McLing

At this week’s P group meeting, Oct 21 1pm,  Wei will lead a discussion on the paper “A non-contrastive cue in spontaneous imitation: Comparing mono- and bilingual imitators” (Kwon, 2021).

Abstract: This study tests the hypothesis that imitators of different native languages imitate the same targets in distinct ways predicted by their native phonology, by investigating the role of a non-contrastive phonetic property in spontaneous imitation of English voiceless stops by English monolingual and Seoul Korean-English bilingual imitators. The primarily contrastive phonetic property for English voiceless stops is voice onset time (VOT), with the fundamental frequency (f0) of the post-stop vowel being non-contrastive but still informative for the voicing contrast. On the other hand, in Seoul Korean, stop VOT is a non-primary cue, but it is necessary to maintain the full three-way laryngeal contrast in the language. Post-stop f0 is the primary cue for the Seoul Korean aspirated stops. Seoul Korean speakers have been reported to imitate aspirated stops with longer VOT by raising their post-stop f0 (Kwon, 2019). In this study, English monolingual speakers and Seoul Korean-English bilingual speakers heard and shadowed model speech containing English voiceless stops manipulated by either raising post-stop f0 or lengthening VOT. Their imitation was assessed with two acoustic measurements, stop VOT and post-onset f0, of the voiceless stops, before and after the imitators heard the model speech with the two manipulations. A separate discrimination test confirmed that both manipulations were reliably perceived by both the monolingual and the bilingual imitators. English monolingual speakers’ imitation data suggest that their shadowing productions reflect the phonological significance of the two phonetic properties, and only the imitative changes induced by a contrastive cue last beyond the immediate shadowing targets. In addition, Seoul Korean-English bilingual speakers, when performing the spontaneous imitation tasks in English, do not draw on their native (Seoul Korean) phonology. Implications of these findings on the role of phonology in the spontaneous imitation of bilingual and monolingual speakers are discussed.

At this week’s P group meeting, Oct 7 1pm,  Connie will lead a discussion on the paper “Tonogenesis” (Michaud and Sands, 2020).

Abstract:

Tonogenesis is the development of distinctive tone from earlier non-tonal contrasts. A well-understood case is that of Vietnamese (similar in its essentials to that of Chinese and many languages of the Tai-Kadai and Hmong-Mien language families), where the loss of final laryngeal consonants led to the creation of three tones, and the tones later multiplied as voicing oppositions on initial consonants waned. This is by no means the only attested diachronic scenario, however. There is tonogenetic potential in various series of phonemes: glottalized vs. plain consonants, unvoiced vs. voiced, aspirated vs. unaspirated, geminates vs. simple (and, more generally, tense vs. lax), and even among vowels, whose intrinsic fundamental frequency can transphonologize to tone. But the way in which these common phonetic precursors to tone play out in a given language depends on phonological factors, as well as on other dimensions of a language’s structure and on patterns of language contact, resulting in a great diversity of evolutionary paths in tone systems. In some language families (such as Niger-Congo and Khoe), recent tonal developments are increasingly well-understood, but working out the origin of the earliest tonal contrasts (which are likely to date back thousands of years earlier than tonogenesis among Sino-Tibetan languages, for instance) remains a mid- to long-term research goal for comparative-historical research.

If you want to come and haven’t registered, you can do it here.

The time of the P* group meeting will be 1-2 pm on Thursdays. The first meeting will be on Sept 23 (1: 00 pm). To attend the meeting, please first register here: https://mcgill.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUofu6oqzwvGNcO_blbZvGfDVIeVp2G71mb.  The meeting link will be sent to you after the registration. You only need to register for the first meeting. If you would like to be added to the PGROUP Mailing List, please email Wei with your contact information. 

We’re scheduling a time that works best for the weekly P* group meeting for this semester. If you are interested in attending, please mark down all time slots that work for you in this poll:

https://doodle.com/poll/2wmmaqkvi2t5ir78?utm_source=poll&utm_medium=link

Email Wei (wei.zhang16@mail.mcgill.ca) with any questions.

This Monday at 12:30pm, Alex (Z.) will present on her project titled “Acoustic characteristics of vowel reduction in advanced Spanish-English bilinguals”. All are welcome! To join the meeting, please use the information in the confirmation email that you received following registration. If you haven’t registered, please do so here.

Next Monday at 12:30pm, Meghan will lead a discussion on “Context-dependent phonetic enhancement of a phonation contrast in San Pablo Macuiltianguis Zapotec” (Barzilai, M. L. & Riestenberg, K. J., 2021).

To join the meeting, please use information in the confirmation email that you received following registration. If you haven’t registered, please do so here.

This week Alex Zhai will be presenting work titled “Acoustic characteristics of vowel reduction in advanced Spanish-English bilinguals”. P* Group meets on Mondays at 12:30pm. All are welcome! To get information on how to join the meeting, please register here.

This week Alex Cucinelli will be leading discussion on “Assessing the psychological status of the Vowel Shift Rule” (Jaeger 1984). P* Group meets on Mondays at 12:30pm. All are welcome! To get information on how to join the meeting, please register here.

This week Natália Brambatti Guzzo will be leading discussion on “Pretonic Vowel Reduction in Brazilian Portuguese: Harmony and Dispersion”. P* Group meets on Mondays at 12:30pm. All are welcome! To get information on how to join the meeting, please register here.

Next Monday at 12:30pm, Beini will lead a discussion on “Tone languages and the universality of intrinsic F0: evidence from Africa”.

We are changing the meeting time because we are still trying to find a good time for everyone. If none of the times work well, we might do different times each week based on what’s best for most people and on the availability of the discussion leaders.

To join the meeting, please use information in the confirmation email that you received following registration. If you haven’t registered, please do so here.

P* Group will resume regular scheduled meetings next week, stay tuned!

This week, Tommy Liu will be leading discussion on his thesis proposal. The title of the presentation is “Questions raised by markedness: a cross-linguistic comparison”. This week, P* Group will be meeting on Tuesday at 3:00pm. All are welcome!

For information on how to join the meeting, please register here.

This week, Terrance Gatchalian will be leading discussion in P* Group, which will take place on Friday from 12-1pm on Zoom. All are welcome! To get information on how to join the meeting, please register here.

This week, Alex Cucinelli will be leading discussion on “Dutch and English toddlers’ use of linguistic cues in predicting upcoming turn transitions” (Lammertink et al., 2015). P* Group takes place on Fridays from 12-1pm on Zoom. All are welcome! To get information on how to join the meeting, please register here.

This Friday, Michael will be giving a practice talk titled “What homophones tell us about focus semantics”. P* Reading Group takes place on Fridays from 12-1pm on Zoom. All are welcome! To get information on how to join the meeting, please register here.

This Friday, Beini will lead a discussion of “Assimilation and anticipation in continuous spoken word recognition” (Gow 2001). P* Reading Group takes place on Fridays from 12-1pm on Zoom. All are welcome! To get information on how to join the meeting, please register here.

This Friday, Tommy will lead a discussion of “Uncovering French syllable structure with Verlan” (Weinberger & Lefkowitz 1991). P* Reading Group takes place on Fridays from 12-1pm on Zoom. All are welcome! To get information on how to join the meeting, please register here.

Meghan will lead discussion during this week’s P* Reading Group — the paper will be announced and distributed to the group mailing list prior to the meeting. P* Reading Group takes place on Fridays from 12-1pm on Zoom. All are welcome! To get information on how to join the meeting, please register here.

There is no P* Group meeting this week. Hope to see you all again on October 2!

Bing’er will lead discussion during this week’s P* Reading Group—the paper will be announced and distributed to the reading group mailing list prior to the meeting. P* Reading Group takes place on Fridays from 12-1pm on Zoom. The Meeting ID is: 956 5471 8344, or click this link to join: https://mcgill.zoom.us/j/95654718344. All are welcome to attend!