The 12th MACSIM will be held at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey-New Brunswick on Saturday, October 3rd, 2026. We look forward to seeing you soon in New Brunswick!
Keynote speaker: Valentine Hacquard (University of Maryland)
Modal force in acquisition
In this talk I will present various studies that converge in showing that children master the force of possibility modals as early as age 2, but struggle with necessity modals until they’re at least 4- or 5-year-old, seeming to understand them as if they expressed possibility. I will discuss potential sources for their difficulty (linguistic, pragmatic, and conceptual), and speculate on what might be particularly challenging about universal quantification in the domain of modality.
Registration
Registration is open for everyone planning to attend (until Wednesday, Septeber 16, 11:59pm ET). Please reach out to Dorothy Ahn (dorothy(dot)ahn(at)rutgers.edu) if you need the link.
Details on the venue can be found here. A full program will be made available soon. Please stay tuned!