The 21th edition of the ACTL Summer School will take place at the University of York on Monday 30 June – Friday 4 July 2025.
Invited Lecturers and Topics
Note: To encourage discussion across traditional subfields, we opted for no parallel sessions for this edition of ACTL.
Phonology: Andrew Lamont (University College London) – Phonological locality
Psycholinguistics: Matt Husband (University of Oxford) – Prediction in language comprehension
Semantics: Victoria Noble (University of York) – Mass, Count, Collectives, Singulatives
Syntax: Imke Driemel (University of York) – Locality in Syntax
Details of Courses
Phonological locality – Andrew Lamont (University College London)
This course presents an overview of phonological locality in terms of phonotactics and mappings. We will first introduce formal definitions of locality from recent computational / mathematical work. The course will then survey how different frameworks implement restrictions on locality and to what extent they are successful.
Prediction in language comprehension – Matt Husband (University of Oxford)
What does it mean to say that comprehenders predict upcoming input during sentence processing and what are the consequences of such predictive processes? This course addresses these questions from the viewpoints of both theory and experimental evidence, exploring the history of predictive mechanisms in psycholinguistics and more current trends in the field. The consequences of different perspectives on prediction end up having deep consequences for how we pursue the science of language comprehension, and time permitting, we will turn our attention to what the future may hold for the field.
Mass, Count, Collectives, Singulatives – Victoria Noble (University of York)
This course will explore different countability systems across languages. We will look at three different types of languages:
- number marking languages, which have a typical singular plural distinction and typical count/mass distinction (e.g. English),
- generalised classifier languages, which do not have typical singular/plural systems, and where the count/mass distinction is at the level of the classifier (e.g. Mandarin Chinese)
- singulative languages, which have a typical singular/plural system and also a collective/singulative system (e.g. Welsh and Arabic)
The class will cover which countability features are fundamentally the same across languages, and which countability features may differ across languages. The course will introduce formal methods typically used in modelling theories of number (mereology). We will then use these mereological tools to explore the interfaces of human perception and natural language semantics.
Locality in Syntax – Imke Driemel (University of York)
In this class, we will take a closer look at the concept of locality in syntax. Several syntactic operations are limited to take place in a specific derivational time window. The Strict Cycle Condition (Chomsky 1973) requires features to be discharged shortly after they are introduced into the derivation, while the Phase-Impenetrability Condition (Chomsky 2000) restricts operations to apply between elements that are sufficiently close. We will investigate several locality restrictions in syntax, which have been reinterpreted under the notion of phasehood. Examples include arguments to reduce Binding Condition A to phase theory (Charnavel & Sportiche 2016), and the idea to trace differential case marking back to the case domains as spell-out domains within the theory of dependent case (Baker 2015). We will also discuss counterexamples to locality requirements, e.g., long distance agreement in Tsez and Hindi-Urdu. Finally, we explore phenomena that require an even stricter notion of locality, i.e., a seemingly syntactic operation taking place under linear adjacency. Recent examples of this sort come from agreement with conjunctions in Slavic languages (Willer Gold et al. 2016) and case licensing of bare nouns as a form of pseudo-incorporation in languages like Balinese and Wolof. Naturally, these effects have been accounted for in the post-syntactic part of the Y-model.
Poster presentations by students
We are planning a poster presentation workshop by student participants and a social event on the evening of Wednesday July 2. You’ll be able to indicate your willingness to present a poster in the registration form.
Registration
Students wishing to apply should express their interest by completing this application form by 15 May 2025:
https://forms.gle/DZseJMkJNFxBgmCL9
Applicants should normally have completed a masters level (or equivalent) programme in Linguistics and be in the first or second year of an MPhil/PhD/DPhil programme in Linguistics. Before registering, they should discuss their training needs with their supervisor (or programme director) and have their agreement on their participation. Places are limited and priority will be given to research postgraduate students of ACTL member departments.
The tuition for regular participants is £100.00.
Tuition waiver for ACTL members
The tuition is waived for postgraduate students currently registered at University of Cambridge, University of Newcastle, University of Oxford, Queen Mary University of London, UCL and University of York.
Travel reimbursement plan
Research postgraduate students (i.e. excluding students in taught programmes BA, MA, MSc etc.) based at these institutions will also be (partially) reimbursed for their accommodation and/or transportation (more details will be available through your supervisor). The amount to be reimbursed is contingent on the number of students attending the school. In order to get reimbursed, you have to keep the original receipts. We will distribute the reimbursement form during the Summer School. Please contact Daniella Oluoch (linguistics-pg-enquiries@york.ac.uk), in case you have questions.
Note: Since MPhil students from Cambridge and Oxford qualify as students of taught programmes, they are excluded from the tuition waiver and reimbursement programmes.
Venue
The ACTL 2025 Summer School will take place at the University of York Campus, more details on the location of the teaching rooms will be sent in due time.
Accommodation
The University of York campus is within walking distance from the historic center of York, which offers several accommodation options. Another cheap option is to share a temporary rent with your friends. When planning your visit keep in mind that York is a very popular touristic destination.