Aldrich Student Conference 2009

Six students from Memorial's linguistics department presented a talk at the annual Aldrich Student Conference on March 22. The titles and abstracts of their talks are presented below.

070OA : 22 March 2009 - 10.00-11.15 AM - BN1009
Word-final consonant clusters in three dialects of Arabic
Ahmad Assiri
Department of Linguistics, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada.
My research examines government and binding relationships between word-final consonant clusters in one syllable type of Arabic: CVCC. The data comes from three different dialects of Arabic: Jordanian Arabic (JA), Lebanese Arabic (LA), and Asiri Arabic (AA). These dialects differ in the way word-final consonant clusters are treated. That is, consonant clusters are either divided by an epenthetic vowel or remain undivided; specifically, epenthesis applies in JA across the board; whereas, in AA epenthesis is not tolerated. LA, on the other hand, ranges between epenthesis and lack of epenthesis.
In light of the general premises of Government Phonology, I assume sonority and place structures for Arabic consonants in attempt to characterize the relationships between word-final consonant clusters in all three dialects. An Optimality Theoretic analysis will also be used for more comprehensive account of the data.

071OA : 22 March 2009 - 10.00-11.15 AM - BN1009
A Sociophonetic Study of Interdental Variation in Jordanian Arabic
Osama Omari
Department of Linguistics, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada.
This paper examines variation in the realization of interdental fricatives among young speakers of Jordanian Arabic (JA). Three linguistic variables will be analyzed: (), (ð), and the interdental emphatic fricative (ðʕ). Adopting a Labovian token-by-token approach, I examine the possible linguistic and social constraints on the choice of the variants by the speakers. The linguistic and social factors coded in the study are the immediate phonological environment, stress, word class, syllable and word position, frequency, sex of the informants, and urbanization. Multivariate analyses of the data show that three major factors constrain the variation: the social factors (sex and urbanization), the immediate phonological context, and the saliency of the linguistic position. The linguistic findings in this paper may challenge the lexically conditioned hypothesis on variation (Abdel-Jawad and Suleiman 1990), which relies heavily on the notion of classifying lexical items according to their etymological and phonological relevance to the standard variety (i.e., Standard Arabic).

072OA : 22 March 2009 - 10.00-11.15 AM - BN1009
Vowels and Identity: Nova Scotians living in St. John's
Matt H. Gardner
Department of Linguistics, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada.
In this study I examine the effects of dialect contact on six Nova Scotians living in St. John’s. I test the hypothesis that those here the longest and/or those with the densest local social networks have the most centralized, or Newfoundland-like, low back vowels. While it was found that length of residency and social network density were the two most significant factors, unexpectedly, those with the strongest community ties or who had been living in Newfoundland the longest showed the least centralized low back vowel, while the participant who had been in Newfoundland the least and who had the least dense local social network produced low back vowels even more centralized that the past data predict for Newfoundland. Data from this study also shows evidence of the Canadian Shift. I also discuss the correlation between negative stereotypes (both homegrown and in St. John’s) and these participants’ identity creation through language.

Session 25 : Oral Presentation
Date : 22 March 2009
Room : BN1009
Time : 11:30 AM - 12:45 PM

073OA : 22 March 2009 - 11.30-12.45 PM - BN1009
The Role of Perceptual Salience in Child Language Acquisition: Preliminary Findings from Northern East Cree
Kevin Terry
Department of Linguistics, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada.
Peters (1983, 1985) and Slobin (1985) claim that perceptual salience plays an important role in the initial child language acquisition processes of extraction and segmentation. These proposals are based mainly on evidence from languages, like English, which have relatively simple morphological systems. A growing number of studies test these theories against evidence from more morphologically complex languages.
In this paper, I define the processes of extraction and segmentation and identify what is meant by ‘perceptual salience’. I examine the role that perceptual salience has been found to play in the acquisition of several languages with complex morphological systems including Mohawk, Quiché Mayan, Navajo and Quechua. In light of this evidence, preliminary findings from a study of the speech of a child acquiring Northern East Cree, an Algonquian language spoken in Quebec, are also presented. These data have been made available through the Chisasibi Child Language Acquisition Study (www.mun.ca/cclas/).

074OA : 22 March 2009 - 11.30-12.45 PM - BN1009
Lexicalization of the Quotative be + like and Non-Traditional Speech Communities
Meghan Hollett and Bridget Henley
Department of Linguistics, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada.
The TV show Grey's Anatomy is commonly associated with young, trendy females. In our study, status as a viewer or non-viewer of Grey's Anatomy was foregrounded in order to test whether this distinction is reflected in speech. Sociolinguistic interviews were conducted with 24 informants (12 male and 12 female; 12 viewers and 12 non-viewers), and analyzed for instances of quotative complementizers. This variable, which introduces quotations (eg. We were like "Oh my God"; They say "Oh, we hated it.") is appropriate for the analysis at hand because of the strong social connotations of the most frequently used variant: the quotative be + like. Previous studies have shown be + like increasing in frequency and lexicalization in Canada (Tagliamonte & D'Arcy 2004), and particularly in St. John's (D'Arcy 2004). We will discuss the advantages of the methodological framework used in this study, and present evidence to suggest further lexicalization than previously reported.

075OA : 22 March 2009 - 11.30-12.45 PM - BN1009
Icelandic Quirky Case in the Minimalist World
David Bowden
Department of Linguistics, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada.
In English, sentences like me need money and him felt dizzy are completely ungrammatical. However, in Icelandic these sentences are perfectly acceptable. To English speakers, such phrases sound odd, and for good reason. This is because in most languages speakers must use the equivalents of I, he, she, and we for subject words and not their related oblique forms like me, him, her, and us. Icelandic exhibits a crosslinguistically rare phenomenon termed Quirky Case, or Aukafallsfrumlag in Icelandic scholarship, whereby speakers can employ oblique forms in the subject position. What is it about Icelandic that makes it acceptable for speakers to break this seemingly hard and fast rule, and how can linguists make sense of it? In this presentation, possible revisions to the previously accepted notions of how nominal case assignment and grammatical roles interact will be discussed.

Carrie Dyck was awarded a SSHRC CURA Letter of Intent grant

Carrie Dyck was awarded a SSHRC CURA Letter of Intent grant in March 2009. The funds are for developing a full CURA proposal. "The purpose of the [CURA] program is to support the creation of alliances between community organizations and postsecondary institutions which, through a process of ongoing collaboration and mutual learning, will foster innovative research, training and the creation of new knowledge in areas of importance for the social, cultural or economic development of Canadian communities."

Paul De Decker awarded the Arts Pedagogical Research Initiative

Paul De Decker was awarded an Arts Pedagogical Research Initiative for 2008-9. "The Arts Pedagogical Research Initiative (APRI) has been established by Dr. Tremblay, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, to encourage creative and innovative practices in teaching and learning in the Faculty of Arts at Memorial. The intent of the program is to support the implementation of new teaching projects or programs which are designed to enhance student learning."

SLAM Scholarship Winner!

SLAM (The Society for Linguistics at Memorial) would like to congratulate Justin Markussen-Brown on winning the SLAM Scholarship 2009.

We, SLAM, were very impressed with his application as well as his commitment to the Linguistics Department/SLAM and are honoured to award this scholarship to such a deserving applicant.

We would also like to send a special thank you to: Dr. Marguerite MacKenzie, Dr. Carrie Dyck, Ruby Bishop and Juanita Lawrence for helping us with the preliminary stages of the scholarship and beyond.

A big thank you to all those who donated to the scholarship fund through bake sales and other fundraising and thank you to anyone who we may have forgotten.

-SLAM

Dean's List Scholarship Winner, 2007-8

Karen Tucker (Linguistics Major) received the Dean's List scholarship for 2007-8. "This scholarship, established by donors to the Opportunity Fund who have directed that their donations be used for scholarships within the Faculty of Arts, is valued at approximately $1,000.00 annually. It is awarded to a student who achieves high ranking on the Dean's List of the Faculty of Arts and who meets the requirements for scholarship standing, but who is not in receipt of other significant scholarship funding. The award will be made by the Senate Committee on Undergraduate Scholarships, Bursaries and Awards based on a recommendation from the Dean, Faculty of Arts. "

Dean's List, 2007-2008

The Dean's List is a way of recognizing excellence in students who are registered for a BA or BA Honours degree. Compiled annually in the spring, it includes the very best students.

To make the Dean's List, students must complete a minimum of 9 courses over two semesters (or 10 over three semesters) and achieve high marks.

Linguistics students on the Dean's List for 2007-2008 are:

Aikman, Amelie
Bowden, David
Bulgin, James
Crossan, Hilary
Flynn, Amy
Foley, Brittany
Harvey, Andrew (French/Linguistics)
Hollett, Meghan (Russian/Linguistics)
Ingram, Alisha
Ingram, Elizabeth
Power, Kimberly
Sarlak, Nira
Smith, Laura (Russian/Linguistics)
Sparling, Maggie
Tucker, Karen (French/Linguistics)

Dr. Sylvia Luraghi speaking Jan. 14, 2009

Silvia Luraghi, University di Pavia will be giving a talk entitled "Where do Beneficiaries come from? Sources for Beneficiary expressions in Classical Greek, and the relation between Beneficiary, Recipient and Purpose".

DATE: January 14th, 2009
TIME: 3:30 p.m.
PLACE: SN2033

Department Colloquium, March 30

Date: March 30, 2009
Time: 3:30 - 4:30
Venue: C2033
Authors: Phil Branigan and Doug Wharram

Title: Distributive semantics in Innu-aimun
Abstract:

Indefinite nouns are interpreted distibutively when they co-vary with a higher plural or quantificational phrase, as in the English sentence "Those camels have 2 humps each." (The humps is understood as a set of objects distributed over the set of camels because it is followed by the word each.) In Innu-aimun, a similar semantic effect on indefinite nouns occurs when they are accompanied by a reduplicated numeral. We describe when these reduplicated forms can and cannot occur, and try to make sense of their grammatical properties by developing a formal semantic analysis. We show that this new approach compares favorably with previous attempts to analyse similar distributive reduplication structures in some other languages (Cree and Hungarian), and discuss what this implies for semantic theory more generally.

Department Colloquium, January 26

Title: Work that -S! Drag queens, gender, identity, and traditional Newfoundland English
Authors: Gerard Van Herk, Becky Childs, & Matthew Sheppard
Time: 3:30 - 4:30
Place: C2011
Abstract: We study the adoption and adaptation of a traditional Newfoundland English speech feature, non-standard verbal s-marking (as in We knows a lot of people or I loves it), by social groups not usually associated with traditional dialect: young urban women and drag queens. Using quantitative data from sociolinguistic interviews and language surveys, we show that the form is both decreasing in frequency and progressing from a strictly grammatical function to a resource for the performance of gender and affiliation with local and urban identities.

Brown bag talk on Monday, March 16 at 1:00 pm

Tyler Kendall (Duke University) will be giving a brown bag talk on Monday, March 16 at 1:00 pm in the Sociolinguistics Lab (FM-2006). His paper is entitled "Performance, consciousness, and salient sociolinguistic variables in Petty Harbour English." Everyone is welcome.

In this talk, Tyler examines interview data from MUN research in Petty Harbour to ask whether evidence can be found within the speech stream that bears on questions of performance and consciousness. One of the findings of MUSL research in Petty Harbour has been that the younger speakers in the community make use of salient local variables for identity-work. Through a quantitative examination of speech timing features (such as pause and speech rate), Tyler considers this finding and shows that there does appear to be evidence in the timing data that inform our understanding of the linguistic performance of salient variables.