Change and Variation in Canada Workshop to be held at MUN

"The fourth annual Change and Variation in Canada (CVC IV) workshop will be held at Memorial University June 19-20, 2010. This student-led event will bring together researchers working within a variationist framework on Canadian language varieties or at Canadian institutions.

The call for papers will be made available in January 2010. We will also provide more details about the conference at that time."

For more information see the CVC IV website.

End of Semester LING FAIR a Success!

On Friday, December 4, 2009, the Linguistics Department held its first showcase of undergraduate student projects. Close to 30 students participated in the event and a number of promising posters were presented. Congratulations, student linguists! Job well done.

Longest word contest -- ICELANDIC

Memorial's Linguistics Department held a 'longest word' contest in conjunction with its end-of-term class fair. The longest word was in Icelandic. Here are the results! (Double-click on the picture to enlarge it.)

Linguistics Fair

Come and see what our Linguistics students have been doing this semester! We'll have posters, presentations, a short film, Ongwehonwe and Inuit foods and other nibblies. Bring along the longest word you know in any language and enter it in our 'longest word' contest.

What: End-of-term class fair
When: Friday, December 4
Where: 4:00pm - 5:30pm
Room SN 3058

Brown bag talk on Tuesday, Dec 1 @ 12pm

Dr. Phil Branigan will be giving a brown bag talk on Tuesday, Dec 1 from 12:00 - 1:00 in the seminar room (SN 3036).

Title: Why is there syntactic movement?

Abstract: This talk is concerned with one foundational issue in syntactic theory. For over 20 years, the standard explanation for why syntactic movement occurs has been circular--in
fact, uncontroversially so. In this talk, I discuss the basis for this circularity: the EPP ("Extended Projection Principle"), introduced by Stowell and Chomsky in the early 80s. An alternative,
non-circular model of movement is presented--the *provocation* model--and a few case studies are examined to illustrate how this model deals better with known data.

DATE CHANGE: Seminar Series talk on Friday, November 27th

Dr. Yvan Rose will present his current research in the area of child language development on November 20th November 27th at 4:00pm. Location: SN3058. A reception will follow the talk.

Exploring the relations between speech perception by infants and the early development of phonology

To learn how to speak, children must crack the code of their mother tongue. One of the big mysteries in the face of the obvious complexity of this challenge is that infants manage it with apparent ease, at an astonishing rate. Studies of early phonological development typically look at infant speech perception or early phonological productions, but do not address the relationships between the two. During this presentation, I will draw on recent experimental research results to discuss such potential relationships.

Brown bag talk on Tuesday, Dec 1

Dr. Phil Branigan will be giving a brown bag talk on Tuesday, Dec 1 from 12:00 - 1:00 in the seminar room (SN 3036). Title and abstract forthcoming.