Calques 2.12

November 7, 2014

Awesomeness | Grammargeddon | Talks | Last call | Other deadlines | Classes

Please send contributions (information and news of departmental interest) to Andrew Garrett.

Awesomeness

Congratulations to Sharon Inkelas on her new book, The Interplay of Morphology and Phonology (Oxford UP), published on Oct 30.

Grammargeddon!

Our annual QP Fest is Monday, Nov. 10 in 370 Dwinelle:

  • (at 3:10 pm) An Introduction, by Mr Andrew Garrett
  • (at 3:15 pm)Session One
    • Ms Auburn Lutzross, "Perception and production of a lesbian speech style"
    • Ms Hannah Sande, "An interface model of phonologically determined agreement"
    • Mr Herman Leung, "Preverbal nonaffixal ordering in Yurok (Algic)"
    • Mr Jonathan Manker, "Phonetic conditions for the morphological patterning of voiced fricatives in Athabascan"
  • (at 4:15 pm) Session Two
    • Ms Katie Sardinha, "Strong and stronger modality in Turkmen"
    • Mr Nicholas Rolle, "Contiguity in multi-verb constructions: A case study from Degema"
    • Mr Zachary Ó hÁgáín, "The grammaticalization of purpose clause markers in Proto-Omagua-Kokama"
  • (at 5:00 pm) A truly Lavish Reception ensues, with the stuff most favored by Graduates.

Talks

  • Colloquium (M 3-4:30)
  • CogNetwork (W 11:30–3, 1229 Dwinelle)
    • Nov. 12: Drew H. Abney (UC Merced), "Complexity matching across conversational settings"
  • Fieldwork Forum (Fforum, W 11–12, 1303 Dwinelle)
    • Nov. 12: Ken Safir (Rutgers), "How to use the Afranaph Project in your research"
  • Historical linguistics forum (*dhworom, W 3–4, 1229 Dwinelle)
    • Nov. 12: Amalia Skilton (Berkeley), "Structural change under language obsolescence in an Amazonian speech community"
  • Phonetics and Phonology Forum (Phorum, M 12–1, 1303 Dwinelle)
    • Nov. 10: Ben Parrell (Berkeley), "Consonant lenition: prosodic causes, acquisition, and sound change"
  • Sociophonetic Reading Exchange and Discussion (SPREAD, F 1-2, 1303 Dwinelle)
  • Syntax & Semantics Circle (F 3–4:30, 1303 Dwinelle)
    • Nov. 7: Zachary O'Hagan and Stephanie Farmer (websites here and here), "Nominal reference in a tiered lexicon: A semantic account of noun classifiers in two Amazonian languages"
    • Nov. 14: Ken Safir (Rutgers), TBA

Last call

Other deadlines

Spring classes for graduate students

Descriptions are given below for graduate electives (and one upper-division elective). Now is a good time to enroll:

  • Lx 113 (Lin). Experimental Phonetics. Training in techniques of experimental phonetics, including acoustics, speech production, speech perception, and basic hypothesis testing. This (or demonstrated equivalent training) is a required course for all students (graduate or undergraduate) who wish to use the resources of the phonology lab.
  • Lx 220B (Mikkelsen). Syntax and Semantics II. This course continues building the conceptual, analytical, and empirical foundation for doing research in syntax and semantics. As in 220A, the emphasis is on gaining familiarity with central empirical phenomena, as well as core theoretical notions, methodology, and argumentation. The course covers 2-3 topics in depth through close examination of primary research literature and associated homework problems. Topics are chosen in consultation with students towards the end of the preceding semester. Past topics include: applicatives, agreement, anaphora, ellipsis, middles, passives, questions, relative clauses, and syntax of information structure.
  • Lx 225 (Lakoff). Construction Grammar. How frame semantics, conceptual metaphor, and embodied cognition inform contemporary research on construction grammar, which integrates semantics, pragmatics, the lexicon and grammar into a unified picture in a computational framework. Readings will come from the classical work of Lakoff (1987); Fillmore, Kay and O'Connor (1988); Goldberg (1996); etc.; followed by the detailed contemporary integration under way at ICSI by Dodge, Feldman and the rest of the MetaNet team (Sweetser, David, Stickles, Lakoff).
  • Lx 255 (Michael). Intro to Sociocultural Linguistics. This course is an introduction to the study of linguistic variation and the social and cultural dimensions of language change. We will survey major works from first and second wave variationist sociolinguistics, from ethnographic and semiotic approaches to variation in linguistic anthropology, and from 'sociocultural linguistics', a coalition between linguistic anthropology and third wave sociolinguistics. This semester's special topic is dialect contact.
  • Lx 242 (Regier). Language, Cognition, and Communication. This course will explore universal aspects of cognition that appear to underlie language and communication, and the effect of one's native language on cognition. Parts of the course will involve computational treatment of the subject matter. No prior experience with computational modeling is required, and the necessary formal concepts will be briefly introduced as necessary.
  • Lx 270 (Hyman). Areal Features and Linguistic Reconstruction in Africa. The major question we will be addressing in Linguistic 270 is the relation between shared "areal features" and the reconstruction of proto languages in Africa. Our focus will be on a number of claimed areal features, but especially: (i) vowel systems (ATR, nasalized); (ii) multi-height and contour tone systems; (iii) templatic morphology and phonology; (iv) derivational verb suffixes (extensions); (v) serial verb constructions. Besides covering the literature on the linguistic geography of Africa and the typology of African language structures, if possible, we will work with a speaker of a typologically interesting African language which will serve as the basis for cross-linguistic comparison.
  • Lx 290E (Lin). Articulation and Acoustics: Variability. In this seminar, we will read and explore (instrumentally) variability in articulation and subsequent acoustic/auditory effects. We will focus our attention on (a) inter-speaker physiological differences and (b) cross-linguistic variability, and attempt to draw conclusions on the source of articulatory variability.