Blog CRC1646

The North American Conference on Iranian Linguistics (NACIL) is a biennial conference dedicated to research on Iranian languages, covering a wide range of topics such as syntax and morphosyntax, linguistic cartography, computational and psycholinguistics, semantics, sociolinguistics, and historical and typological morphosyntax. The fourth NACIL was held at the University of Toronto Mississauga. A special session was organized to honor Prof. Simin Karimi (Department of Linguistics, University of Arizona) for her extensive contributions to the study of morphological, syntactic, and semantic phenomena in Persian and other Iranian languages. This made the conference a special opportunity to finally meet her in person (a prominent and highly respected figure in Iranian academia).

NACIL is an invaluable venue for linguists working on Iranian languages, as in the case of Maryam Mohammadi (INF) with Farsi. While general international conferences offer wide exposure, language-specific events like NACIL provide unique benefits. The concentration of Iranian languages gives direct access to native (linguist) speakers, leading to richer feedback and more intuitive comments. Additionally, it offers opportunities to connect with researchers working on similar topics, which is particularly important given that Farsi is under-studied in the (theoretical) linguistics literature. Finding relevant literature on certain constructions is sometimes challenging, making such focused conferences especially useful. At NACIL 3 (held at UCLA on 2023), Maryam met great colleagues whose insights and comments helped broaden the scope of her dissertation and take new directions in her research. Two years later, NACIL 4 served as a reunion and gave Maryam the opportunity to present her ongoing research on alternative questions (AltQs) in Farsi.

Although AltQs have received considerable attention in the literature, the various forms of AltQs in Farsi remain largely overlooked. In her presentation, she proposed a pragmatic analysis of different types of AltQs in Farsi, suggesting that (semantic) exhaustivity may explain some but not all forms.Cross-linguistic comparisons can highlight subtle distinctions that can lead to novel strategies for encoding (almost) similar meanings. These differences reveal the creativity and flexibility of human language in achieving the same communicative goals.

For more information on the NACIL4 and its program

For more information on Maryam Mohammadi

The abstract of her talk

Maryam Mohammadi © Sascha Hermannski