UofT Hosts WSCLA - The Workshop on Structure and Constituency in Languages of the Americas

 

Members of the WSCLA organizing committee at the Saturday dinner. L to R: Martin Renard, Jack Mahlmann, Greg Antono, Pedro Mateo Pedro, Susana Béjar, Yanfei Lu, Laura Griffin. We are missing Keren Rice. 

Between April 26th and 28th, the University of Toronto’s Linguistics Department and the Centre for Indigenous Studies were proud to host WSCLA - the Workshop on Structure and Constituency in Languages of the Americas.

Dedicated to the “formal and theoretically-informed linguistic study of the Indigenous languages of North, Central, and South America,” the event included speakers from Montreal, Alberta, Buffalo, Minnesota, and even Copenhagen. Invited speakers from UofT included Oheróhskon Ryan DeCaire, Associate Professor, while panelists saw a presentation from Tahohtharátye Joe Brant, Assistant professor. Looking forward to WSCLA 2025!

Talks

The Acquisiton of Ideophones and Split Ergatvity in Chuj

Pedro Mateo Pedro (Faculty)

Adult Immersion in Kanien’kéha Revitalizaton 

Oheróhskon Ryan DeCaire (Wáhta and UofT Faculty)

Posters

Low “From” Applicatves in Kanien’kéha

Martn Renard (PhD)

Language Contact and the Extended PP Projection: Huasteca Nahuatl Spatial Expressions 

Nadia Takhtaganova (PhD)

Language Revitalizaton, is it only Indigenous Speakers’ Responsibility?

Pedro Mateo Pedro (Faculty), Nathalia Ortz Rios (BA), Daniela Lopez Loncar (BA), Jorge Francisco Mex Tesucun, Otoniel Rosendo Zacal Chayax, and José Alfredo Chayax Tesucun (Comunidad Lingüistca Itzaj)

Special Session Panel: The Future of Kanien’kéha Revitalization

Panelists from the Sunday special session on the Future of Kanien'kéha Revitalization: 

Tahohtharátye Joe Brant (TTO and UofT), Rohahiyo Jordan Brant (Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa), Oheróhskon Ryan DeCaire (Wáhta Mohawks and UofT), Tehota’kerá:ton Jeremy Green (TTO and York University), Konwanonhsiyóhstha’ Callie Hill (Tsi Tyónnheht Onkwawén:na), Owennatekha Brian Maracle (Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa), Karonhiióhstha’ Shea Sky

(Ionkwahronkha’onhátie and Kanien’kehá:ka Onkwawén:na Raotitióhkwa).

Other presentations involving UofT alumni:

Apparent Cross-Clausal Agreement with Obliques in Kalaallisut is Prolepsis

Line Mikkelsen (Berkeley), Emily Clem (UCSD), Michelle Yuan (MA 2013, now Faculty at UCLA), Ellen Thrane

(Mis)matches Between Speech and Gesture in Hul’q’umi’num’ Storytelling

Rosemary Webb (BA 2019; now PhD student at UVic)

A Source of Conatvity in Tlingit Pluractonal Verbs

Laurestine Bradford (MA 2021, now PhD student at McGill)

Voice, Valence, and Hul’q’umi’num’ Salish Switch-Functon Serial Verb Constructons

Lauren Schneider (SFU) and Rosemary Webb (BA 2019; now PhD student at UVic)

Elder Eileen Antone giving the opening special session on Sunday, Iwith. 

Sunday Morning Poster session.

Mskwaankwad Rice (University of Minnesota) giving the presentation on a Learner-Centered Approach to Linguistic Research, one of 6 invited talks.

Phonology-Phonetics Workshop, Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto-Hamilton 2024

McGill Linguistics, on April 19th and 20th, hosted the 2024 [motʰ] Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto-Hamilton Phonology/Phonetics Workshop. 

Connie Ting, a PhD student at McGill University, presented hers and our own Professor

Yoonjung Kang's “Tracking speaker-specific speech rate: habitual vs local influences on

English stop voicing perception."

This work will also be discussed in an upcoming spotlight on another of Professor Kang's

research assistants, PhD student Nicholas Haggarty - keep your eyes open for that!

Additionally, the conference saw:

Joint work by Song Jiang (PhD student) and Alexei Kochetov

A presentation by Elan Dresher (Faculty Emeritus)

Radu Craioveanu (PhD 2023)

We were so proud of all UofT involvement at this conference, and are excited to see where

their work takes them next!  

Hän Athabaskan Revitalization Project Report

 This is a guest post by UofT undergrad Stefanie Menezes: