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January 11, 2024

Sande coauthors article in Phonological Data and Analysis

Hannah Sande and Madeleine Oakley's article "A typological survey of the phonological behavior of implosives: Implications for feature theories" has been published in Phonological Data and Analysis 5 (2023) 1-46. Abstract:

December 20, 2023

Garrett, Mikkelsen, et al. publish book chapter

A new chapter, "Karuk", co-authored by Andrew Garrett, Susan Gehr, Erik Hans Maier, Line Mikkelsen, Crystal Richardson, and Clare S.

Drummond files dissertation

Congratulations to Emily Drummond, who has filed her dissertation, Clause structure and ergativity in Nukuoro. Emily is a Language Data Project Manager with IntelliPro in New York and also continues to manage the Nukuoro Documentation Project.

December 6, 2023

Beier, Hyman, and Michael at "Theory of Tone" workshop
Several Berkeley colleagues and past students took part in the "Theory of Tone" workshop at INALCO (Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales), Paris, on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1. This project is supported by a European Research Council grant (Valentin Vydrin, Principal Investigator). Its goal is to provide a Tonal Density Index for 250 tone languages over the next five years.

December 3, 2023

New book: "The Unnaming of Kroeber Hall" by Andrew Garrett

Andrew Garrett's new book, The Unnaming of Kroeber Hall: Language, Memory, and Indigenous California, has been published by MIT Press. From the publisher's website:

November 30, 2023

Kavitskaya and Yu coedit book, "The Life Cycle of Language"

Darya Kavitskaya and Alan C. L. Yu (Berkeley PhD 2003) have coedited a new book, The Life Cycle of Language: Past, Present, and Future (Oxford University Press), dedicated to Andrew Garrett and with numerous Berkeley contributors (among others):

November 24, 2023

Hannah Sande to receive 2024 Halle Award for Phonology

Berkeley linguistics Prof. Hannah Sande will receive the Linguistic Society of America's 2024 Morris Halle Memorial Award for Faculty Excellence in Phonology! Congratulations, Hannah!

Katie Russell to receive 2024 Fromkin Prize for Phonology
Berkeley linguistics graduate student Katherine Russell will receive the Linguistic Society of America's 2024 Victoria Fromkin Memorial Prize for Student Excellence in Phonology. Congratulations, Katie!
Hyman coauthors review article

Larry M. Hyman's co-authored review article (with William R. Leben) "Beauty of construction, richness of expression: Paul Newman and the history of Hausa" has appeared in Brill's Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics 15 (2023) 433-475. Abstract:

November 2, 2023

Sande publishes chapter in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Morphology

Hannah Sande published a chapter with Taylor L. Miller (SUNY Oswego) on "Recursion in morphology" in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Morphology: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119693604.morphcom070

October 27, 2023

Hyman publishes new chapter on Luganda tone

Larry Hyman and Francis Katamba have published a new chapter on "Tonology of the Luganda noun phrase" In Achiri Blasius (ed.), The Bantu NP: Issues and perspectives: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781003254188/bantu-nou...

October 26, 2023

Kavitskaya speaks at UChicago

Darya Kavitskaya gave two talks at UChicago this week:  a colloquium on Oct 26th on "Functional factors in contrast preservation and loss: Evidence from Slavic” and a talk for Language Variation and Change group on Oct 27th on "Dialects of Crimean Tatar: Fieldwork and its challenges”.

Translation event at Cal

Mairi McLaughlin and Timothy Hampton are delighted to announce the first of what we hope to turn into a series of events about translation at UC Berkeley. This first event is called Translation: Literalism, Lateralism, Letteralism and it will involve two round tables featuring 12 speakers representing a wide range of languages and disciplines. The event will be held in the Geballe Room at the Townsend Center from 2-5 on Wednesday 11/1 and it is open to the public.

Beguš presents two talks

Gašper Beguš gave two invited talks this week, one at Stanford NLP Seminar (https://nlp.stanford.edu/seminar/details/gasperbegus_2023.shtml) and the other at the Linguistics Colloquium at UC Davis. 

Linguistics events this week (Oct 27-Nov 3)

In and around the linguistics department in the next week:

  • SSCircle - Friday, Oct 27 - Dwinelle 1303 - 3-4pm: Niko Webster (UC Santa Cruz): "On the argument structure of eventive nominals in Korean"
  • Phorum - Friday, Oct 27- Dwinelle 1303 - 4-5pm: Anna Björklund (UC Berkeley): Automated vs Traditional Approaches to Patwin Intonation
  • SLaB - Tuesday, Oct 31 - Dwinelle 5125 - 3:30-4:30pm: Spooky SocioStudyHall! There'll be Halloween-themed treats to accompany our work session; costumes welcome but not required.
  • Language Revitalization Working Group (LRWG) - Wednesday, Nov 1 - Dwinelle 1303 or  Zoom(link is external) (password: lrwg23) - 3-4pm: Fototeca Tuzik' (México) "Aproximación a la revitalización del maaya t'aan desde la representatividad y las artes." Evento en español.
  • SSCircle - Friday, Nov 3 - Dwinelle 1303 - 3-4pm: Line Mikkelsen (UC Berkeley): Two case puzzles in Kalaallisut
  • Phorum - Friday, Nov 3 - Dwinelle 1303 - 4-5pm: Emily Grabowski (UC Berkeley): Acoustic Measurement in Phonetics: Current Practices and Future Directions
CLA updates

Here's the latest from the California Language Archive:

October 20, 2023

Regier awarded honorary doctorate

Congratulations to Terry Regier, who has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Gothenburg.

October 19, 2023

Linguistics events this week (Oct 20-27)

In and around the linguistics department in the next week:

  • SSCircle- Friday, Oct 20 - Dwinelle 1303 - 3-4pm: Akshay Aitha(link is external) (University of Chicago): "A Case Study in Nominal-Clausal Parallelism: The View from the Telugu Oblique"
  • Phorum - Friday, Oct 20 - Dwinelle 1303 - 4-5pm: NO MEETING (AMP)
  • Fieldwork Forum - Wednesday, Oct 25 - Dwinelle 1303 and Zoom (password: fforum) - 3:10-4:30pm: Maks Dąbkowski (UC Berkeley) and Hannah Sande (UC Berkeley): Round-table discussion about incorporating theory into grammatical descriptions, dealing with variation between groups of speakers and between individuals, and deciding on the scope of a grammar
  • SSCircle - Friday, Oct 27 - Dwinelle 1303 - 3-4pm: Niko Webster (UC Santa Cruz): TBD
  • Phorum - Friday, Oct 27 - Dwinelle 1303 - 4-5pm: Anna Björklund (UC Berkeley): Automated vs Traditional Approaches to Patwin Intonation

     

CLA updates

Here's the latest from the California Language Archive:

  • Raksit Lau-Preechathammarach (PhD 2022) has accessioned a new collection of materials related to Kuy, Thro, and So Thavung (Austroasiatic), based on work with several dozen speakers in Thailand beginning in 2018. The materials consist mainly of audio recordings of elicitation of lexical items, conversations, and anonymized data from a production study consisting of target words embedded in a carrier sentence.
  • Bernat Bardagil (postdoc 2018-2020) has accessioned a new collection of materials related to Mỹky (isolate; Brazil), based on work with 18 speakers beginning in 2022. (Materials from earlier in their project are archived with the Endangered Languages Archive.) The materials mainly consist of audio and video recordings of stories, songs, and elicitation.
  • We've accessioned a new collection of materials related to the 2022-2023 Berkeley graduate field methods course on Lobi (Gur; Burkina Faso, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire), with consultant Sansan Claude Hien and instructor Hannah Sande.
  • Hannah Sande and Katherine Russell have added dozens of items to the Guébie Fieldwork Collection (see 2014-15.224 through 2014-15.257), based on remote and in-person work from March 2022 to the present with Abie Esmel Kokolou, Boris Azie, Gnakouri, Juliette Kadja Abalé, Olivier Agodio, and Serikpa Emil.

October 12, 2023

Linguistics events this week (Oct 13-20)

In and around the linguistics department in the next week:

  • SSCircle - Friday, Oct 13 - Dwinelle 1303 - 3-4pm: Delaney Gomez-Jackson (UC Santa Cruz): "Questions and indefinites in Santiago Laxopa Zapotec"
  • Phorum - Friday, Oct 13- Dwinelle 1303 - 4-5pm: AMP 2023 practice talks: Maksymilian Dąbkowski: "Phasal strength in A'ingae classifying subordination", Katie Russell: "Reduplication in Atchan as prosodically conditioned morphological doubling"
  • SLaB - Tuesday, Oct 17 - Dwinelle 5125 and Zoom - 3:30-4:30pm: SocioStudyHall
  • Language Revitalization Working Group (LRWG) - Wednesday, Oct 18 - Dwinelle 1303 or  Zoom (password: lrwg23) - 3-4pm: Pa Vue (UC Berkeley) "The Affordances and Challenges of Teaching an Endangered Language on Instagram"
  • SSCircle - Friday, Oct 20 - Dwinelle 1303 - 3-4pm: Akshay Aitha (University of Chicago): TBD
  • Phorum - Friday, Oct 20 - NO MEETING (AMP)