2nd February 2023 04:30 PM

Linguistics Colloquium Speaker: Dr. Adam McCollum to speak on "Atoms of a Theory of Phonology"

The Department of Linguistics proudly presents Dr. Adam McCollum, Assistant Professor at the Department of Linguistics, Rutgers University.  Dr. McCollum will speak on "Atoms of a Theory of Phonology".

At a fundamental level, any linguistic theory must be judged on how well it accounts for the sets of attested and unattested generalizations within the relevant domain of inquiry. This, however, depends on a pre-existing set of cross-linguistic observations. In this talk I lay out a research program focused on establishing and refining that set of observations.

More concretely, I discuss several atoms of vowel harmony patterns that any adequate theory of phonology should account for, drawing on data from traditional and experimental fieldwork in West Africa and Central Asia, historical corpora, as well as insights from formal language theory. Results from this research inform both the representational and transformational components of a larger theory of synchronic and diachronic phonology.

ASL interpretation for the talk will be provided.

Bio:

Dr. McCollum is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Rutgers University.  His research investigates the nature and computational properties of phonological knowledge, and refines the theoretical mechanisms used to model that knowledge.  

His research interests cross-cut formal, fieldwork, computational, and laboratory-based approaches to phonology, focusing on feature spreading and harmony processes.

3rd February 2023 12:25 PM

Informal Talk by Dr. Adam McCollum

As part of Dr. McCollum's visit, he will give an informal talk to interested students and faculty. 

Dr. McCollum's CV is listed here.

3rd February 2023 04:30 PM

Phonology discussion by Dr. Adam McCollum

As part of Dr. McCollum's visit, he will hold a phonology discussion with interested graduate students.  

You are welcome to read Adam’s paper “On the status of non-iterativity in feature spreading” ahead of the discussion, but note that this will not be a formal discussion of the paper and you do not need to have read the paper to attend.

Abstract:

In the most commonly discussed cases, feature spreading is iterative, applying to all licit targets within a given domain. Early work within rule-based theories of phonology developed explicit mechanisms to induce both iterative and non-iterative patterns (e.g. Howard 1973; Anderson 1974).

The issue of (non)iterativity has received as much attention in more recent work, with the notable exception of Kaplan (2008), which argues that both iterativity and non-iterativity are emergent concepts, and are always derivable from other forces at work in the grammar. In this paper we examine the status of non-iterativity, drawing on production data from Crimean Tatar.

We argue that, in line with previous descriptions of the language, rounding harmony is truly non-iterative in the Central dialect of the language, and not derivable from other, independent constraints in the language. This finding is supported by evidence from several other languages, which all exhibit the same type of non-iterative spreading.

We argue that the presence of these patterns demands a formal account, and we discuss the analysis of non-iterativity in both rule- and constraint-based theories, discussing their different predictions for the typology of feature spreading.

6th February 2023 04:45 PM

Linguistics Colloquium Speaker: Dr. Madeline Gilbert of Sorbonne Nouvelle/CNRS to speak on phonological grammar and phonological processes

The Department of Linguistics proudly presents Dr. Madeline Gilbert, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Sorbonne Nouvelle/CNRS, who will give a talk titled:  Experimental Approaches to Representational Change

ASL interpretation for the talk will be provided.

Abstract:

A standard view is that there is a distinction between phonetics and phonology.  Phonology deals with sound categories, which are abstract, discrete, and symbolic.  Phonetics deals with the physical properties of sounds, which are spatially and temporally continuous and can be measured quantitatively (Pierrehumbert 1990; Kingston 2019).  A substantial body of research argues that phonology is phonetically grounded (Archangeli & Pulleyblank 1994), and that the grammar must specify phonetic implementation (Kingston & Diehl 1994). 

An alternative view holds that there is no phonetics-phonology interface, because phonological representations are articulatory gestures (Gafos & Goldstein 2012), because phonology is not based on phonetic substance (Hale & Reiss 2008), or because the two are too entwined to be separated (Ohala 1990). 

My research uses behavioral experiments to probe underlying representations and the mapping between surface and underlying forms.  In this talk, I discuss the results of three such experiments focusing on Sevillian Spanish.  Sevillian Spanish has an ongoing metathesis sound change in /sp, st, sk/ sequences (/sC/ à [hC] à [Ch]).  The resulting [ph, th, kh] sequences could plausibly phonologize into aspirated stops. 

My results show that Sevillian [Ch] sequences are still derived from /sC/ sequences, that metathesis does not affect other phonological processes, and that listeners rely on underlying representations in their native languages to perceive [hC] and [Ch] sequences.  Taken together, the results suggest that (1) abstract representations are necessary; (2) there is an active processing of mapping between surface and underlying representations.

I close by outlining future research that ties together a variety of approaches (phonetic, perceptual, articulatory) for a comprehensive view of phonological representations and change.

BIO:

Dr. Gilbert's interests lie in laboratory phonology, phonological representations, and sociophonetic variability.  More specifically, she is interested in identifying surface cues to underlying structure that could be available to learners as they posit mental representations.  She investigates how the phonological grammar maps between surface and underlying forms, how phonological processes interact, and how acoustic variability affects phonological categories.