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

The Department of Linguistics at the University of Alberta is inviting applications for a PhD student research assistantship position, beginning September 2009, on exemplar-based approaches to phonology.

A fundamental question of linguistic theory is how spoken language is encoded in the mental lexicon. The standard view, that phonological patterns are learned over symbolic representations, has increasingly come into question, as failing to provide a natural account of frequency effects and gradient sound change. An alternative view is that words and phrases are stored as clusters of exemplars, including detailed, individuated memories of the speech signal. Speech processing, under this view, involves massive comparison of exemplars, with phonological patterns (as well as low-level patterns of gradient phonetic variation) emerging as abstractions over the raw data. 

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Alan Prince is interviewed by SNARL (’Selected News At Rutgers Linguistics’) on the occasion of the Rutgers Optimality Archive passing the 1000 posts mark. Yours truly even gets a mention.

(Hat-tip, Kai von Fintel.)

[ Via LINGUIST List ]

The department of Linguistics and English Language at the University of Edinburgh is proud to announce that the sixth Old World Conference in Phonology (OCP6) will take place in Edinburgh from 22nd to 24th January 2009. OCP6 is organised by a group of phonologists at Edinburgh, and it follows in the line of previous OCP conferences, which have been held in Leiden, Tromsø, Budapest, Rhodes and Toulouse.

Sixth Old World Conference in Phonology (.pdf of program)
22-24 January 2009

Invited Speakers:
B. Elan Dresher (University of Toronto)
Jennifer Hay (University of Canterbury)
Marc van Oostendorp (Meertens Instituut & Leiden University)

Phonology
A cognitive grammar introduction
Geoffrey S. Nathan
Wayne State University

Cognitive Linguistics in Practice 3

2008. x, 171 pp.
Hardbound – In stock
978 90 272 1907 7 / EUR 105.00 / USD 158.00

Paperback – In stock
978 90 272 1908 4 / EUR 25.00 / USD 37.95

e-Book – Available from e-book platforms
978 90 272 9088 5 / EUR 105.00 / USD 158.00

This textbook introduces the reader to the field of phonology, from allophones to faithfulness and exemplars. It assumes no prior knowledge of the field, and includes a brief review chapter on phonetics. It is written within the framework of Cognitive Linguistics, but covers a wide range of historical and contemporary theories, from the Prague School to Optimality Theory. While many examples are based on American and British English, there are also discussions of some aspects of French and German colloquial speech and phonological analysis problems from many other languages around the world. In addition to the basics of phoneme theory, features, and morphophonemics there are chapters on casual speech, first and second language acquisition and historical change. A final chapter covers a number of issues in contemporary phonological theory, including some of the classic debates in Generative Phonology (rule ordering, abstractness, ‘derivationalism’) and proposals for usage-based phonologies.