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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250523T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250523T140000
DTSTAMP:20240815T093257Z
CREATED:20240815T093257Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240815T093257Z
UID:10000170-1747998000-1748008800@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Valentine Hacquard
DESCRIPTION:Being pragmatic about anankastic conditionals (joint work with Jingyi Chen) \nSo-called ‘anankastic conditionals’\, like (1)\, have vexed standard accounts of modals and conditionals\, by presenting an apparent non compositionality problem. Indeed\, (1) seems to express that going to Harlem requires taking the A train\, rather than the mere desire to do so\, a reading standard accounts can’t derive. This has led to proposals for a special semantics for want (Condoravdi & Lauer 2016) or a special semantics for conditionals involving goal-oriented modality (von Fintel & Iatridou 2005). \n(1) If you want to go to Harlem\, you have to take the A train. \nIn this talk\, I will show that the apparent non-compositionality problem of anankastic conditionals is more general\, and can be replicated with attitude verbs other than want\, and across modal flavors: all can trigger what we call “harmonizing readings”. We offer a pragmatic account that generalizes across modal flavors and attitudes. Specifically\, we argue that harmonizing arises when the meaning of the antecedent gives rise to a defeasible modal inference that matches in flavor with the consequent modal. This account predicts when harmonizing is possible\, and when it isn’t\, without relying on any flavor specific idiosyncrasies. \nLocation: Royce Hall 362
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-valentine-hacquard/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250516T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250516T140000
DTSTAMP:20240815T093721Z
CREATED:20240815T093721Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240815T093721Z
UID:10000171-1747393200-1747404000@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Matt Wagers
DESCRIPTION:Setting healthy (mnemonic) boundaries\nSome 20 years ago\, Lewis & Vasishth (2005) applied the ACT-R modeling framework to language processing by creating an English parser fragment embedded in an associative memory. McElree (2000) and McElree\, Foraker & Dyer (2003) informed this development by providing earlier arguments in favor of such a content-addressable memory. This proved to be hugely influential because it offered a general theory of dependency resolution which could be made precise by reference to any particular theory of linguistic features. Both strands of thought reoriented thinking in the field away from models of working memory that required serial search procedures and\, generally\, the discovery of widespread interference effects has vindicated that shift.Much recent research has made progress in delineating what the representations are (Yadav et al. 2023\, Keshev et al. 2025) and how they can be learned in an unsupervised manner (Ryu & Lewis\, 2021). Relatively unexplored is how to characterize the information that can be attended to simultaneously\, sometimes called the “focus of attention” (Oberauer & Hein\, 2012). This is an important commitment of models like ACT-R and provides an attractive point of articulation to theories of locality or linguistic domains. In this talk\, I will survey what we know\, and don’t know\, about the focus of attention in language processing (Wagers & McElree\, 2013\, 2022) and relate it to recent thinking about the dynamics of context encoding (Healey\, Long & Kahana\, 2019; Balachandran\, Wagers & Rich\, 2025). \nLocation: Royce Hall 362
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-matt-wagers/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250502T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250502T140000
DTSTAMP:20240815T093802Z
CREATED:20240815T093802Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240815T093802Z
UID:10000177-1746183600-1746194400@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Rachel Walker
DESCRIPTION:Position-sensitive transparency in vowel harmony: The role of prosodic gestures and locality \nA recent crosslinguistic study of positional privilege in vowel harmony observed that vowels in a stressed syllable may asymmetrically block harmony\, but they are never singled out to be transparent (Kaplan & Walker 2024). This typological gap is not predicted under traditional theoretical assumptions in Optimality Theory. If transparent vowels are skipped by harmony\, then a pattern is predicted in which harmony operates among unstressed vowels but skips stressed vowels to preserve content in the stressed syllable. This unwanted pattern is derived when a positional faithfulness constraint designated for the stressed syllable (Beckman 1999) and a harmony imperative constraint are enforced at the cost of the constraint that penalizes vowels that are skipped by harmony: ˈσ-Faithfulness >> Harmony Imperative >> *Skip. \nThis talk employs the representations of gestural phonology (Browman & Goldstein 1986\, 1995) to address this unwanted prediction\, centering on two points. First\, harmony does not actually skip vowels\, so transparent vowels have overlapping (co-active) opposing gestures. “Transparency” results when the goal state of the harmonizing gesture is not achieved due to blending with a co-active opposing gesture (Gafos & Benus 2006\, Smith 2018). Second\, stressed vowels resist transparency because they are a locus of hyperarticulation due to a prosodic µ-gesture associated with stress (Saltzman et al. 2008\, Katsika & Tsai 2021)\, a context that disfavors opposing gestures. \nAn analysis is developed in Optimality Theory. The proposal is illustrated in application to vowel laxing/RTR harmony in the Eastern Andalusian Spanish variety of Granada (Jiménez & Lloret 2007\, 2020\, Lloret & Jiménez 2009)\, in which unstressed vowels may be transparent but stressed vowels consistently harmonize. In addition to empirically demonstrating issues surrounding positional asymmetries in vowel harmony\, three patterns of variation in the harmony pattern of Eastern Andalusian Spanish are examined and analyzed in the gestural account. \nThis study has implications for phonological representations\, locality\, and position-sensitive constraints. Building on previous gestural approaches to harmony\, it provides a new argument for understanding spreading in harmony as a local operation\, and it offers support for gestural representations in phonology through examining interactions of vocal tract constriction gestures and prosodic gestures. In terms of the treatment of privileged positions\, it argues that stress-sensitive transparency and blocking be understood as an effect of positional markedness rather than positional faithfulness\, contributing a new argument to work identifying disadvantages of positional faithfulness in handling various aspects of positional privilege (e.g. Hayes 2004\, Prince & Tesar 2004\, Jesney 2009). \nLocation: Royce Hall 362
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-rachel-walker/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250425T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250425T140000
DTSTAMP:20240815T093518Z
CREATED:20240815T093518Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240815T093518Z
UID:10000176-1745578800-1745589600@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Tanya Bondarenko
DESCRIPTION:Lessons about clausal embedding from long-distance wh-dependencies  \nAbstract: In this talk I argue with the data from Georgian that syntax and semantics of long-distance wh-dependencies provide support for the view that many embedded clauses are adjuncts (syntactically) and modifiers (semantically) rather than arguments of verbs they combine with (Elliott 2017\, Bochnak & Hanink 2021\, Bondarenko 2022\, a.o.). Georgian is a language that has wh-movement within matrix clauses (Borise 2023)\, but lacks wh-movement out of embedded CPs (Harris 1981). I examine in detail both restrictions on wh-movement\, and alternative strategies of building long-distance wh-dependencies\, and argue that explanations for both need the assumption that embedded clauses at hand are not true arguments of the verb. \nFirst\, I argue that restrictions on wh-movement in Georgian are an instance of the Williams Cycle effect (Williams\, 2003\, 2011; Meadows 2023\, Poole 2023\, Egressy 2024\, a.o.): unlike in languages like English\, wh-movement in Georgian targets a syntactic projection lower than CP\, and this is why it cannot cross a CP boundary. I show that this constraint is part of a broader seize-locality generalization\, and propose that Meadows’ (2023) approach to Williams Cycle is best suited to account for it. An implication of this is that (most) embedded clauses have to be adjuncts: a crucial part of the proposal is that clausal embedding involves featurally free instances of external Merge. \nSecond\, I show that Georgian has three alternative strategies of building long-distance wh-dependencies (wh-scope marking\, prolepsis with a gap\, prolepsis with wh-doubling)\, and none of them involve cross-clausal movement (cf. Dayal 1994\, 2000\, a.o.). I make a proposal of how to build the meanings of these long-distance questions compositionally from clauses with regular wh-syntax. A crucial assumption of this proposal is that embedded clauses restrict the propositional content of the matrix eventuality\, implying that embedded clauses under consideration are modifiers of the verb. \n  \nLocation: Royce Hall 362
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-tanya-bondarenko/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250411T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250411T140000
DTSTAMP:20240815T093542Z
CREATED:20240815T093542Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240815T093542Z
UID:10000175-1744369200-1744380000@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Ginny Dawson
DESCRIPTION:Rethinking classifier languages\n\nClassifier languages have long been of interest to formal semanticists. That such languages do not allow nouns to be modified directly by numerals have lead researchers to propose a significant degree of cross-linguistic variation between classifier and non-classifier languages in either noun meaning (e.g. Chierchia 1998) or numeral meaning (e.g. Krifka 1989\, Bale & Coon 2014). Classifier languages\, on this view\, show fundamental semantic differences from non-classifier languages. In this talk\, I challenge this notion by examining the behavior of nouns and numerals in Tiwa\, a Tibeto-Burman language of India. I argue that despite having the properties of a typical classifier language\, nouns and numerals in Tiwa can and should be analyzed as having the same sorts of meanings as nouns and numerals in non-classifier languages like English. I argue that the differences between languages like Tiwa and English are largely morphosyntactic\, and that this morphosyntactic variation is expected given standard assumptions about the syntax and semantics of nouns\, numerals\, and number marking. Most centrally\, I argue that (sortal) classifiers in Tiwa are overt realizations of a morpheme that creates a predicate out of a degree-denoting numeral; a function which is often assumed to be a type-shift in languages like English (Bylinina & Nouwen 2020). What seem like major differences between the two languages\, then\, does not reflect fundamental semantic variation in noun or numeral meaning\, but is exactly the sort of morphosyntactic variation we expect to see. I conclude by looking at the typological picture more broadly\, examining the ways languages are predicted to differ based on the dimensions of variation I identify. \nLocation: Royce Hall 362
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-ginny-dawson/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250314T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250314T140000
DTSTAMP:20240815T093603Z
CREATED:20240815T093603Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240815T093603Z
UID:10000174-1741950000-1741960800@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Florian Schwarz
DESCRIPTION:Testing weak and strong definites experimentally across languages \nSchwarz (2009) proposed a distinction between weak and strong definite articles\, reflected in Standard German in the presence or absence of contraction of the article with certain prepositions (e.g.\, vom vs. von dem). Semantically\, the analysis took the former to be a situationally restricted uniqueness article\, and the latter an anaphoric article bearing an index\, just like a pronoun. In subsequent work\, numerous authors have applied this distinction to analyze contrasts between definite forms in a wide range of languages. While this cross-linguistic evidence supports the availability of the ingredients of the distinction in natural language in general (with some analytical variations and adjustments\, and quite possibly further aspects in play in certain languages)\, the basic semantic contrast remains subtle and has generally not been captured systematically in experimental investigations. I present data from a simple picture selection task paradigm where the contrast in anaphoricity is pitched against another factor\, that of typicality\, which do provide quantitative support of the posited contrast. Next\, I extend this paradigm to English to turn to a question vexingly left open in this literature\, namely whether articles in languages that do not seem to make such a contrast and only use one form for definites throughout\, like English\, are ambiguous or map onto either weak or strong articles. The final part of the talk adds in data from various ongoing collaborations that investigate yet more languages to work towards a more systematic and quantitative comparison of different forms across languages. I close by considering challenges that lie ahead in integrating this data theoretically. \nLocation: Royce Hall\, Room 156
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-florian-schwarz/
LOCATION:Royce Hall 156
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250312T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250312T140000
DTSTAMP:20250219T152356Z
CREATED:20250219T152356Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250219T152356Z
UID:10000212-1741780800-1741788000@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Jack Duff
DESCRIPTION:Colloquium Talk – Jack Duff \nMar 12 @ 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm \nLocation: La Kretz Hall 120
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-jack-duff/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250310T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250310T140000
DTSTAMP:20250219T152119Z
CREATED:20250219T152119Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250219T152119Z
UID:10000211-1741608000-1741615200@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Kelsey Sasaki
DESCRIPTION:Colloquium Talk – Kelsey Sasaki \nMar 10 @ 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm \nLocation: La Kretz Hall 120
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-kelsey-sasaki/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250307T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250307T140000
DTSTAMP:20240815T093627Z
CREATED:20240815T093627Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240815T093627Z
UID:10000173-1741345200-1741356000@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Uriel Cohen Priva
DESCRIPTION:Four short investigations of short duration.\n\nI will present four interconnected investigations regarding the effects of short duration in the context of phonetics\, phonology and sound change. I’ll start with the observation that durational shortening appears to be a crucial causal factor in at least three unrelated languages (Ennever\, Meakins\, and Round 2017; Katz and Pitzanti 2019; Cohen Priva and Gleason 2020). I will argue that this causal route saves us from seemingly counter-optimization in information-driven consonant lenition (e.g. Cohen Priva 2017). Turning our attention to vowels\, I will demonstrate that contrast-elimination pressures on vowels would not result in a schwa\, but rather in a high central vowel\, and that the abundance of schwa vowels cross-linguistically would seem to follow from the loss of a perceived target alongside the maintenance of the need for a vowel (Cohen Priva and Strand 2023). Finally\, I will delve into individual differences in the degree to which speakers yield to phonetic pressures\, which turns out to be good for explaining the absence of unwarranted sound change (Cohen Priva and Gafter 2024).
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-uriel-cohen-priva/
LOCATION:Royce Hall 156
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250305T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250305T140000
DTSTAMP:20250219T151843Z
CREATED:20250219T151843Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250219T151843Z
UID:10000210-1741176000-1741183200@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Dave Cayado
DESCRIPTION:Colloquium Talk – Dave Cayado \nMar 5 @ 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm \nLocation: La Kretz Hall 120
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-dave-cayado/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250228T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250228T130000
DTSTAMP:20250219T151439Z
CREATED:20250219T151439Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250219T151439Z
UID:10000209-1740740400-1740747600@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Wesley Orth
DESCRIPTION:Colloquium Talk – Wesley Orth \nFeb 28 @ 11:00 am – 1:00 pm \nLocation: Royce Hall 156 \n 
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-wesley-orth/
LOCATION:Royce Hall 156
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250221T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250221T140000
DTSTAMP:20240815T093700Z
CREATED:20240815T093700Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240815T093700Z
UID:10000172-1740135600-1740146400@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Nicole Holliday - Sociolinguistic Competence Versus Artificial "Intelligence": Variation in the Face of Ubiquitous Large Language Models
DESCRIPTION:Linguists take it as axiomatic that speakers are experts on their languages\, both in grammar and usage. However\, as Large Language Models (LLM) trained on text and speech become ubiquitous in domains from daily tasks to education and employment\, human expertise about language is increasingly devalued. This talk will present the results of three studies that focus on how LLMs judge and purport to “fix” the speech of human talkers\, also known as Social Feedback Speech Technologies (SFSTs). The first study shows how the Amazon Halo\, a wearable device that claims to evaluate “tone of voice” does not function as advertised\, and in fact systematically negatively evaluates the speech of Black talkers.  Results of the second study\, which focuses on Read.AI and the Zoom Revenue Accelerator in videoconferencing contexts\, describe how SFSTs reinforce narrow “standard” language ideologies and fail to provide actionable\, realistic feedback to users. These systems also provide systematically worse evaluations for black speakers\, as well as those who are neurodivergent. Finally\, the third study analyzes the outputs of “accent translation” programs marketed by companies such as Sanas and Krisp\, showing that such programs do not functionally “translate” accents but rather transform speech to an imagined “American” variety that is phonetically unnatural. Taken together\, the studies show that “AI”-based programs that purport to evaluate human speech do so without consideration of linguistic principles or acknowledgement of speakers’ sociolinguistic competencies. Such systems also act without transparency for both designers and users by design\, reproducing social stereotypes inherent to their training data. As a result\, they advise humans to produce unnatural speech\, and they punish speakers who do not conform to the narrow targets established by an LLM’s training data. As such technologies are already being used to make employment decisions\, provide speech therapy\, and even draft police reports\, the fact that these systems systematically misevaluate speech represents a significant threat to all human speakers\, most especially those from marginalized groups.  \nLocation: Royce Hall 156
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-nicole-holliday/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241101T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241101T140000
DTSTAMP:20240815T093049Z
CREATED:20240815T093049Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240815T093049Z
UID:10000168-1730458800-1730469600@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Barbara Citko
DESCRIPTION:Economy in PF-Reduction: Why and when (not) to elide multidominant structures? \nIn this talk\, reporting on joint work with Martina Gračanin-Yuksek\, we examine two ways in which a syntactic structure can be PF-reduced (unpronounced): multidominance (MD) and ellipsis. If both ellipsis and MD are available in principle\, the following questions arise: (i) what factors influence the choice between ellipsis and MD? (ii) can multiply-dominated material be elided and if so\, under what circumstances? To answer these questions\, we look at the properties of coordinate structures in which the elements that survive PF-reduction are wh-phrases: Coordinated Wh-Questions (CWHs) and Coordinated Sluices (CSs)\, illustrated in (1-2). \n(1) What and when should you teach?                                                                   CWH \n(2) Someone saw something\, but I can’t remember who or what.                         CS \nOur main claim is that PF reduction is governed by economy\, which affects syntactic derivations in two ways. First\, economy favors “least effort” derivations (i.e.\, derivations with fewest operations) from the set of possible derivations that arrive at the same string with the same interpretation (Chomsky 1991; Bošković 1997; Collins 2001; among many others)\, and\, second\, economy bans derivations in which PF reducing operations apply vacuously (i.e.\, without having an effect on pronunciation). \nLocation: Royce Hall 362
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-barbara-citko/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241025T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241025T140000
DTSTAMP:20240815T092956Z
CREATED:20240815T092956Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240815T092956Z
UID:10000167-1729854000-1729864800@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Jake Aziz "Syntax and Prosody in Malagasy"
DESCRIPTION:A correspondence between syntactic and prosodic constituency has been observed for many languages\, and Malagasy (VOS) is no exception: the predicate and subject each forms its own phonological phrase\, marked at its right edge with a rising pitch accent (i.e.\, phonological phrasing is [VO] [S]). Imperatives\, though\, exhibit a different pattern: imperative verb heads and their objects are prosodically distinct (i.e.\, [V] [O] [S]). This pattern is surprising given that imperatives and declaratives have a similar surface word order and no immediately-evident structural differences that would correspond to the observed prosody. This apparent mismatch could be explained as either a) a true syntax-prosody mismatch\, where the observed prosody of imperatives is caused by some other prosodic requirement\, or b) an incomplete understanding of the syntax of the imperative. In this talk\, I will present original prosodic and syntactic data and conclude that the Malagasy imperative adheres to a strict syntax-prosody correspondence if we consider a revised analysis of the syntax where objects raise out of the predicate verb phrase in imperative structures. The talk will end with a short tutorial on incorporating prosodic evidence into your own work. \nLocation: Royce Hall 362
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-jake-aziz-2/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240607T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240607T160000
DTSTAMP:20240520T160016Z
CREATED:20240520T160016Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240520T160016Z
UID:10000165-1717768800-1717776000@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:RESCHEDULED/CANCELLED - Colloquium Talk - Blake Lehman
DESCRIPTION:Haines 220
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-blake-lehman/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240531T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240531T130000
DTSTAMP:20240408T142441Z
CREATED:20240408T142441Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240408T142441Z
UID:10000154-1717153200-1717160400@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:RESCHEDULED/CANCELLED - Colloquium Talk - Jake Aziz
DESCRIPTION:This event has been rescheduled/cancelled.
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-jake-aziz/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240524T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240524T150000
DTSTAMP:20240408T142451Z
CREATED:20240408T142451Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240408T142451Z
UID:10000153-1716555600-1716562800@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Yang Wang
DESCRIPTION:Location – Franz 1260
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-yang-wang/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240517T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240517T130000
DTSTAMP:20240408T142514Z
CREATED:20240408T142514Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240408T142514Z
UID:10000152-1715943600-1715950800@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Emily Bender: Synthetic text extruding machines: A linguist-eye view on their narrow range of applicability
DESCRIPTION:  \nSince the release of ChatGPT but also other large language models (Claude\, Bard\, LLaMA etc)\, the internet has been awash in synthetic text\, with suggested applications including robo-lawyers\, robo-therapists\, and robo-journalists. All of these applications present unacceptable risks because language models are nothing more than ungrounded text synthesis machines. In this talk\, I demystify language models through a discussion of their history and function and then overview the risks we identified in the Stochastic Parrots paper (Bender\, Gebru et al 2021) and those that have come to light since. Finally\, I explore what must hold for an appropriate use case for text synthesis. \nLocation – Haines Hall 220
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-emily-bender/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240510T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240510T130000
DTSTAMP:20231005T103757Z
CREATED:20231005T103757Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231005T103757Z
UID:10000108-1715338800-1715346000@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Bronwyn Bjorkman: The puzzle of (apparently) phonologically motivated empty morphs
DESCRIPTION:  \nEmpty morphs are stable units of form that occur without any associated meaning or function\, the inverse of zero morphs. Some empty morphs seem to occur for phonological\, rather than morphological\, reasons. In Ndebele\, for example\, subminimal words can be augmented either by prefixing yi- or suffixing -na (Sibanda 2004: 113)—the former is plausibly a least-marked epenthetic syllable\, but the latter seems to be a fixed string (a morph) without any associated content. Such patterns pose a puzzle for a theory like Distributed Morphology\, just as in the more widely discussed case of (apparently) phonologically optimizing suppletive allomorphy: if phonology derivationally follows morphology\, as it does in standard DM\, morphological realization should not be constrained by phonological wellformedness. The puzzle posed by empty morphs is deeper\, however\, precisely because their emptiness means that there is no obvious morphosyntactic element for them to realize. This aspect of the puzzle is sharpened further in languages where the empty morph seems to be borrowed or repurposed from a morphologically contentful use elsewhere; in both Romanian and Armenian\, for example\, in certain contexts plural morphology occurs in non-plural contexts\, apparently to provide an extra syllable in words with monosyllabic roots (Steriade 2022 on Romanian; Arregi\, Myler\, & Vaux 2013 on Armenian). Here the question is not merely what the empty morph is realizing\, but how the morph can be inserted in the absence of morphosyntactic features that usually condition its occurrence. This talk explores the range of options for analyzing both ordinary empty morphs and morphs that are empty only in repurposed contexts\, focusing in particular how a purely realizational theory like DM could be modified to account for these patterns. \n  \nConference Room\, Campbell Hall 2122A/B \nZoom Link: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/92183308552
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-bronwyn-bjorkman/
LOCATION:2122 Campbell Hall
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240503T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240503T130000
DTSTAMP:20240408T143002Z
CREATED:20240408T143002Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240408T143002Z
UID:10000155-1714734000-1714741200@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Sarah Phillips: No escape from morphemes in the bilingual mind
DESCRIPTION:LOCATION CHANGE – Campbell Hall 2122A and Zoom: https://ucla.zoom.us/s/91305505603 \n  \nIn the bilingualism literature\, most agree that the bilingual lexicon contains elements from both languages that can be activated non-selectively during processing (Kroll et al.\, 2013). Popular models of the bilingual lexicon often take an emergentist approach\, such as Dijkstra & Van Heuven’s (2002) BIA+ model\, drawing direct connections between form and meaning. A strong interpretation of such models predicts language switch effects during processing due to a change in phonological form. Studies that manipulate language switching between non-composed words to understand the nature of language control often observe processing delays (e.g.\, Meuter & Allport\, 1999) and neural activation differences (e.g.\, Abutalebi et al.\, 2008). However\, manipulating language switching between composed words fails to elicit processing delays/activation differences (e.g.\, Phillips & Pylkkänen\, 2021). I argue that syntactic/semantic composition eliminates language switching effects by increasing the predictability of input via morphemes. By taking a syntagmatic approach to bilingual input\, I will present recent\, ongoing\, and planned work that (i) utilizes artificial language learning to develop a working model of how bilinguals develop morphemes from two languages\, and (ii) tests this working model in bilingual-developing children.
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-sarah-phillips/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240426T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240426T130000
DTSTAMP:20231005T103719Z
CREATED:20231005T103719Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231005T103719Z
UID:10000107-1714129200-1714136400@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Ryan Bennett: Anticipatory nasalization in A’ingae
DESCRIPTION:  \nAnticipatory nasalization in A’ingae: Language-specific phonetics\, not incomplete neutralization (Joint work with Scott AnderBois\, Shen Aguinda\, and Hugo Lucitante) \n  \nCross-linguistically\, vowels often undergo contextual nasalization in [VN] and [NV] sequences. In English\, vowel nasalization in [VN] appears partial rather than categorical. Cohn (1990\, 1993) influentially argued that vowels in [VN] contexts in English are phonologically unspecified for nasality (= [ø nasal])\, and undergo gradient coarticulatory nasalization during phonetic implementation\, differentiating them from true [+nasal] vowels (as in e.g. French /Ṽ/). In contrast\, Solé (1992\, 1995) argued that contextual nasalization is so extensive\, controlled\, and systematic in English [VN] that these vowels should be treated as phonologically [+nasal]. Phonetic differences in the extent of nasalization in English [VN] vs. French /Ṽ/ could then reflect the distinction between derived (predictable) vs. underlying (contrastive) [+nasal] vowels — in other words\, incomplete neutralization. \n  \nIn this talk\, I approach this debate with nasal airflow data from A’ingae\, a language isolate spoken in the Ecuadorian and Columbian Amazon. A’ingae has a /V Ṽ/ contrast\, and a phonological process of left-to-right nasal spreading in /NV/ → [NṼ]. A’ingae also has extensive\, but nonetheless partial nasalization in [VN] and [VⁿD] sequences. Nasalization before [N\,ⁿD] is phonetically distinct from nasalization on contrastive /Ṽ/\, and on nasal vowels derived by left-to-right spreading. Consequently\, partial nasalization in [VN] and [VⁿD] cannot reflect a distinction between derived and underlying nasal vowels (= incomplete neutralization)\, because not all derived nasal vowels have the same phonetic profile. I also argue that nasalization in [VN] and [VⁿD] does not have the phonetic profile expected for phonological nasal spreading to sub-segmental units. The overall conclusion is that partial nasalization in [VN] and [VⁿD] sequences reflects underspecifed nasality [ø nasal] on vowels\, along with an articulated system of language-specific phonetic realization. \n  \nLocation: Haines Hall 220
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-ryan-bennett/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240419T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240419T130000
DTSTAMP:20231005T103641Z
CREATED:20231005T103641Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231005T103641Z
UID:10000106-1713524400-1713531600@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Edward Flemming - Generating and parsing f0 contours using a model of f0 production
DESCRIPTION:  \nI will present ongoing work aimed at developing a framework for formulating phonetic grammars of tone realization that can derive complete fundamental frequency (f0) contours from phonological specifications. \nThe proposed framework consists of two main components: A set of weighted constraints that select and locate optimal tone targets for a given phonological representation\, and a functional model of f0 production that maps time-aligned tone targets to f0 contours. These two components work in parallel: the constraints that determine tone targets evaluate properties of the resulting f0 contour. \nIn addition to generating f0 contours\, the model of f0 production can also be fitted to observed f0 contours to infer the underlying f0 targets\, effectively parsing the f0 contour. This proves particularly valuable when analyzing tones with targets that are difficult to locate because they correspond to a turning point in the f0 contour that is not a local maximum or minimum (often referred to as ‘elbow’ targets). \nThe framework will be illustrated through analyses of two tonal phenomena that involve elbow targets: (i) the timing of the L- phrase accent in English H*L- intonational melodies\, and (ii) realization of the Mandarin rising tone. \nLocation – Haines Hall 220
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-edward-flemming/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240405T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240405T130000
DTSTAMP:20231005T103610Z
CREATED:20231005T103610Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231005T103610Z
UID:10000105-1712314800-1712322000@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Jeff Lidz
DESCRIPTION:Location – Haines Hall 220
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-jeff-lidz/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240308T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240308T130000
DTSTAMP:20240131T104400Z
CREATED:20240131T104400Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240131T104400Z
UID:10000148-1709895600-1709902800@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Chris Kennedy: Pragmatic Indecision
DESCRIPTION:Pragmatic Indecision \n\n\n\nVague predicates are obligatorily tolerant (Wright 1973).  For example\, the positive form gradable adjective ‘long’ cannot be used to draw a sharp distinction\, even when the facts of the context of utterance and the semantic properties of the sentence in which it occurs otherwise conspire to make such uses possible:  in a context in which there are exactly two salient objects A and B\, which are clearly but only slightly different in length\, it is infelicitous to use “the long one” to refer to the longer of the two; we must say “the longer one.” This despite the fact that the presuppositions of the definite article and the lexical semantic features of ‘long’ that underwrite a compositional account of the comparative ought to allow for such a use. In this talk\, I will do three things.  First\, I will argue that no existing account of vagueness — neither epistemic nor expressivist nor contextual nor semantic nor cognitive nor distributional — provides a satisfactory explanation for why tolerance persists in examples like the one above.  Second\, I will show that attempts to eliminate the challenge presented by these kinds of examples through appeal to a grammatical decomposition of positive form adjectives into a non-vague root and a vague “pos” morpheme are also unsatisfactory\, because they fail to generalize to other kinds of examples that manifest exactly the same behavior but cannot plausibly be analyzed in this way.  And finally\, I will outline an alternative\, pragmatic account of vagueness\, in which  application of a vague predicate constitutes a “vote” for a particular resolution of linguistic indeterminacy\, and tolerance emerges from a normative constraint treating such votes as subject to principles of social choice. This account is consistent with a transparent compositional relation between positive and comparative (in which the latter is derived from the former)\, and generalizes to non-adjectival cases of vagueness as well. \n\nLocation: Royce Hall 362
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-chris-kennedy-pragmatic-indecision/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240301T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240301T130000
DTSTAMP:20231005T103535Z
CREATED:20231005T103535Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231005T103535Z
UID:10000104-1709290800-1709298000@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Amy Rose Deal
DESCRIPTION:Dependent case by Agree: Ergative in Shawi (joint work with Emily Clem\, UCSD)Ergative and accusative behave as dependent cases insofar as their appearance on a nominal depends on the presence of another nominal in the same domain. Recent work on case theory has taken the phenomenon of case dependency to challenge the idea that case is assigned via the operation Agree. Focusing on the Shawi language (Kawapanan; Peru)\, we show not only that patterns of case dependency can be captured via Agree\, but also that doing so opens up a new way of understanding the typology of global case splits. Ergative in Shawi appears when the subject is at least as high as the object on the person hierarchy—a global split pattern—and can be accompanied by explicit realization of the object’s features on the subject nominal (“object agreement on the subject”). We propose that ergative arises in Shawi when a probe on v Agrees with both the object and the subject\, transferring object features to the subject; these features are spelled out as ergative case and as object agreement. In general\, we show that dependent cases\, both ergative and accusative\, can be seen as a morphological outcome of syntactic Agree between a probe and a second goal\, realizing features on that goal that were transferred from a previous goal in an earlier step of Agree. \n  \nLocation – Royce Hall 362
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-amy-rose-deal/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240223T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240223T130000
DTSTAMP:20231005T103440Z
CREATED:20231005T103440Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231005T103440Z
UID:10000103-1708686000-1708693200@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Viola Schmitt: Distributivity is Complex
DESCRIPTION:In this talk I show (based on joint cross-linguistic work with various collaborators) that distributive  — i.e.\, `classical’ — meanings for the universal part of the language (connectives and DP-internal quantifiers) correspond to bigger morpho-syntactic structures while the corresponding smaller structures have a weak (plural) meaning. This\, I will argue\, raises a problem for a number of current theories of scalar implicatures\, as the `classical’ universal expressions required as alternatives are structurally too complex to be accessible. To tackle this problem\, I will tentatively suggest an adjustment to the algorithm via which scalar implicatures are derived. \nLocation – Royce Hall 362
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-viola-schmitt/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240209T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240209T130000
DTSTAMP:20240117T103052Z
CREATED:20240117T103052Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240117T103052Z
UID:10000140-1707476400-1707483600@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Shengyun Gu: When the phonological mind meets another modality: Two-handed articulation in Shanghai Sign Language " (See below for abstract)
DESCRIPTION:Location – Royce Hall 362 \nThe department tour slot is still open. You can sign up here (same link). \nWhen the phonological mind meets another modality: Two-handed articulation in Shanghai Sign Language \nAbstract:\nTo what extent are the phonological systems of languages\, spoken or signed\, structured similarly if we assume that they both draw on the same linguistic capacities\, and to what extent is sign language phonology different due to the visual-manual modality it is transmitted through? One striking difference in sign languages is that two identical articulators (i.e.\, hands) are available for linguistic expressions. This talk will address the above two overarching questions through the lens of two-handed articulation in Shanghai Sign Language. I will present evidence from complex word formation and phonological processes such as non-dominant hand spread (‘stability’ of the non-dominant hand across different signs) and weak drop (i.e.\, deletion of the non-dominant hand) to show that the phonological principles in the organization of a word and a prosodic domain in relation to the non-dominant hand transcend modality differences. I will also discuss the relevance of considering the aspects of simultaneity and iconicity in sign language grammar. I argue that each of these two modality-related properties\, i.e.\, an increase in simultaneous complexity and a prevalence of lexical iconicity\, shape sign language phonology. Finally\, by comparing deaf signers and hearing non-signers in their processing of weak drop\, I reveal that knowledge of a sign language mediates not only the way iconicity is leveraged\, but also almost all levels of the phonology of the non-dominant hand\, including lexical representation\, phonological repairs\, and phonetic implementation. Synthesizing these findings\, I support the view that a sign phonological system includes a mixture of properties that are modality-independent and others that are modality-specific. Crucially\, I highlight that the integration of these properties is specialized and mediated by the knowledge of a sign language.
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-shengyun-gu/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240205T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240205T180000
DTSTAMP:20240117T103038Z
CREATED:20240117T103038Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240117T103038Z
UID:10000139-1707148800-1707156000@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Connor Mayer: Are scalar models of sonority enough? Insights from L2 acquisition of English complex onsets
DESCRIPTION:Languages vary in their phonotactics: how sounds are allowed to be sequenced into words. For example\, although English\, Spanish\, and Farsi all have the sounds /p l s/\, English allows the complex onsets /sp/ and /pl/\, as in ‘speech’ and ‘play’\, Spanish only /pl/\, as in ‘playa’\, while Farsi allows no complex onsets at all. Learners of a second language (L2) often struggle with producing complex onsets that are banned in their first language (L1) and will commonly repair them using epenthesis: the insertion of a vowel to break up an illegal sequence. There is a robust asymmetry in repair strategies for complex onsets across languages: sC onsets are more typically repaired by epenthesizing before the cluster (prothesis; as in ‘stop’ → ‘estop’) while other onsets are repaired by epenthesizing into the cluster (anaptyxis; as in ‘please’ → ‘pelease’). One analysis of this asymmetry has been in terms of sonority\, the overall resonance of a sound: this proposal suggests that there is a pressure to avoid sonority rises across syllable boundaries (Vennemann 1988\, Gouskova 2001\, 2004). A second analysis suggests that speakers choose epenthesis locations that maximize perceptual similarity to the unepenthesized form (Fleischhacker 2001\, 2005\, Flemming 2008). \nIn this talk\, I will compare the predictions of these two theories against new empirical data from L1 Farsi/L2 English speakers. In the first part of the talk\, I will present the results of a corpus study and an experimental study\, which consist of recordings of speakers of varying English proficiency reading English passages. The results of these studies confirm previous observations that (a) sC onsets almost categorically undergo prothesis\, while other onsets undergo anaptyxis; (b) overall rates of cluster repair decrease as English ability increases; and (c) sC clusters are repaired more frequently and acquired more slowly than other clusters. In the second part of the talk\, I will present a maximum entropy optimality theory model of the experimental data. First\, I will show that constraint scaling can be used to model the effects of L2 proficiency on epenthesis paterns\, providing a starting point for more nuanced modeling of\nL2 acquisition. Second\, I will demonstrate that when the models are extended to encode the increased difficulty of sC clusters\, the perceptual account of epenthesis asymmetry beter predicts the data than the syllable contact account. Although the perceptual model makes errors in the overall rates of epenthesis\, it consistently predicts the correct type. The syllable contact model\, on the other hand\, fails to predict both the rate and type of epenthesis of many clusters. I will close by arguing that models that treat sonority as a scalar value\, such as the syllable contact account or the more recent NAP model (Albert & Nicenboim 2022)\, are ultimately insufficient to deal with the wide range of sonority-related phenomena observed in speech. I suggest instead that further study of the articulatory and perceptual reflexes of sonority will be important to ensure our models are both empirically and explanatorily adequate. Specifically\, I will suggest that the concept of ‘good’ vs. ‘bad’ variability (e.g. Latash 2012) from the motor control literature may provide a principled way to relate the perceptual and articulatory properties of sC clusters. – Connor Mayer
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-connor-mayer/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240129T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240129T180000
DTSTAMP:20240117T103015Z
CREATED:20240117T103015Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240117T103015Z
UID:10000138-1706544000-1706551200@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Sam Zukoff: Morpheme Ordering Happens in the Phonology
DESCRIPTION:Location – Math and Science 5200 \nTitle: Morpheme Ordering Happens in the Phonology \nAbstract: The determination of the order of morphemes within words has traditionally been modeled using cyclic concatenation\, the one-by-one attachment of affixal morphemes to the root\, guided by morphosyntactic constituency via the “Mirror Principle” (Baker 1985). In this talk\, I propose an alternative\, parallel model of morpheme order that locates morpheme concatenation in the phonological component of the grammar. This model\, couched within Parallel Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993/2004)\, generates morpheme order through the interaction of two pieces of the grammar. The first is “articulated alignment”\, which posits that every morpheme has its own alignment constraint (McCarthy & Prince 1993) which prefers it to be as close as possible to a specified edge. The second is the “Mirror Alignment Principle” (Zukoff 2023)\, a novel property of the phonology-morphology interface that dynamically determines the ranking of alignment constraints based on the morphosyntactic structure\, in a way that derives the Mirror Principle. This approach allows for transparent interaction between phonological factors and morphological/morphosyntactic factors in a single input-output mapping. I will demonstrate that this approach is necessary to properly explain the generalizations underlying ordering alternations in two atypical morphological systems. The first is mobile affixation in Huave (Huavean; Kim 2008)\, where phonological and morphological properties interact to trigger prefix/suffix alternations. The second is root-and-pattern morphology in Arabic (Semitic; e.g. McCarthy 1979)\, where phonological and morphosyntactic properties interact to trigger prefix/infix alternations\, which themselves inform alternations across far-flung components of the grammar. This adds to the body of research arguing for a parallel model of the phonology-morphology interface.
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-sam-zukoff/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240126T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240126T130000
DTSTAMP:20240117T102950Z
CREATED:20240117T102950Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240117T102950Z
UID:10000137-1706266800-1706274000@temp.linguistics.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Colloquium Talk - Jonah Katz: Prosodic structure\, timing\, and fortition-lenition patterns
DESCRIPTION:Location – Royce Hall 362 \nTitle: Prosodic structure\, timing\, and fortition-lenition patterns \nAbstract: This talk reviews cross-linguistic evidence that certain common lenition processes such as spirantization\, intervocalic voicing\, and flapping take place in a component of grammar that governs the fine-grained temporal dynamics of speech sounds and their interaction with prosodic structure. I argue that these lenition patterns are different from other processes sometimes referred to as ‘lenition’; that they do not manipulate phonological features; that they lie on a broader continuum of prosodically-driven phonetic variation; and that they are implemented primarily through subphonemic adjustments to duration and the temporal separation between prosodic units. With data from Campidanese Sardinian\, I illustrate a schematic approach to modeling lenition as a language-specific property of phonetic implementation\, operating on prosodic structure and the output of narrow phonology.
URL:https://temp.linguistics.ucla.edu/event/colloquium-talk-jonah-katz/
CATEGORIES:Colloquium
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