News

A paper by Miriam R. L. Petruck (PhD 1986) and co-authors Ayush Pancholy and Swabha Swayamdipta, entitled "Sister Help: Data Augmentation for Frame-Semantic Role Labeling," has just been published in Proceedings of the Joint 15th Linguistic Annotation Workshop (LAW) and 3rd Designing Meaning Representations (DMR) Workshop. Congrats!

Here's the latest from the California Language Archive:

• Hannah Sande, with the assistance of Julianne Kapner, has archived a new collection of materials related to Nobiin (Nile-Nubian; Egypt, Sudan), stemming from the Georgetown field methods course she taught in the spring of 2018. The collection consists of sound recordings of elicitation sessions and texts, with accompanying transcriptions, glossing, and translations of sessions. Hannah has also added 32 file bundles of sound recordings of elicitation sessions and texts to her collection related to Guébie (Kru; Côte d'Ivoire) from fieldwork in 2015, 2016, and 2017 (see 049-080). More is forthcoming!

In and around the linguistics department in the next week:

• TABLE: Toward a Better Linguistics Environment - Monday Nov 15 - Zoom and Dwinelle 370 (hybrid) - 3-4:30pm
  Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi): Decolonizing Linguistics.
  All who wish to attend, including Berkeley linguists, are required to register in advance, according to your mode of attendance: Zoom registration; in-person registration
  If interested in a 1-on-1 meeting, indicate interest in registration or contact the TABLE organizers.
• Fieldwork Forum - Wednesday Nov 17 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom (p/w fforum) - 3:10-4pm
  Melvatha R. Chee (UNM): A Diné Field Linguist’s Eye-Opening Experience.
• Language, Computation, and Cognition Reading Group - Wednesday Nov 17 - Zoom - 3-4pm
  Discussion of Martí et al. 2021. Contact Noah Hermalin for more information.
• Language Revitalization Working Group - Wednesday Nov 17 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 4-5pm
  David McLeod (Ojibway / Métis / Native Communications Incorporated) & Brian Wright-McLeod (Dakota / Anishnabe / York University): Indigenous Music and Radio in Canada. [registration link; flyer]
• Phorum - Friday Nov 19 - Zoom only - 12-1pm
  Caitlin Smith (Johns Hopkins): Learning Derivationally Opaque Patterns in the Gestural Harmony Model.
• Sociolinguistics Lab at Berkeley - Friday Nov 12 - Dwinelle 5125 and Zoom - 3-4pm
  Jon Henner (UNC Greensboro): Putting the Crip in Linguistics. [flyer and abstract]
  This hybrid event will take place both in person and virtually (with ASL interpretation). Dr. Henner will be presenting virtually. Please contact Ben Papadopoulos to be added to the SLaB mailing list.
• Syntax and Semantics Circle - Friday Nov 12 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 3-4:30pm
  Ana Laura Arrieta Zamudio (UBC): Reflexives in San Pablo Güilá Zapotec: An approach on Discourse Representation Theory.
• Syntax and Semantics Circle - Friday Nov 19 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 3-4:30pm
  Maksymilian Dąbkowski and Hannah Sande (UC Berkeley): Discontinuous vowel harmony in Guébie focus fronting.

TABLE: Toward a Better Linguistics Environment, a colloquium series taking place this fall, continues on Monday, November 15, with a presentation by Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi), held via Zoom and in person in Dwinelle 370 (hybrid) from 3-4:30pm. The presentation is entitled "Decolonizing Linguistics." Those who would like to attend, including Berkeley linguists, need to register for the event regardless of mode of attendance (Zoom registration; in-person registration).

Here's the latest from the California Language Archive:

• Hannah Sande, with the assistance of Julianne Kapner, has archived a new collection of materials related to Gã (Kwa; Ghana), from the Georgetown field methods course she taught in the fall of 2019. The collection consists of sound recordings of elicitation sessions, with accompanying transcriptions, glossing, and translation of sessions.
• We hosted a visit by Mischelle Dressler, Lisa Enos, Herman Fillmore, and Mitchell Osorio, who consulted William Jacobsen's (PhD 1964) lexical file slips of Washo (isolate; CA). The visit was sponsored by the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival.

In and around the linguistics department in the next week:

• TABLE: Toward a Better Linguistics Environment - Monday Nov 8 - Zoom and Dwinelle 370 (hybrid) - 3-4:30pm
  Julie A. Hochgesang (Gallaudet): Documenting the signed language use of the American Sign Language (ASL) communities as a Deaf linguist.
  All who wish to attend, including Berkeley linguists, are required to register in advance, according to your mode of attendance: Zoom registration; in-person registration
  If interested in a 1-on-1 meeting, indicate interest in registration or contact the TABLE organizers.
• Fieldwork Forum - Wednesday Nov 10 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom (p/w fforum) - 3:10-4pm
  Nadine Grimm (Rochester): Reflections on gender and other social identities in fieldwork.
• Language, Computation, and Cognition Reading Group - Wednesday Nov 10 - Zoom - 3-4pm
  Discussion of Huisman et al. 2021. Contact Noah Hermalin for more information.
• Phorum - Friday Nov 5 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 12-1pm
  Katie Russell (UC Berkeley): Nasalization in Paraguayan Guaraní.
• Sociolinguistics Lab at Berkeley - Friday Nov 5 - Dwinelle 5125 and Zoom - 3-4pm
  Eyasu Hailu Tamene (Addis Ababa): Overview of African Sign Languages. [flyer and abstract]
  This hybrid event will take place both in person and virtually. Dr. Tamene will be presenting in person. Please contact Ben Papadopoulos for the Zoom link and/or to be added to the SLaB mailing list.
• Sociolinguistics Lab at Berkeley - Friday Nov 12 - Dwinelle 5125 and Zoom - 3-4pm
  Jon Henner (UNC Greensboro): Putting the Crip in Linguistics
  This hybrid event will take place both in person and virtually. Dr. Henner will be presenting virtually.
• Syntax and Semantics Circle - Friday Nov 12 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 3-4:30pm
  Ana Laura Arrieta Zamudio (UBC): Reflexives in San Pablo Güilá Zapotec: An approach on Discourse Representation Theory.
• Zoom Phonology - Monday Nov 8 - Zoom - 10am
  Larry Hyman (UC Berkeley): Initial/final tone agreement in Ekegusii (Bantu; Kenya).
  For the Zoom link or to be added to the Zoom Phonology mailing list, contact Karee Garvin.

TABLE: Toward a Better Linguistics Environment, a colloquium series taking place this fall, continues on Monday, November 8, with a presentation by Julie A. Hochgesang (Gallaudet), held via Zoom and in person in Dwinelle 370 (hybrid) from 3-4:30pm. Those who would like to attend, including Berkeley linguists, need to register for the event regardless of mode of attendance (Zoom registration; in-person registration). The presentation is entitled "Documenting the signed language use of the American Sign Language (ASL) communities as a Deaf linguist," and the abstract is as follows:

In this presentation I present my journey as a deaf linguist in North America and how experiences along the way have influenced my current theoretical preferences and practices in the work I do. These include having to push down feelings of rejection each time I read a generalist work on linguistics and finding no mention of signed language (especially when they are discussing “all human languages”); working on a dictionary project with Kenyan Sign Language users and considering how to make it theirs; thinking about how to textually represent a signed language that, like many others, have not been conventionally written down; and navigating how to document language use in today’s apocarevolutiondemic world in a project I’ve named from the ASL signs “document” “covid” - “O5S5”. Along the way, I muse on what it means to be inclusive and how tricky this is (e.g., for us “there’s no one way to be deaf”). And how important it is for our field and communities we work with to recognize and respect what should be a wide range of work reflecting what kind of lives are actually being lived and being meaningfully done by people living these lives.

Here's the latest from the California Language Archive:

• We remodeled our research room! Thanks go to Erik Maier, Edwin Ko, and Allegra Robertson for assisting. The remodel moves our collection of reference books out of the archive room, making available space for cabinets and shelving for new archival materials. Come by and check it out!
• We are hosting a weeklong research visit by Dr. Darla Garey-Sage, who is working with William Jacobsen's (PhD 1964) numerous Washo (isolate; CA) lexical file slips.
• We hosted a tour of the CLA for a group organized by Sharon Inkelas, Professor of Linguistics and Associate Vice Provost for the Faculty, including: Khira Griscavage, Associate Chancellor and Chief of Staff to the Chancellor; Martha Chavez, Associate Chief of Staff to the Chancellor; Christine Treadway, Assistant Chancellor for Government and Community Relations; Linda Rugg, Professor of Swedish Literature and Associate Vice Chancellor for Research; Phenocia Bauerle, Director, Native American Student Development; Peter Nelson, Assistant Professor of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management and Ethnic Studies; and Carolyn Smith, Postdoctoral Scholar, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research.
• Thanks to Emily Remirez, who alerted us to a drawer of analogue recordings in 51 Dwinelle: 50 reel-to-reel tapes, 19 cassettes, 15 VHS tapes, six U-matic tapes, and one 45! The recordings generally stem from work done in the PhonLab. Represented are 23 languages, in addition to unidentified Siberian languages: Arabic, Ashaninka (Arawak; Peru), Dutch, French, Guatemalan Sign Language, Hindi, Hmong, Hungarian, Ikalanga (Bantu; Botswana, Zimbabwe), Kalabari (Ijoid; Nigeria), Korean, Mandarin, Mazahua (Oto-Pamean; Mexico), Mixtec (Mixtecan; Mexico), Northern Pomo (Pomoan; CA), Nyamwezi (Bantu; Tanzania), Polish, Quechua, Quiotepec Chinantec (Chinantecan; Mexico), Tamil, Thai, Xhosa (Bantu; South Africa, Zimbabwe), and Yucatec Maya (Mayan; Mexico). Most are "speech sound" recordings, described in accompanying paper documentation as "designed primarily to provide the user practice recognizing and transcribing some of the important sound contrasts" in these languages. Others come from, for example, Leanne Hinton's courses on Chalcatongo de Hidalgo Mixtec in 1981 and 1982 (with Nicolás Cortés), and from Michelle Caisse (PhD 1988) and Catherine O'Connor's (PhD 1987) early documentation of Northern Pomo, including unique recordings of stories told by Edna Guerrero.

In and around the linguistics department in the next week:

• Linguistics Department Colloquium - Monday Nov 1 - Dwinelle 370 and Zoom - 3:10-5pm
  Carlos Cisneros (UC Berkeley): Capturing the indiscriminative reading of 'any'.
• Fieldwork Forum - Wednesday Nov 3 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom (p/w fforum) - 3:10-4pm
  Anna Björklund (UC Berkeley): Notes from the archives: The road towards Nomlaki language revitalization.
• Language Revitalization Working Group - Wednesday Nov 3 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 4-5pm
  Eva Garroutte (Boston College): First Contact! As Told by a Cherokee Historian of the Secret Nighthawk Keetoowah Society in 1905. [registration and flyer]
• Phorum - Friday Oct 29 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 12-1pm
  Chloe Willis (UC Santa Barbara): The Theoretical and Methodological Implications of Bisexuality in Language and Sexuality Research.
• Phorum - Friday Nov 5 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 12-1pm
  Katie Russell (UC Berkeley): TBA.
• Sociolinguistics Lab at Berkeley - Friday Oct 29 - Dwinelle 5125 and Zoom - 3-4pm
  Discussion of Mufwene 2002.
• Sociolinguistics Lab at Berkeley - Friday Nov 5 - Dwinelle 5125 and Zoom - 3-4pm
  Eyasu Hailu Tamene (Addis Ababa): Overview of African Sign Languages. [flyer and abstract]
  This hybrid event will take place both in person and virtually. Dr. Tamene will be presenting in person. To request ASL interpretation, please contact Ben Papadopoulos by Monday, Nov 1. Also contact Ben for the Zoom link and/or to be added to the SLaB mailing list.
• Syntax and Semantics Circle - Friday Nov 5 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 3-4:30pm
  Selikem Gotah (NYU): TBA.

Zsuzsanna Fagyal (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), who gave an online seminar in the French Department last year, will give an in-person lecture entitled "Stylistic innovations in language as 'place-making' among the multiethnic working-class urban youth in Paris" from 5-6:30 on November 2, 2021 in the French Department Library (4229 Dwinelle). Click here for the flyer with an abstract.

Congratulations to Amy Rose Deal and Charles B. Chang (PhD 2010), who received the Early Career Award from the Linguistic Society of America!

Here's the latest from the California Language Archive:

• We hosted a visit by Wanda Batchelor, Robin Bradley, Clyde Prout III, and Travis Young, with linguist Sheri Tatsch, who together consulted linguistic field notes, file slips, and sound recordings related to Nisenan (Maiduan; CA), especially those by Richard Smith and Hans Jørgen Uldall. Wanda and Robin are the great-granddaughters of speaker Lizzie Enos. During the visit, sponsored by the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival, we also went over sound recordings, slides, and 16mm film held by the Hearst Museum of Anthropology.
• We also hosted introductory visits by the Society for Linguistics Undergraduate Students (SLUgS) and by the students of Linguistics R1B "Endangered Languages: Why does linguistic diversity matter?" taught by linguistics PhD candidate Julia Nee.

In and around the linguistics department in the next week:

• Practice talks for Westermann workshop - Thursday-Friday Oct 28-29 - Zoom
  See the Calques story linked above for the full schedule. Email Hannah Sande for the Zoom link.
• Language, Computation, and Cognition Reading Group - Wednesday Oct 27 - Zoom - 3-4pm
  Discussion of Pimentel et al. 2021. Contact Noah Hermalin for more information.
• Phorum - Friday Oct 22 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 12-1pm
  Natalie Weber (Yale): Correspondence of prosody and syntax by phase in a polysynthetic language.
• Phorum - Friday Oct 29 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 12-1pm
  Chloe Willis (UC Santa Barbara): The Theoretical and Methodological Implications of Bisexuality in Language and Sexuality Research.
• Sociolinguistics Lab at Berkeley - Friday Oct 29 - Dwinelle 5125 and Zoom - 3-4pm
  Discussion of Mufwene 2002.
  Please email Ben Papadopoulos for the Zoom link and/or to be added to the SLaB mailing list.
• Syntax and Semantics Circle - Friday Oct 22 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom - 3-4:30pm
  NELS practice talks:
  - Madeline Bossi: Negative bias and pragmatic reasoning in Kipsigis belief reports
  - Amy Rose Deal: Negative concord as downward Agree
  - Emily Drummond: Abstract Case without morphological case
  - Rebecca Jarvis: Elided antecedents and exceptive sluices

Zachary O'Hagan was a contributor on Thursday to KQED Forum's segment "How Preserving Indigenous Languages Revitalizes California Culture, Identity and History" (listen here!), together with Phil Albers (Karuk), Quirina Geary (Mutsun, Tamien), and Jennifer Malone (Wukchumni). This month he also published an academic obituary for Gerald Weiss (1932-2021), an early ethnographer in Ashaninka communities of the Tambo River region of Peru.

Congratulations to the following Berkeley linguists, who have contributed to Proceedings of the 38th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL):

• Madeline Bossi: "*Local > Local Is Morphological"
• Maksymilian Dąbkowski: "The Morphophonology of A'ingae Verbal Stress"
• Virginia Dawson (PhD 2020): "Disjunction as Alternatives: Evidence from Phrasal Comparatives"

Congratulations to the Berkeley linguists who will be presenting at the 2022 meeting of the Linguistic Society of America in Washington, DC.

• Wesley dos Santos — Diagnosing unaccusativity in Kawahíva
• Keith Johnson — An effect of categorization on auditory/phonetic representation
• Raksit Lau-Preechathammarach — Bilingualism as a catalyst for sound change: individual differences in f0 usage in the Kuy register contrast
• Irene Yi — Sociolinguistically-Aware Computational Models of Mandarin-English Codeswitching Using CART
• Anna Bjorklund — Vowel Duration in Nomlaki: An Archival Examination
• Emily Remirez — What are 'social factors' in speech perception, anyway?
• Allegra Robertson — A subsegmental analysis of contrastive laryngeal features in Yanesha’ (Arawakan)
• Katherine Russell — Progressive Nasalization in Paraguayan Guarani: Multiply Conditioned Spreading
• Isaac L. Bleaman, Katie Cugno, Annie Helms — Medium shifting as a constraint on intraspeaker variation in virtual interviews
• Dakota Robinson — Double Plurals in Breton: Evidence for a Split Analysis of Plurality
• Eric Wilbanks — Investigating Selective Adaptation to Socially-Induced Percepts
• Nigel Fabb, Kristin Hanson — Literary Linguistic Forms
• Maksymilian Dąbkowski — Paraguayan Guaraní and the typology of free affix order
• Jennifer Kaplan — Binary-Constrained Code-switching Among Non-binary French-English Bilinguals