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May 5, 2025

Lapierre accepts position at McGill

Our own Myriam Lapierre (PhD 2021; currently Assistant Professor at the University of Washington) will be moving to McGill University, where she has accepted a position as Assistant Professor, starting in January 2026.

Dąbkowski publishes in AMP proceedings

Maksymilian Dąbkowski has just published a new article on "Phasal strength in A'ingae classifying subordination" in Proceedings of the 2023 and 2024 Annual Meetings on Phonology. Click here to read it.

Beguš at the Venice Biennale

The model that Gašper Beguš proposed in his 2021 Neural Networks paper will drive part of the Next Earth exhibition at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The opening night is May 10, 2025 at the Palazzo Diedo. More info is available here.

May 2, 2025

Linguistics events this week (May 2-9, 2025)

In and around the Department of Linguistics in the next week:

April 28, 2025

Linguistics Undergraduate Honors Colloquium 2025

Please join us for

The Linguistics Undergraduate Honors Colloquium

Monday, May 5, 2025 at 3:10pm

370 Dwinelle Hall

(Zoom link for remote guests: https://berkeley.zoom.us/j/94536362920)

Honors Student Presenters

  • Sarah Ertel
    Honors Thesis Title: "Prevelar Raising in Eastern Washington and the Eastern Washington English Corpus"
    Faculty Advisor: Keith Johnson (Professor Emeritus, Department of Linguistics)
    Second Reader: Alexandra Pfiffner (Lecturer, Department of Linguistics)
  • Lindsay Hatch
    Honors Thesis Title: "Implosives Cross-Linguistically"
    Faculty Advisor: Alexandra Pfiffner (Lecturer, Department of Linguistics)
    Second Reader: Hannah Sande (Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics)
"Remembering Ian Maddieson" published on eScholarship

Remembrances from the memorial gathering (February 22, 2025) for Ian Maddieson have been collected into a short booklet and published on eScholarship.

April 25, 2025

Linguistics events this week (Apr 25-May 2, 2025)

In and around the Department of Linguistics in the next week:

  • Ladino/Judeo-Spanish Working Group - Thursday May 1 - Dwinelle 1303 - 4-5pm
    Ora de Echar Lashon (beginner-friendly conversation hour) with discussions of May Day and Ladino poetry across time and space!
  • Language Revitalization Working Group - Wednesday Apr 30 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 3-4pm
    Panel: Revitalization and re-awakening sleeping and near-sleeping languages, with Chelsi Sparti (Wintun), Jonathan Cirelli (Habematolel Pomo), and Shaunie Briggs (Salinan)
  • Phorum - Friday Apr 25 - Dwinelle 1229 - 4-5pm
    Antón de la Fuente (Stanford): "Ideological Change and Phonological Variation in the Galician of O Grove"
  • Phorum - Friday May 2 - Dwinelle 1229 - 4-5pm
    Max Kaplan (UC Santa Cruz): "Phonotactics in speech perception: A crosslinguistic comparison of repair in onset clusters"
  • Sociolinguistics Lab at Berkeley - Monday Apr 28 - Dwinelle 5125 and Zoom - 2-3pm
    Talk by Verónica Grajeda
  • Syntax and Semantics Circle - Friday Apr 25 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 3-4:30pm
    Andrew Simpson (USC): "Obligatory object shift in Chinese: Aspect, definiteness, and affectedness"
  • Syntax and Semantics Circle - Friday May 2 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 3-4:30pm
    Amy Rose Deal (UC Berkeley): "Case sensitivity reflects case structure: Agreement, extraction, and clitics"

April 24, 2025

Berkeley linguists at BayPhon

BayPhon, taking place at UC Santa Cruz on May 10, will feature the following presentations by Berkeley linguists:

April 22, 2025

Boomershine and Johnson publish in Languages

Amanda Boomershine (UNC Wilmington) and Keith Johnson published an article entitled "The influence of language experience on speech perception: Heritage Spanish speaker perception of contrastive and allophonic consonants" in a special issue of the journal Languages.

April 21, 2025

Hyman to give commencement address at UCLA

Larry Hyman has been invited to be the commencement speaker at the UCLA Linguistics Department Graduation on June 15, 2025. UCLA is also Larry's alma mater.

Holliday speaks at CHI 2025

Nicole Holliday will be giving a micro-keynote on April 27 at the CHI 2025 Workshop on Speech AI for All: Promoting Accessibility, Fairness, Inclusivity, and Equity in Yokohama, Japan!

April 18, 2025

Linguistics events this week (Apr 18-25, 2025)

In and around the Department of Linguistics in the next week:

  • Fieldwork Forum - Wednesday Apr 23 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 3-4pm
    Zachary O'Hagan (UC Berkeley): "What was the language of the Tabalosos, Lamas, and Suchiches of Peru? Evidence from a 17th-century Census and Sacramental Records"
  • Phorum - Friday Apr 18 - Dwinelle 1229 - 4-5pm
    Irene Yi (Stanford): "Axes of Differentiation and Language Ideologies in Mountain vs. Town variation of /l/ alveo-palatalization in Ganguhua"
  • Phorum - Friday Apr 25 - Dwinelle 1229 - 4-5pm
    Antón de la Fuente (Stanford): "Ideological Change and Phonological Variation in the Galician of O Grove"
  • Syntax and Semantics Circle - Friday Apr 18 - Dwinelle 1303 - 11am-12:10pm
    Practice talks for WCCFL:
    - "Perceptual adaptation in Spanish: Implications for vowel-specific factors in the learning of novel accents" (Niko Schwarz)
    - "Feature interaction in the Tira agreement complex" (Peter Jenks)
  • Syntax and Semantics Circle - Friday Apr 18 - Dwinelle 1303 - 3-4:30pm
    Katherine Johnson (Stanford): "Focus and clefts in Tiriki: Evidence for hyperactivity"
  • Syntax and Semantics Circle - Friday Apr 25 - Dwinelle 1303 - 3-4:30pm
    Andrew Simpson (USC): "Obligatory object shift in Chinese: Aspect, definiteness, and affectedness"

April 17, 2025

Bleaman gives plenary at GLAC 31

Isaac L. Bleaman will be one of the plenary speakers at the 31st Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference, taking place on May 2-3, 2025, at the University of North Texas. The title of his talk is "Social Dimensions of Variation in Yiddish: Historical Perspectives and New Insights."

Johnson colloquium at Pitt

Keith Johnson presented a colloquium talk on "Vowels in the brain" to the Department of Linguistics at the University of Pittsburgh on Friday, April 11. While there he also served as an outside committee member for an undergrad honors thesis.

April 15, 2025

Cychosz joins Stanford

Congratulations to our own Meg Cychosz (PhD 2020), who has just accepted a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Stanford University!

Garvin accepts position at OSU

Congratulations to our own Karee Garvin (PhD 2021), who has just accepted a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the Ohio State University!

April 11, 2025

Linguistics events this week (Apr 11-18, 2025)

In and around the Department of Linguistics in the next week:

  • Linguistics Department Colloquium - Monday Apr 14 - Dwinelle 370 and Zoom (passcode: lx-colloq) - 3:10-4:30pm
    Yi Ting Huang (Maryland): "Learning language, fast and slow: How to overcome sparse data and signal degradation during real-time processing and development"
  • Ladino/Judeo-Spanish Working Group and Language Revitalization Working Group - Wednesday Apr 16 - Dwinelle 3335 - 3-4pm, followed by a light Passover-friendly reception
    Sarah Bunin Benor (Hebrew Union College): "Language Endangerment and Reclamation in Jewish Communities Today"
  • Phorum - Friday Apr 11 - Dwinelle 1229 - 4-5pm
    Yi Ting Huang (Maryland): "Measuring trust in research participation: A case study on SES variation in language development"
  • Sociolinguistics Lab at Berkeley - Monday Apr 14 - Dwinelle 5125 and Zoom - 2-3pm
    Talk by Marguerite Morlan
  • Syntax and Semantics Circle - Friday Apr 18 - Location TBA - 11am-12:30pm
    Practice talks for WCCFL:
    - "Feature interaction in the Tira agreement complex" (Peter Jenks)
    - "Perceptual adaptation in Spanish: Implications for vowel-specific factors in the learning of novel accents" (Nikolai Andrés Schwarz-Acosta)
    - "Transitive subject relativization restriction in Northern Tujia and beyond" (Kang Franco Liu)
  • Syntax and Semantics Circle - Friday Apr 18 - Dwinelle 1303 - 3-4:30pm
    Katherine Johnson (Stanford): "Focus and clefts in Tiriki: Evidence for hyperactivity"

April 10, 2025

Dąbkowski publishes in Proceedings of the LSA

Congratulations to Maksymilian Dąbkowski, whose article "Deglottalizing contamination in A’ingae historical derivatives" was published in Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America!

Peck speaks at ucLADINO and launches new revitalization tool

Julia Peck gave a talk at ucLADINO, the annual Ladino language conference hosted by UCLA, where she launched the digital version of her at-home language nesting project, Ladino en Kaza. The project equips Ladino learners to create a language nest in their kitchens. She was recently awarded a Diller Family Foundation fellowship to support the project's continuation and expansion into more rooms of the home.

Rashid receives FLAS Fellowship for Japan

Congratulations to Nafisa Rashid, who has received the FLAS Fellowship for Japan to study at the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies for the summer!