MEDIA: MUSL research project makes the front page news

Gerard discusses the latest findings from the Petty Harbour research project:

http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Local/2011-11-19/article-2809674/Oil-industry%2C-other-changes-not-killing-Newfoundland-language/1

Seminar Series Talk by Eric Acton, November 24

We are pleased to have Eric Acton (a PhD student at Stanford University) in town on November 24th to give us "That straight talk": Demonstratives, solidarity, and Sarah Palin. (Co-authored with Christopher Potts). All are welcome to attend. Time:  3:30. Location: SN 2098. 

Abstract

Sarah Palin’s manner of speaking has been the subject of both fervent praise and impassioned criticism.  Supporters find Palin’s speech to beaccessible, engaging, and “real” while opponents label her manner ofspeaking presumptuous, inauthentic, and “pseudo-folksy.” This talk focuses on one salient feature of Palin’s speech—namely, that characteristic use ofdemonstratives, as in the quote below from the 2008 vice-presidentialdebate:

 (1)   Americans are craving that straight talk. 

Echoing Lakoff (1974), Liberman (2008, 2010) claims that such “affective demonstratives…carry an emotional as well as demonstrative load,” byimplying a degree of “shared familiarity” between interlocutors.  In thistalk, I will present the results of two corpus-based experiments that speakto this claim.  The first, based on users’ responses to posts on a socialmedia web site, provides quantitative support for the notion thatdemonstratives can foster or manufacture a sense of familiarity, empathy,and solidarity.  The second examines the 2008 vice-presidential debate,showing that Palin used demonstratives at a much higher rate than heropponent, Joe Biden.  The results of the study further suggest that Palin’suse of demonstratives was part of a broader stylistic approach for engagingand aligning with her audience.The talk concludes by reflecting on how Palin’s use of demonstratives mayhelp to explain why her speech is so polarizing.

Sara Mackenzie To Give Upcoming Seminar Series Talk

When: November 17th at 3:30pm

Location: SN 2098

on the topic of

Contrast and phonological similarity: evidence from consonant harmony

This talk argues that phonological similarity is evaluated over contrastive, phonological features. Evidence for this position is provided through analyses of consonant harmony processes. Typological studies of consonant harmony (Hansson, 2001, 2010; Rose and Walker, 2004) have shown that similarity plays a role in consonant harmony patterning with only highly similar segments interacting as targets and triggers. In this talk, two types of cases provide evidence that the relevant properties determining interacting segments are contrastive phonological representations. In one type of case (e.g. Bumo Izon), segments that appear to share a phonetic class with participating segments fail to participate in harmony. In the second type of case (e.g. Dholuo and Anywa), consonant harmony patterns differ between languages with similar phonetic inventories. 

POSTPONED: Yvan Rose To Give Upcoming Seminar Series talk

POSTPONED!!

New Date TBA

Join us on December 1st in SN 2098 at 3:30 when Yvan Rose will speak on:

Categorical Development in Child Language: Some Preliminary Results

Abstract

Vihman & Croft (2007) propose a (radical) templatic approach to phonological development, whereby children build prosodic templates from phonetic evidence available in their target languages. At the centre of this proposal is an outright rejection of features as independent categories in phonological representations. Building on earlier work by Levelt & van Oostendorp (2007), I reject this (radical) claim, and argue for the need for features in phonological development. Building on an early research project on the parallel development of consonants and consonant clusters, I present data from child Catootje (from the CLPF Dutch acquisition corpus). Categorical behaviours are noted, all of which suggest a central role for features in segmental development.

Department of Linguistics

Presents

Dr. David Crystal

Renowned linguist Dr. David Crystal, who will receive an honorary degree at Memorial’s fall 2011 convocation ceremonies. He will also speak on the topic of:



Language Death: Writing the Obituary of Languages?


Half the languages of the world will die out within the next century. This talk reviews the way languages are dying, asks why, and then asks what can be done. It presents the arguments why people should be concerned, drawing a parallel with other ecological domains. For less academic occasions, such as literary festivals, the talk includes extracts from literature, and also from David Crystal's play 'Living On', which dramatizes the endangered language situation.  Time: 90 minutes.

DATE: Thursday, October 20th

TIME: 3:30 – 5:00 p.m.

PLACE: SN2098

Reception to follow

SN3036

Guest Speaker: Will Oxford, University of Toronto

We are pleased to welcome back Will Oxford on September 29 at 12:00 (noon) in SN 2064! He will be speaking on ""Patterns of contrast in Algonquian vowel systems". All are welcome to attend. 

Abstract

This presentation examines the historical development of Algonquian vowel systems from the perspective of contrastive underspecification.  The presentation is based on a survey of all major vowel changes across the Algonquian family (approximately 20 languages and 50 changes).  I will propose that Algonquian vowel systems fall into two basic contrastive types: (1) a place-based system found in Proto-Algonquian, the Central languages, and Blackfoot, and (2) a height-based system found in the Eastern languages, Cheyenne, and Arapaho-Atsina. Two striking but apparently unnoticed pan-Algonquian generalizations correspond with these contrastive types. The first generalization involves the merger of /e/, which has occurred in several Algonquian languages. In all languages with the place-based system,

/e/ merges with /i/, while in all languages with the height-based system, /e/ merges with /a/. The second generalization involves the development of innovative palatalization processes. In languages with the place-based system, palatalization always includes /i/ as a trigger, while languages with the height-based system repeatedly develop palatalization processes that are triggered by /e/ but not by /i/ (a typological oddity).  I will show how the contrastive model of phonological change attributes both of these correspondences to a common source, thus giving us a new insight into the underlying phonological structure of Algonquian.

Photos from Seminar Series Fall 2011

Thanks to all those who attended our first seminar series talks on September 9, 2011. Remember that all future talks will now take place on Thursdays at 3:30. Check back here for announcements regarding the next speakers and topics.

Mattias Hofmman: Mainland Canadian English Phonology in Newfoundland

Jennifer Thorburn: Co-Variation and the Linguistic Individual