Congratulations, Marshall!

Many readers who did their undergraduate degrees at U of T will have been taught by Marshall Chasin. He has taught Acoustic Phonetics (LIN323H) many times now - this fall will be the 21st time! We honoured him in fall 2011 at the 20 year mark, and are glad that he wants to continue. Marshall sends other news of what is going on in his life. He is getting married in June 2013. Also, he will receive the 2012 Governor General's Silver Jubilee Award for his volunteer work with the National Youth Orchestra. Congratulations on all of this, Marshall!

Congratulations, Dr. Oda!

Last week Kenji Oda successfully defended his thesis entitled "Issues in the Left Periphery of Modern Irish". His co-supervisor Elizabeth Cowper hosted an Irish-themed party in his honour, which brought together Irish friends, Japanese friends, and numerous linguists.

 

Kenji's formal wear

                                          Elizabeth Cowper and Alex Motut                       Eugenia Suh and Joanna Chociej

Above left: Kenji's newest prized possession - a gift from the graduate students.
   Above right: Kenji with his committee (L to R: Daphna Heller, Michela Ippolito, Jim McCloskey (UCSC), Elizabeth Cowper, Kenji Oda, Arsalan Kahnemuyipour, and Alana Johns (missing: Diane Massam))

 Maith thú, a Khenji! 

  Photo credits: Radu Craioveanu, Kenji Oda, and Eugenia Suh

2012 Spring Convocation

June 2012 Convocation saw four new Linguistics PhDs, from left to right: Elham Rohany-Rahbar, Anne St-Amand, Monica Irimia, and Bettina Spreng. With them are professors Elizabeth Cowper, Elan Dresher, Alana Johns, Keren Rice, and Diane Massam. It was a wonderful afternoon!

(Photo credit: Diane Massam)

Appreciation for Diane and Elaine

Profs and partners celebrated and expressed appreciation to Elaine for being such a great Undergraduate Co-ordinator and Diane for being such a great Interim Chair, as they both approach the end of their terms in office.

Diane and Elaine and their gifts

The rest of us look on appreciatively.

Blues brothers: Elan, Ron and Craig

Just appeared!

Syntax and Semantics

Cristina Cuervo and Yves Roberge (Eds.)

A central question in the study of language concerns the mechanisms by which the  participants in an event described by a sentence come to occupy their positions and  acquire their interpretation. The papers included in this volume explore current issues  and re-assess generally accepted premises on the relationship between lexical meaning  and the morphosyntax of sentences by confronting two competing approaches to this issue. A long-standing approach is based on the assumption that it is the lexical meaning of a verb that determines, albeit indirectly, the basic properties of sentence structure at  the level of verbal meaning, including asymmetric relations, thematic roles, case, and  agreement. An alternative approach claims that, to a large extent, the syntax itself
establishes possible verbal meanings on the basis of the legitimate relations that can exist between syntactic heads, complements, and specifiers. Amharic, Catalan, Chamorro, Chukchee, English, Georgian, Inuit, Korean, Malagasy, Slovenian and Spanish, are among the languages used to provide empirical evidence and illustrate the argumentation.

Contributors: Victor Acedo-Matellan, Grant Armstrong, Mark Baker, David Basilico, Maria Cristina Cuervo, E. Matthew Husband, Kyumin Kim, Terje Lohndal, Tatjana Marvin, Jaume Mateu, Mercedes Pujalte, Yves Roberge, Andres Saab, Lisa Travis

Emerald Group Publishing, Syntax and Semantics #38, Series Editor: Jeff Runner

Congratulations and Welcome, Michelle!

Photo credit: Philip Cox

Michelle Yuan (B.A. Linguistics, 2012) received the Registrars' Graduation Award in the Humanities, presented by Principal Yves Roberge at New College on June 13th 2012.

Michelle is beginning her MA in Linguistics in our department in September.
Congratulations, Michelle!

Congratulations, Dr. Compton!

Richard Compton successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled "The Syntax and Semantics of Modification in Inuktitut: Adjectives and Adverbs in a Polysynthetic Language". We celebrated with Richard at a party hosted by his supervisor, Alana Johns.

Pre-defense...excitement?

Enjoying linguistics- and non-linguistics-related conversations

With (part of) the committee (L to R: Cristina Cuervo, Diane Massam, Richard Compton, Michaela Ippolito, Elizabeth Cowper, Rose-Marie Déchaine (UBC), and Alana Johns)

Photo credits: Eugenia Suh

Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities

This year's meeting of the CLA was held at Wilfrid Laurier University at the end of May as part of the Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities. Over 20 current students, alumni, and members of our faculty presented talks (program: http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cla-acl/prog2012.html) and the Canadian Language Museum's exhibit Canadian English, Eh? was also featured at the conference.
   Two of our PhD students presented talks at FUSAC's biennial conference (program: http://www.ric.edu/fusac/2012ConferenceProgram.pdf), which also took place as part of the congress.

Publication: The Language of this Land, Mi’kma’ki

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Doug Smith (M.A. 1970, (Retired Instructor, Communications Department, University of the Fraser Valley) recently wrote to us with some memories and some news. In 1974 he was hired by the Micmac Association of Cultural Studies to help develop Mi'kmaw language studies and materials. Here is what he tell us about this experience.

In March, 2012 The Language of this Land, Mi’kma’ki  by Dr. Trudy Sable, Director of the Office of Aboriginal and Northern Research at the Gorsebrook ResearchInstitute, Saint Mary’s University  and Dr. Bernie Francis, distinguished Mi’kmaw linguist from Nova Scotia, was published by Cape Breton University Press.  Because of my involvement with Bernie in the linguistic analysis of Mi’kmaw and our joint development of an orthography in the ‘70s, my wife and I were invited to attend the book launches held at Membertou Reserve and Saint Mary’s University recently.  The Smith/Francis orthography has now been officially adopted by the Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia and is the one used in the above publication.  (In the ‘80s Bernie designated our writing system Francis/Smith to distinguish it from others but quickly tired of hearing “Who’s Francis Smith?”)

In 1974 Bernie and I were hired by the Micmac Association of Cultural Studies (MACS) whose board of directors was made up of all the chiefs of Nova Scotia.  Our primary mandate was to come up with an optimal writing system for contemporary Mi’kmaq, especially the young, to facilitate everyday reading and writing and the development of teaching materials for reserves and schools.  One consideration that weighed in heavily was that historically French had been the first European contact language, but in more recent times, English had become the primary ambient language. 

To start with we wanted to reassure everyone that we didn’t intend to replace the Fr. Pacifique writing system in which some Catholic texts had been translated and over the years taken on a scriptural value; on the other hand Fr. Pacifique’s orthography was not something modern Mi’kmaq would find easy to use, partly because of its “French look”, e.g., accent marks, and partly because it didn’t indicate vowel length and other significant phonemic distinctions. Fr. Pacifique had also produced a grammar, Leçons grammaticales théoriques et pratiques de la language micmaque (1938-39) on which linguist James Fidelholtz had based his doctoral thesis, Micmac morphophonemics (1968).  In 1990, a decade after I had left MACS, Bernie Francis and John Hewson (Memorial University) translated into English and retranscribed Fr. Pacifique’s Leçons… using the Smith/Francis orthography under the title The Micmac Grammar of Father Pacifique. 

A simultaneous dimension of our work involved the Mi’kmaq of Big Cove Reserve in New Brunswick and of Restigouche Reserve in eastern Quebec who were also keen to develop a modern practical orthography.  Because French is still commonly in use in these two provinces, they favored retaining much of Fr. Pacifique’s orthography.  Bernie and I drew the line there; still, there was an exhilarating though fleeting moment when all of us, I believe, sensed the beauty of a pan-Mi’kmaw writing system.  Alas, that wasn’t to happen until later.  Nevertheless, I still relish those animated heady days when Bernie and I, along with Emmanuel (Manny) Metallic, Albert (Don) DeBlois, Gilles Delisle Mildred Milliea, Gordon Francis, James Fidelholtz, and many other interested Mi’kmaq, explored the linguistic, orthographic, and political ramifications of what we were doing. Meanwhile, whenever Bernie and I weren’t involved in the larger issues, we were doing solid linguistic analysis and trying to resolve the many thorny issues on how to best represent the language given the allophonic idiosyncrasies, morphophonemics, dialects, registers, and the limitations of the typewriter.

After I left MACS ca. 1980, Bernie waged a one-man campaign to promote the orthography.  He travelled widely throughout Mi’kma’ki holding workshops, teaching the language, translating documents, composing documents anew, answering people’s questions, allaying anxieties and in every way proselytizing through example.  Thanks to his steadfast fearlessness and tireless efforts for over 30 years, Bernie Francis has succeeded in gaining acceptance of the current Smith/Francis orthography among the Mi’kmaq of Nova Scotia. And finally, thanks to Bernie’s teaching credit courses for teachers at Big Cove for McGill University and St. Thomas University, Big Cove has now adopted the Smith/Francis orthography; moreover, the Restigouche orthography has come to differ from ours in only a minor way.

Debert, N. S. Archeological Site.  Photo courtesy of Helena Bastedo

Submitted by Doug Smith April 19, 2012

Keren's work on Slavey/Dene recognized by a Molson Prize

Please see details at:
http://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/main/newsitems/keren-rice-molson

Read the complete news release from the Canada Council for the Arts: http://canadacouncil.ca/news/releases/2012/rk129828846563770398.htm

The announcement here (U of T news) has a lovely photo!
 

Congratulations Keren!

Congratulations, Joanna and John!

Congratulations to Joanna Chociej (PhD 3) and John Latta, who were married at St. Casimir's Church on May 12, 2012! The ceremony was attended by a number of U of T linguists, present and past, and an informal reception was held at the Duke of York pub.

Photo credit: Eugenia Suh

L to R: Andy Lin, Jacqueline Peters, Alex Motut, Eugenia Suh, Joanna Chociej, Radu Craioveanu, Tomohiro Yokoyama, Christopher Spahr, and Derek Denis

Photo credit: Tomohiro Yokoyama

The happy newlyweds, finding a moment to rest after the festivities.

Skill Share Workshop

This year the LGCU applied for the Dean's Small Departments' Projects Fund and was awarded a grant to hold Skill Share Workshops! These workshops are intended to provide an opportunity for our graduate students to share non-linguistics-related hobbies and talents. Our first one was a jewellery-making event hosted by our Social Coordinator Ailis Cournane and Michelle St. Amour. After ten minutes of instructions, attendees were already ready to begin applying their skills.

       Derek Denis, Joanna Chociej, Julia Su, and Sarah Clarke model their creations below.

The next workshop will take place in the summer and will likely either be a bike tune-up or photography workshop.

Photo credits: Eugenia Suh

Graduating Majors & Specialists - Spring 2012

Undergraduate Coordinator Elaine Gold and Interim Chair Diane Massam with
graduating Linguistics students at the annual department lunch  honouring
students who have completed a Major or Specialist program in Linguistics.
March 30, 2012.

Front row (L to R): Isabel Lui,  Alim Walker, Jen Collins

Middle row: Saejin Byeon, Emily Dunbar, Michelle Yuan, Diane Massam
Back row: Elaine Gold, Horace (Yuen Hang) Li, Antonio Cunha, Maayan Adar

Heritage Language Conference

U of T was quite well represented at the recent Conference on Formal Approaches to Heritage Languages, held at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Marina Sherkina-Lieber, Nelleke Strik (now at Dalhousie), Ana-Teresa Perez-Leroux gave talks and Joanne Markle Lamontagne, Maria Parascandolo (visiting from U Salerno), and Naomi Nagy came along to listen.
Marina wrote in: "I love small conferences with no parallel sessions, focused on a particular topic/area. Chatting during coffee breaks is much more stimulating. I loved having almost all those whom I cited in the audience. This conference was particularly amazing in terms of hospitality. I was picked up from the Amherst Inn by car on both mornings - together with Silvina Montrul and Acrisio Pires. Well, not just "by car" - by Luiz Amaral! Barbara [Pearson] was amazing as an organizer."  I think we all agree about the high level of hospitality!
Here are some other highlights of the weekend.

Faculty Club, for the reception

Maria, Joanne and Nelleke at the Faculty Club

Wegman's!

English-Inuktitut Automatic Speech-to-speech Machine Translation

Kinfe Mengistu, a post-doc in Computer Science, and Richard Compton, PhD candidate in Linguistics, won the best paper award at the 2012 Conference on Graphics, Animation and New Media (GRAND 2012) for a paper entitled, "Towards Concept-Based English-Inuktitut Automatic Speech-to-speech Machine Translation."  Congratulations!

End of Term Parties!

Last week we celebrated the end of another successful term and year! This year has been a particularly busy year, so we had lots to celebrate! Tanya Slavin, Bettina Spreng, Elham Rohany Rahbar, Monica Irimia, and Anne St. Amand successfully defended their theses, and will be convocating in June.

We successfully hosted NELS 42 and MOT 2012 (as well as TULCon, which was hosted by SLUGS).

In mid-December, Alana Johns led a transcribing workshop in Nain Nunatsiavut (link to blog here: http://ukausivut.wordpress.com/), which was funded by her SSHRC research grant for "Beyond the Word".

Several of our graduate students and faculty members gave talks and presented posters at various conferences. Some of these include:

New Perspectives on Language Creativity: Composition and Recursion at UQAM in late September: Kenji Oda (who presented joint work with Alex Motut)

The Minimalist Program: Quo Vadis? - Newborn, Reborn, or Stillborn? at the University of Potsdam in early October: Alex Motut (who presented joint work with Kenji Oda)

The annual meeting of the LSA in Portland, Oregon in January: Radu Craioveanu, Elan Dresher, Monica Irimia, Yoonjung Kang (who presented joint work with Alexei Kochetov and two other collaborators outside of U of T), Andreea Kosa, Beth MacLeod, Naomi Nagy (who presented joint work with Joanna Chociej), Sali Tagliamonte (who presented joint work), and Keren Rice

OCP 9 at ZAS in Berlin, Germany in mid-January: Christopher Spahr

ACAL 43 at Tulane University, New Orleans in mid-March: Radu Craioveanu and Ross Godfrey

WSCLA 17 at the University of Chicago in mid-March: Richard Compton and Tanya Slavin

In December, our Christmas party featured "the largest permutation of F-Zero" (Cowper, pc), led and conducted by Elan Dresher, who led a two-hour sing-along.


This year's F-Zero included:

Elan Dresher: guitar, banjitar, harmonica, recorder, percussion,
Susana Béjar: violin,
Erin Brassel: trombone,
Sarah Clarke: violin,
Elizabeth Cowper: keyboard, classical guitar,
Daniel Currie Hall: bass guitar, cello,
Derek Denis: electric guitar,
Bobby Hsu: flute,
Bridget Jankowski: French horn,
Christina Kramer: clarinet, recorder,
Christopher Spahr: bass guitar, and
Michael Szamosi: percussion.

Congratulations to everyone on a successful year!

Photo credits: Christopher Spahr and Eugenia Suh

Canadian Language Museum opening

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Mar 22 saw the Opening of the Inaugural Exhibit of the Canadian Language Museum ‘Canadian English, Eh?’ in Wilson Hall, New College. The opening was lively and very well attended; delicious pastries were provided by Linguistics grad students and friends. Punch and finger food was generously provided by New College. The exhibit was displayed for 2 weeks and was very well received. The students of LIN201H1S Canadian English, taught by Prof. Naomi Nagy, participated in the exhibit both by acting as docents each day at lunch and by a special hour-long presentation of their own research into Canadian English.

The exhibit traveled to Waterloo at then end of May for the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, and then to Montreal at the beginning of June for the conference on Change and Variation in Canada VI.

For more information on the Canadian Language Museum, please go to http://www.languagemuseum.ca.

--> Heather Mawby, Elaine Gold,Tamara Ivis, Caylie Gnyra, U of T Masters of Museum Studies students who curated the exhibit, with Elaine Gold, Chair of Canadian Language Museum and exhibit consultant

--> Diane Massam and Nik Rolle

--> Derek Denis and Alex Motut

--> Elan Dresher and Kevin Heffernan

--> Sali Tagliamonte, Elizabeth Cowper and Yves Roberge

--> Craig Diegel, Yves Roberge and Erin Brassel

Marisa Brook, Chris Spahr and Sali Tagliamonte discuss the exhibit

 

-->Crowd scene & exhibit

 

-->Grad students + Sali

Thanks to

--> Tara Clews for these great photos!

 

 There was also this picture in the U of T bulletin on April 3, 2012. 

Debating contrast

This is a link to a lively and interesting debate on contrast in phonology by Elan Dresher and Andrew Nevins held at Leiden Feb. 2012.  (Click posting title for link.)

Ed's bench under the sakura blossoms

Alana provides this lovely picture of the Edward N. Burstynsky (1935-2007) memorial bench, in full glory with the cherry blossoms