Guest speaker: Peter Jurgec (Feb. 1/2013)

We have a guest speaker this Friday.

Speaker: Peter Jurgec, Leiden University (http://www.jurgec.net/)
Title: Unifying vowel and consonant harmony
Time: Friday Feb. 1st, 3pm. A reception will follow in the lounge.
Place: Sid Smith 560A (ground floor) (Sid Smith is located at 100 St. George St.)

Abstract: Recent phonological literature sees vowel and consonant harmony as fundamentally different. Whereas vowel harmony is attributed to feature spreading, consonant harmony instead involves a long-distance relationship between consonants. Such a formal distinction may appear warranted as consonant harmony (i) is found only with some features and (ii) invariantly affects a subset of consonants; vowel harmony does not display these gaps. In this talk, I argue that both phenomena can nevertheless be analyzed as feature spreading. I relate the first gap in consonant harmony to a general tendency for assimilation to target syllable nuclei (i.e. vowels). This tendency can be captured by modified alignment constraints. The second gap suggests that consonant harmony is dependent on another consonant feature. A strikingly similar pattern is found in parasitic vowel harmony. I capture such parasitic preference by agreement constraints, which apply to vowel and consonant harmony. This approach correctly predicts that vowel harmony can be parasitic or not, whereas consonant harmony is always parasitic.

ICPP 2013

Keren Rice and Alexei Kochetov travelled to Japan to attend the International Conference on Phonetics and Phonology (ICPP) 2013 at the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, where Keren was an invited speaker. Keren gave a talk entitled "Sonorant obstruents revisited", and Alexei presented joint work with Yoonjung Kang entitled "When long is tense and tense is long: An EPG study of Japanese and Korean stops". Alumna Manami Hirayama (now teaching at Ritsumeikan University) also gave a talk entitled "Perception of accent contrasts in vowel devoicing in Japanese". Manami shares this photo of them enjoying a meal together after the conference.

New book edited by Diane Massam

Congratulations to Diane on the publication of  Count and Mass Across Languages, with Oxford University Press! Here is the abstract from the OUP website, followed by the URL for the book:

Abstract:
This volume explores the expression of the concepts count and mass in human language and probes the complex relation between seemingly incontrovertible aspects of meaning and their varied grammatical realizations across languages. In English, count nouns are those that can be counted and pluralized (two cats), whereas mass nouns cannot be, at least not without a change in meaning (#two rices). The chapters in this volume explore the question of the cognitive and linguistic universality and variability of the concepts count and mass from philosophical, semantic, and morpho-syntactic points of view, touching also on issues in acquisition and processing. The volume also significantly contributes to our cross-linguistic knowledge, as it includes chapters with a focus on Blackfoot, Cantonese, Dagaare, English, Halkomelem, Lithuanian, Malagasy, Mandarin, Ojibwe, and Persian, as well as discussion of several other languages including Armenian, Hungarian, and Korean. The overall consensus of this volume is that while the general concepts of count and mass are available to all humans, forms of grammaticalization involving number, classifiers, and determiners play a key role in their linguistic treatment, and indeed in whether these concepts are grammatically expressed at all. This variation may be reflect the fact that count/mass is just one possible realization of a deeper and broader concept, itself related to the categories of nominal and verbal aspect.

Book URL:
http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Linguistics/SemanticsPragmaticsPhilosophyofL/?view=usa&ci=9780199654284

New Ontario Premier a Linguist

(Post courtesy of Jack Chambers)

Kathleen Wynne, newly appointed leader of the Ontario Liberals and first woman premier of Ontario, graduated with her M.A. in our department in (as I recall) 1979. Her Forum research was on literacy skills in a northern Algonquian community. Kathleen was a prized TA, active in the LGCU and clean-up hitter for the Glottal Stops, the department slo-pitch team. Her work as MLA and cabinet minister has limited her involvement in our activities for the last few years, but we were pleased when she took time to participate in the Workshop on Phonetics, Gender and Sexual Orientation in November 2005. Among her many advantages as premier, of course, is the A she earned in Analysis & Argumentation. We wish her all the best.

J.K. Chambers

New work by Chandan Narayan

Chandan Narayan has a chapter in a new OUP volume 'Origins of Sound Change' edited by Alan Yu. Chandan's piece is called "Developmental Perspectives on Phonological Typology and Sound Change." Here is the link that was published on LinguistList:

Book URL: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199573745.do

Belated Photos from our Holiday Party

This year's holiday party took place in November! At the time, it seemed a little early for Christmas decorations, and unfortunately F-Zero was unable to perform this year, but it was festive nevertheless. The lounge was filled with linguists, friends of linguists, partners of linguists, and budding linguists. There were so many people in the room that our windows almost looked as though they had a decorative frost! Here are a few pictures from the party! 

Standing room only!

Linguists Show their Stripes

...just another Wednesday!

(photo courtesty of Sali Tagliamonte)

Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting

There were quite a few members of the department presenting at the LSA this past weekend in Boston.

Keren Rice gave the Presidential Address, entitled “Variation, Phonology, and Fieldwork.”

Bridget Jankowski gave a talk: "A variationist approach to disentangling grammatical change and
register change."

Derek Denis gave a talk: "Grammaticalization? change in the right periphery from 1875 to 2003."

Nicholas Welch gave two talks: "The bearable lightness of being" and "Propping up predicates: BE-support in Tlicho Yatii."

Bronwyn Bjorkman presented a poster: "Aspectual ergative splits and perfective-linked oblique case."

A number of alumni were also present. Mike Barrie, Kyumin Kim, and Lyn Tieu presented posters, and Tanya Slavin and Nicole Rosen presented talks at the LSA.

(photo courtesy of Sali Tagliamonte)

Visiting Scholar: Celeste Rodríguez Louro

We would like to introduce you to a Visiting Scholar to the Department January 9-18: Dr. Celeste Rodríguez Louro from the University of Western Australia in Perth, Australia. Celeste’s area of specialization is Language Variation and Change. She works on the structural and discourse-related aspects of Australian English, including present perfect/preterit alternations, epistemic phrases, tense variation and quotative verbs. She recently organized the 2012 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society in December 2012, where our own Keren Rice presented one of the plenary talks. 

http://www.uwa.edu.au/people/Celeste.rodriguezlouro

Celeste will be giving a talk in the LVC Research Group January 11, 12:10 pm entitled: Quotatives and tense variation in cross-generational Australian English speech. All are welcome.

 The reason for her visit is to collaborate with Sali on a project on variation and change in narrative structure in Australian English. She will be tapping the Sali’s expertise in LVC generally, but also her knowledge of the study of quotative verbs in particular. However, please note that Celeste is interested in talking to members of our faculty about related research interests.

Celeste’s current project traces the development of story-telling in Australian English, offering the first systematic sociolinguistic analysis of quotatives by Australians born since 1873. Sali’s studies of the quotative system have noted a shift in narrative style and this finding has been echoed by studies in other varieties of English as well. English-speaking people appear to be increasingly imbuing their stories with reports of their thoughts and feelings. Celeste’s research question is: has this changed in Australian narratives as well? This project will draw on an abundance of existing, but yet untapped, historical linguistic data: the Oral History Collection at the State Library of Western Australia. Her plan is to augment the Library’s Collection, and add rich annotated transcription and digitised materials, creating a wealth of resources for further research. Her collaboration with Sali (and with Alex D’Arcy at Victoria) will lead to large-scale comparative studies.

Here are a few of her current publications:

*Colantoni, Laura & Celeste Rodríguez Louro (Eds). (Forthcoming). Perspectivas teóricas y experimentales sobre el español de la Argentina [Theoretical and experimental perspectives on Argentinian Spanish]. Madrid: Iberoamericana/Vervuert. Accepted 14 November 2012.

*Rodríguez Louro, Celeste &Thomas Harris. (Forthcoming). Evolution with an attitude: The grammaticalization of epistemic/evidential verbs in Australian English. English Language and Linguistics 17:3.

*Rodríguez Louro, Celeste. (In press). Quotatives Down Under: Be like in cross- generational Australian English speech. English World-Wide 34:1.

Welcome, Celeste!

(Post courtesy of Sali Tagliamonte)

Field Methods 2012

Last week we had a reception in our Linguistic Field Methods Class. Here are some of the students from the class with Don Jabokwoam who has helped them learn some linguistics and a lot more about Ojibwe this Fall.

Left to right: Dan, Becky, Julien, Don, TJ, Julia, and Garth.

Post courtesy of Alana Johns

Congratulations, Sandrine!

There is a new doctor in the house! Just this morning, Sandrine Tailleur defended her thesis entitled "The French Wh- Interrogative System: Est-ce que, Clefting?". Sandrine was supervised by Yves Roberge, and Diane Massam, Ileana Paul (UWO), Elizabeth Cowper, Alana Johns, and Mireille Tremblay (external examiner from UQAM) comprised the rest of her committee.
Sandrine has been working at Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC) for the past few months teaching Historical Linguistics and Generative Grammar, and in January, she will be teaching Syntax and a course on Orthography and Morphology.

Congratulations!

Sandrine with her committee

Historical Linguistics Poster Session

The semester is quickly coming to a close! The third-year historical linguistics class (taught by Elaine Gold) presented their final projects in the lounge today. Thank you to Elaine and the members of the class for the interesting presentations and the snacks!

Photos from Fall Convocation 2012 Part 2

Here are some more photos from convocation, taken by our official blog photographer for the year: Radu Craioveanu.

Photos from Fall Convocation 2012

Last Friday we celebrated the convocation of our new MA and PhD graduates! 

Here are a few snapshots of the celebrations.

MA graduates
L to R: Tomohiro Yokoyama, Erin Hall, Erin Brassel, and Julie Doner (Photo courtesy of Alex Motut)

Hooded Tomo
(Photo courtesy of Alex Motut)

(Photo courtesy of Maria Kyriakaki)

(Photo courtesy of Jackson Wu)

(Photo courtesy of Jackson Wu)

Happy PhD graduates with their supervisors
L to R: Kenji Oda, Paul Arsenault, Julia Su, Richard Compton, Beth MacLeod, Yoonjung Kang, Elizabeth Cowper, Alana Johns, Keren Rice, and Diane Massam
(Photo courtesy of Diane Massam)

First moments outside of Convocation Hall
(Photo courtesy of Jackson Wu)

Black Monday

Left to Right: Professors Sali Tagliamonte, Yoonjung Kang, Diane Massam, Michela Ippolito

Snapshot from a particularly well-coordinated faculty meeting earlier this week....

Upcoming FLAUT Talk: Gerard Van Herk, Nov. 15

Students, alumni, faculty and friends, please take note: next week in the department there will be a talk hosted by Friends of Linguistics At the University of Toronto (FLAUT) and the Society of Linguistic Undergraduate Students (SLUGS):

Prof. Gerard Van Herk 

Memorial University of Newfoundland 

NEWFOUNDLAND LANGUAGE MYTHS 

Abstract:
Myth can mean "a story that a society tells to explain the world" or "thing that's not true". This talk looks at two widespread language myths in Newfoundland: that the local variety of English is dying, and that it is unique. Recordings from urbanizing villages and usage surveys across generations show that the dialect is changing, but change isn't death; historical and comparative work shows that Newfoundland English is not an only child ­ it has sisters in the Caribbean and the US south.

Gerard Van Herk is the Canada Research Chair in Regional Language and Oral Text at Memorial University of Newfoundland, and director of the Memorial University Sociolinguistics Laboratory (http://musl.ling.mun.ca/about.html).

PRESENTATION, INFORMAL DISCUSSION AND RECEPTION 

Thursday November 15, 2012 7-9 p.m. 

DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS SIDNEY SMITH HALL 

4th floor LINGUISTICS LOUNGE 

OPEN TO ALL STUDENTS, ALUMNI, FACULTY AND FRIENDS

Photos from NWAV 41

Sali Tagliamonte giving her plenary talk at NWAV 41
(Photo credit: Robert Baxter)

As mentioned in a previous blog post, several linguists from U of T attended NWAV 41. PhD students Derek Denis, Matt Hunt Gardner and new LGCU co-president Alex Motut, MA alumnus Shannon Mooney, and upper-year undergraduate students Ruth Maddeaux and Martin Sneath drove down together in a van to Bloomington, Indiana, where they met up with Professor Sali Tagliamonte, visiting scholar Bing Cai, and PhD student Jim Smith.
Sali gave an excellent, thought-provoking plenary talk, and the other talks were quite good as well. The U of T linguists also enjoyed a mini-reunion with PhD alumnus Alex D'Arcy, MA alumnus Maddie Shellgren, and former postdoctoral fellow Becky Roeder.

Alex Motut shares these pictures from the conference :

Fall in Bloomington

The campus (Indiana University)

Ruth Maddeaux (undergraduate student) and PhD students Matt Hunt Gardner and Derek Denis 

PhD student Jim Smith and Shannon Mooney (MA 2012)

Jim Smith, Matt Hunt Gardner, Ruth Maddeaux, Derek Denis, Sali Tagliamonte, Bing Cai (visiting scholar), and Shannon Mooney (missing: Alex Motut and undergraduate student Martin Sneath)

The Road Less Travelled

The view from Victoria College

Last weekend, we hosted The Road Less Travelled: An international conference on heritage languages and heritage language acquisition at Victoria College. This interdisciplinary conference was collaboratively organized by members of our department (Ana Pérez-Leroux and Keren Rice) the Department of Slavic Languages and Literature (Christina Kramer), and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese (Olivia Marasco, Joanne Markle LaMontagne, and Stephen Rupp). Several members of these, and other, departments also served as moderators or general volunteers during the conference.

Researchers from McGill discuss the language situation in Montreal

This conference was unique in using the pecha kucha format for presentations, where presenters showed twenty slides, speaking about each for twenty seconds, for a total of six minutes and forty seconds. It was amazing to see just how much information could be conveyed in this condensed format! Presenters used their twenty-second slides effectively to present their research quite creatively to the audience of anthropologists, language educators, psycholinguists, sociolinguistics, theoretical linguists, undergraduate students, and others.
In addition to the pecha kucha sessions, on the first day of the conference, several undergraduate students from our university shared their personal stories of heritage language acquisition and maintenance and the complexities of their identities as heritage language speakers.

Poster presentations in the Alumni Hall of Victoria College

Poster presentations took place over lunch on the second day of the conference, and throughout the conference, there were  a number of excellent plenary talks. In line with the interdisciplinary nature of the conference, the invited speakers shared their different perspectives at looking at heritage languages and the importance of further refining and developing the investigation of heritage languages.

Thank you to the organizers, volunteers, and attendees for helping make this conference a success!

Attendees enjoying the catered lunch

Photo credits: Eugenia Suh

Algonquian Conference

Doctoral candidate Will Oxford is just back from the 44th Annual Algonquian Conference in Chicago where he presented a paper entitled "Theoretical implications of Proto-Algonquian verb inflection." Also presenting at the same conference was recent alumnus Tanya Slavin, presenting on "The semantics of verb stem composition in Ojicree."

Visit from an Old Friend

Photo credit: Nadia Molinari

We were happily surprised on October 25th by a visit to the department from Saradindu Guha (Office Administrator, Dept. of Linguistics 1991-1999). He was on campus to attend a speech by Stephen Lewis on The Power of Community at the closing event of New College’s 50th Anniversary celebrations. This picture, with Diane Massam, was taken at the reception for this talk. (Thanks to Diane Massam for this posting.)