive Distinguished Dissertation Award.

Cati’s dissertation, “Indonesian sluicing and verb phrase ellipsis: Description and explanation in a minimalist framework” investigates two elliptical phenomena, sluicing and verb phrase ellipsis (VPE), in Indonesian. The dissertation is equally concerned with description and formal analysis, and provides the first in-depth description and generative analysis of both Indonesian sluicing and VPE.

Cati is currently a visiting assistant professor in syntax at Carleton College.

Congratulations. Cati!!

The College of Literature, Science and the Arts has recommended that Acrisio Pires be promoted to Associate Professor with tenure.

This is an outstanding accomplishment and wonderful news.

Congratulations, Acrisio!!

Susan Lin was honored with the Rackham Graduate School’s Outstanding GSI Award for 2007-08.

Congratulations Susan!!