Phonetics, Phonology, and Morphology

Laryngeal features and segmental length: Cases studies in Yánesha’, Barese, Maranese, and Italian

Allegra Robertson
2025

This dissertation examines the relationship between laryngeal features and the segment in four languages, with a focus on phonetic traits, phonological representation, and the roles of length, weight, and stress. The case studies present laryngeal phenomena from disparate language contexts that are united in their subsegmental nature and typologically unexpected occurrence: laryngealized vowels in Yánesha’ (Arawakan), pre-aspirated geminate stops in Barese (Upper Southern Italo-Romance) and the local variety of Standard Italian (Central Italo-Romance), and post-aspirated geminate stops in...

A Grammar of Nomlaki

Anna Björklund
2025

This thesis is a grammar of Nomlaki, a Wintuan language of northern California preserved exclusively through archival documents. Many early documenters did not consider Nomlaki sufficiently differentiated from its sister language Wintu to justify separate investigation. As a consequence, Nomlaki is the only Wintuan language without a grammatical description.


This grammar is a preliminary answer to this gap in the Californianist literature. This work is divided into eight chapters. The introduction includes an orientation of Nomlaki in its genetic context, a finding guide for its...

Berkeley linguists at Exploring Boundaries workshop

March 5, 2025

Several Berkeley linguists will present at an upcoming workshop on Exploring Boundaries: Phonological domains in the languages of the world in Tromsø, Norway on March 13-14, 2025.

Maksymilian Dąbkowski and Katherine Russell will give a talk entitled "Wordhood at the heart of Paraguayan Guaraní morphology" Hannah Sande will give a talk entitled "Identifying domains in Lobi: Downstep, tone spreading, and harmony" Kai Joseph Schenck will present a poster on "Morphological domains in Yurok rhotic vowel harmony"

Melguy and Johnson publish in the Journal of Phonetics

March 3, 2025

Congratulations to Yevgeniy Melguy (PhD 2022) and Keith Johnson, whose article "What are you sinking about? Experience with unfamiliar accent produces both inhibition and facilitation during lexical processing" was published this week in the Journal of Phonetics.

Berkeley linguists at Variation in Cyclicity workshop

February 24, 2025

There will be two Berkeley talks at the upcoming workshop on Variation in Cyclicity at DGfS in Mainz, Germany, March 4-7:

Hannah Sande will give a plenary talk on "Discontinuous harmony in Guébie: Consequences for cyclic spell out." Maksymilian Dąbkowski will talk about "The spell-out of A'ingae functional phases and its phonological consequences."

Sande speaks in Leipzig

February 24, 2025

Hannah Sande is giving an invited talk entitled "Exploring prosodic domains and morpheme-specific tonology in Lobi (Gur)" at Universität Leipzig on Friday, February 28. Congrats, Hannah!

Russell publishes in the International Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics

February 12, 2025

Congratulations to Katie Russell on the publication of a chapter on "Tone" in the 3rd edition of the International Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. An Open Access version can be found here.

Robertson Molinaro publishes in Folia Linguistica

February 6, 2025

Congratulations to Allegra Robertson Molinaro on the publication of an article titled "Laryngealized vowels in Yánesha': A phonetic description and subsegmental analysis" in Folia Linguistica! An Open Access version of the article can be found here.

Dąbkowski presents at OCP22

January 30, 2025

Congratulations to Maksymilian Dąbkowski on his upcoming presentation, "The forms and meanings of A’ingae derived nouns," at the 22nd Old-World Conference in Phonology (OCP22) hosted at the University of Amsterdam on February 5-7.

Sande publishes on deletion and epenthesis in Kru languages

January 20, 2025

Congratulations to Hannah Sande, who published a chapter, "Insertion or deletion? CVCV/CCV alternations in Kru languages," in a new volume Epenthesis and beyond: Recent approaches to insertion in phonology and its interfaces with Language Science Press, available here: https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/469.