Monthly Archives: May 2016

Discussion: Phonology at general linguistics conferences

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From Abby Kaplan:

I’d like to solicit thoughts about the representation of phonology at general linguistics conferences.  (I’m thinking particularly of major regional conferences such as WCCFL and NELS.)  As I’m sure we’re all aware, the phonology talks are often substantially outnumbered by syntax talks – sometimes so much so that a phonologist may have only a couple of sessions to attend.

This topic has been on my mind lately because my institution hosted WCCFL 34, so I’ve had a front-row seat to some of the raw numbers.  This year, there were 157 submissions in syntax and 23 in phonology (plus 2 in both); the composition of the final program reflected this trend.  [NB: this is not an official post on behalf of the WCCFL organizing committee, although all the committee members have seen it.]

The situation isn’t new, of course, and I can imagine a few reasons for it.  One is simple demographics: there seem to be more syntacticians than phonologists (as suggested by the data here and in related posts).  Another is the existence of excellent phonology-specific conferences (mfm, LabPhon, AMP, NAPhC, etc.), which may be siphoning off work that otherwise would have gone to a general conference.  I also don’t mean to suggest that the situation is dire.  The difference may be more pronounced at some conferences than others; for example, my impression from the last few years’ programs is that there’s proportionally more phonology at CLS and BLS than at WCCFL and NELS.  And I certainly saw excellent phonology research at this year’s WCCFL.

I have no problem with being in a smaller subfield; I’m not arguing that we should try to catch up with the syntacticians.  And I know that the situation isn’t unique to phonology.  But I’d like to hear other people’s thoughts about what this means for general conferences.  What happens when the numbers get so small that serious questions arise about the value of a particular conference for phonologists?  Is it worth making a special effort to submit to conferences like WCCFL in order to sustain critical mass there?  On the one hand, I can see the value in working to maintain a phonology presence at conferences that are supposed to represent the field pretty broadly.  But on the other hand, if you want to get the best possible feedback on your work and see what other phonologists are doing, then submitting to a conference that’s light on phonology, just for symbolic reasons, may not do you the most good.

Thoughts?

Pater (2016): Universal Grammar with Weighted Constraints

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Direct link: https://goo.gl/bYWTjL

Pater, Joe. To appear 2016. Universal Grammar with Weighted Constraints. In John McCarthy and Joe Pater, eds. Harmonic Grammar and Harmonic Serialism. London: Equinox Press. pp. 1-46.

Comments welcome!

Abstract. This chapter presents an extensive examination of the typological predictions of weighted constraints, and concludes that they hold considerable promise for typological modeling. Weighted constraints are often held to be unsuitable for the modeling of phonological typology, in that they overgenerate relative to the ranked constraints of Optimality Theory.  In more cases than previously imagined, weighted constraints generate the same typology as ranked ones. Where weighted constraints do have greater power, this often allows them to operate with smaller constraint sets, thus potentially creating more restrictive typologies. The genuinely problematic predictions of weighted constraints are often produced in non-local constraint interactions that are also problematic in Optimality Theory. The locality restrictions imposed by Harmonic Serialism often erase differences between ranking and weighting. The paper also provides a tutorial introduction to weighted constraints and a discussion of the relationship of a categorical model of Harmonic Grammar to probabilistic ones.

 

Al-Oshari and Al-Shar’abi (2016): Wh-Movement in Taizi Arabic: An Optimality Theory Account

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/content/article/files/1525_aloshari_1.pdf

ROA: 1276
Title: Wh-Movement in Taizi Arabic: An Optimality Theory Account
Authors: Waleed Al-Oshari, Tawfeek Al-Shar’abi
Comment:
Length: 10
Abstract: This paper investigates the syntax of wh-movement in Taizi Arabic (TA) within the Optimality theory framework. The scope of this study is limited to examine only simple and multiple questions. Results Show that TA strictly adheres to the Q-marking constraint in the formation of its simple and multiple questions. Findings also show that, like Standard Arabic (SA) Q-scope is dominated by both Q-marking and Stay constraints forcing wh-elements to move to the initial position of simple and multiple questions. Optionality in wh-movement is not observed in TA as it is the case in other dialects of Arabic like Cairene Arabic (CA). Furthermore, the study supports Oshari (2010) and El-touny (2011) proposals that optionality in CA and in some other dialects of Arabic is due to the interaction between the syntax and prosodic constraints, that is, the focalization and topicalization constraints.
Type: Paper/tech report
Keywords: Wh-movement, Arabic, OT

Al-Oshari (2016): Prosodically-driven Constraint Re-ranking in OT

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/content/article/files/1524_aloshari_1.pdf

ROA: 1277
Title: Prosodically-driven Constraint Re-ranking in OT
Authors: Waleed Al-Oshari
Comment: Published in EFLU Occassional Papers in Linguistics
Length: 21
Abstract: Constraint re-ranking is no novelty under the rubric of Optimality Theory. Sources in the OT literature such as Ito and Mester (1992) and Kubozono (2002) help us understand the theoretical role played by such re-rankings and their implications. While a world without constraint re-ranking is indubitably the desideratum for OT theorists, a more modest aim will be to constrain such re-rankings and rid them of any arbitrariness so that the theory is not undermined. It is in this sense that our attempt is novel.

In this paper our endeavour is to tie up constraint re-ranking with a prosodic category, namely the syllable. More particularly, we attempt to show that the constraint re-ranking underlying phonological processes discussed in Kubozono (2003) can be minimized and the same can be determined by the weight of the first syllable or the head syllable and is not idiosyncratic to lexical items as shown in the paper.

The paper will be organized as follows. Section one provides a summary of the relevant literature, namely Ito and Mester (1992), Kubozono (2002) and the Iambic-Trochaic Law whose robustness can be questioned. Section two outlines our analysis in the context of cited literature. Sections three through seven present our analyses of the processes in Japanese. Section eight provides some concluding remarks.
Type: Paper/tech report
Area: Phonology, OT, Constraints Re-ranking

Gender data from NAPhC question periods

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From Eric Bakovic
Following the lead of others reported here on Phonolist, I gathered questioner gender data at NAPhC 9 held earlier this month. Stephanie Shih was generous enough to generate the color-coded report based on the data that you see here.
I’m also copying the “raw” data below because I kept track of a few additional variables. I counted the number of males (M) and females (F) in the room during each session, which didn’t vary hugely but did vary some. I also placed integers after questioner labels (F1, M2, etc.) to keep track of repeat questioners within a single question period. Finally, if a particular question resulted in an exchange among audience members, I labeled it like so: F1 (& M2), meaning that M2 added something to the discussion of F1’s question. (Stephanie used lighter color shading to indicate this last variable.)

I didn’t pay very close attention to attendee status (prof/postdoc/grad/undergrad), but there was definitely some skewing there, too. There was only one female senior prof in attendance at any point, and only on the first day; by contrast, there were 6 total relatively senior male profs in attendance (one came only for the morning of the first day, and another came only for the afternoon of the second day). There was one junior female prof and there were two junior male profs. The rest was a mix of postdocs, grads, and undergrads; I don’t know the exact breakdown, but I’d say there were more female undergrads than male undergrads and that otherwise it was close to half and half.

Start
17Ms, 12Fs
 
Sp: F
Qs: M1, M2, M2, M3 (& M2)
 
Sp: M
Ws: M1, M2, M3
 
Break
16Ms, 12Fs
 
Sp: M & M
Qs: M1, M2, M2, F1, M3, M4, M5
 
Lunch
14Ms, 9Fs
 
Sp: M
Qs: F1, M1, M2, M3, M4, F1 (& M3), M3, M5
 
Posters/break
16Ms, 11Fs
 
Sp: M
Qs: M1, F1, M2, F2, M3
 
Day 2
12Ms, 11Fs
 
Sp: F
Qs: M1, F1, M2 (& M1), M3, M4
 
Sp: M
Qs: M1, M2, M3, M4
 
Break
15Ms, 11Fs
 
Sp: M
Qs: M1, M2, M3 (& F1, M4), M5, M3
 
Lunch
17Ms, 11Fs
 
Sp: F
Qs: M1, M2, M3, M5 (& M6)
 
Sp: M
Qs: M1, M2, M3, M4, M5
 
Break
17Ms, 12Fs
 
Sp: M & M
Qs: M1, M2, M3, M4, M5 (& M1, M4), M5

Wagner (2016) – How to be kind with prosody

How to be kind with prosody
Michael Wagner

April 2016
direct link: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/002958

What was said is often interpreted relative to what was left unsaid. Evaluate statements such as That’s good can sound negative, because the speaker could have said great instead. That’s great, on the other hand, might be interpreted as ‘not so great’, if we believe the speaker was just being nice. How, then, can we ever credibly convey our true intentions when making evaluate statements? We present evidence showing that prosody can be used to modulate the interpretation of evaluative statements, and can specifically be used to preempt inferences about positive evaluations toward a more negative interpretation. It is less able to modulate negative evaluations. The observed asymmetry makes sense if we tend to be kind to each other, and inflate our evaluative statements toward the nicer end of the spectrum.

Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/002958
(please use that when you cite this article, unless you want to cite the full url: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/002958)
Published in: To appear in the Proceedings of the Satellite Session on Framing speech: Celebrating 40 years of inquiry with Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel, at Speech Prosody 2016, Boston.
keywords: emotion, scalar implicature, prosody, sarcasm, evaluative statements, politeness, semantics, phonology

de Paula (2016): The Sound System of Misiones Mbya

The Sound System of Misiones Mbya
Matias de Paula

April 2016
direct link: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/002977

Misiones Mbya is an indigenous language of South America spoken by the Mbya people in the Province of Misiones, Argentina. Although there are several studies in the literature about the Brazilian variety of this language, the linguistic information available about Misiones Mbya is extremely scarce. In this thesis I present a segmental analysis of the language (individual vowels and consonants) and a prosodic analysis of nasal harmony based on field data collected in three different communities in Misiones. The segmental analysis shows that this variety is very similar to the Brazilian variety of the language with only a few exceptions. The prosodic analysis of nasal harmony indicates that nasality fades with distance. It is also shown that some methods for carrying out acoustic analysis of nasality can yield results which can be confounded with stress.

Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/002977
(please use that when you cite this article, unless you want to cite the full url: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/002977)
Published in: West Virginia University
keywords: mbya, mbyá, misiones mbya, guarani, guaraní, tupi-guarani, nasal harmony, nasal harmony fading, segmental description, argentinean native languages, phonology

Kickstarting a plotting revolution: Let’s talk about data visualization

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From Alexander Martin

Comments are most welcome!

A group of young researchers has started an initiative to improve scientific communication, focusing specifically on data visualization and the pitfalls of the ever-present bar plots.   While there exist a wide array of ways to display data, many people continue to choose to use bar plots, a simple graph depicting a group mean and standard error (or deviation). Unfortunately, most data aren’t as clean as bar plots make them seem, and since bar plots reveal very little about the distribution of the data, this kind of visualization can be misleading.  To finance a campaign aimed at journal editors, the group has created a Kickstarter : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1474588473/barbarplots/ proposing stickers and t-shirts and has created a hashtag #barbarplots so discussion can be followed on social media platforms.  Join in the revolution and discussion about data visualization by supporting this initiative!

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