phonoloblog | all things phonology | camba.ucsd.edu/phonoloblog

I’m fairly sure I’ve noted before that the readership of this blog is very likely a strict (and very small) subset of the readership of Language Log, so if you’re reading this, you’re bound to have already read Bill Poser’s two posts on entering the IPA and other “exotic characters” on the web and elsewhere. Worth perusing, I’d say. I still dig our IPA symbol plugin for WordPress, but its use is obviously limited compared to the tools that Poser talks about.

OUP has also just announced this book, by Jeff Mielke, based on his 2004 OSU dissertation.

(That pretty much covers it, doesn’t it? Not quite; see the next post.)

OUP has just announced (via LINGUIST List) this book, edited by Bert Vaux and Andrew Nevins. Here’s the TOC:

1. Introduction: The Division of Labor of Rules, Representations, and Constraints in Phonological Theory, Andrew Nevins and Bert Vaux
2. Why the Phonological Component Must be Serial and Rule-Based, Bert Vaux
3. Ordering, David Odden
4. Stress-Epenthesis Interactions, Ellen Broselow
5. Representational Economy, William Idsardi and Eric Raimy
6. Fenno-Swedish Quantity: Contrast in Stratal OT, Paul Kiparsky
7. SPE Extensions: Conditions on Representations and Defect Driven Rules, John Frampton
8. Constraining the Learning Path Without Constraints, or The OCP and NoBanana, Charles Reiss

(more…)

Radical CV theorists take note: Slovenia in late April. Abstracts due April 13. Details here. [ Via LINGUIST List. ]

Since reading Kie Zuraw’s work on aggressive reduplication (changes where “already-similar syllables are made more similar”, with no apparent phonotactic rationale), I’ve noticed several other possible cases of this in English. As I will probably never use this list for anything else, I offer it here as data for anyone interested in this topic.

As in Zuraw’s paper, rough popularity is indicated by number of Google hits.

(”Onaconna” is a deliberate misspelling of “on account of”.)

As evidence of how these pronunciations arise, I can attest that my daughter (3;8) spontaneously starting saying “Barbar” although I was careful to use the correct pronunciation in her first exposure to the Babar books.

Another possibly related case is the Biblical pair Priscilla and Aquilla: Kenyon & Knott 1953 note that Aquilla is often incorrectly given second syllable stress, apparently to make it rhyme with Priscilla. But since this involves making two words rhyme, perhaps it better falls under the rubric of “paradigmatically echoic words” than aggressive reduplication.

Ref:

Kenyon, J.S. & T. A. Knott (1953) “A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English”. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster.

Remember the ACL Special Interest Group in Computational Morphology and Phonology? The deadline has just been extended to March 24.

SFU Phonology Fest 2008: The Distinction between Phonology and Phonetics

Saturday, April 5, 2008 at Simon Fraser University’s Burnaby campus

Recent research in Phonology has tended to include more and more functional explanations for phonological phenomena: distinctive features, inventories, sound change, and sound patterning. Some functional explanations appeal to processing considerations, others to frequency effects. The rest appeal to phonetic (articulatory or acoustic/perceptual) grounding. The phonetic grounding is included as basis or source of the phonological constraints, or it is directly incorporated into the theoretical account to yield a phonetics-phonology mix; or the phonetic grounding is the substance of the theoretical account. Evaluation of these various approaches is hampered by a lack of consensus on the definition of ‘phonology’ and ‘phonetics’.
The SFU Phonology Fest seeks to clarify the definition, and may also address what makes a particular sound property part of, our outside of, speakers’ grammars.

Presenters & Discussants: John Alderete, Richard Wright, Joseph Stemberger, Kimary Shahin, Suzanne Urbanczyk, Rod Casali, Jason Brown, Eric Vatikiotis-Bateson, Gunnar Hannson, Sharon Hargus, Ewa Czaykowska-Higgins, Bryan Gick, Darin Flynn, Sonya Bird.

(Link to program.)

[ Via LINGUIST List. ]