Carmel O’Shannessy gave a lecture in the MSU Colloquium Series on Oct. 23, entitled, ” Coding a register:
how a language register has led to the formation of a new code.”

Abstract
There has long been debate over whether code-switching between languages could lead to the formation of a new mixed language. Recent data shows that code-switching practices between Warlpiri and English have led to a new mixed code, Light Warlpiri, in a remote community in northern Australia. More specifically, it appears that the specific code-switching patterns which occur most often in a register for addressing young children are the patterns that were taken up to form the new code.
Light Warlpiri is spoken by children and young adults in the multilingual community of Lajamanu and has developed within the last 30 years. Most verbs and the verbal morphology are from Aboriginal English or Kriol (AE/Kriol), while most nominal morphology is from Lajamanu Warlpiri (the variety of Warlpiri spoken in Lajamanu community). Nouns are drawn from both types of source language. An innovative auxiliary system has developed which draws on, but is not the same as, the systems in the source languages.
The paper will outline how the two systems are combined systematically in the new language, and how code-switching patterns, specifically those used when addressing children, are the patterns that have become entrenched as the new way of speaking.

Erik Schleef, who finished his PhD in Germanic Linguistics in Aug. 2005, has accepted a position of Lecturer in Sociolinguistics at the University of Manchester.

Congratulations, Erik!

The Michigan Linguistics Society will hold its 38th Annual Meeting on Oct. 25th at Wayne State University.

UM Linguists presenting include:

Yufen Hsieh and Julie Boland:  Incremental Processing of Empty Categories in Chinese

Chao-Ting Chou:  Syntax-Pragmatics Interface, Syntactic Analyticity and the Point of View Operator

Miki Obata:  Deriving Argument-Adjunct Aymmetries from Multiple-Agree

San Duanmu:  Constraints on Syllable Inventory:  A Comparison between Middle Chinese and Modern Chinese

Three UM linguists will present papers at the 14th Annual Mid-Continental Workshop on Phonology being held Oct. 17-19 at the University of Minnesota.

Kevin McGowan is presenting “Gradient lexical frequency reflexes of the Syllable Contact Law.”

San Duanmu and Xinting Zhang are presenting “The phonetics and phonology of vowel duration in Hungarian”

Julie Boland presented the colloquium talk at Michigan State University’s Linguistics Colloquium series on Oct. 9.

Title and Abstract

Chinese Sentence Comprehension:  Recent Findings

Over the last several years, my colleagues and I have been investigating
syntactic processing in Chinese using self-paced reading, eye-tracking,
and ERP paradigms. I review our recent results in three domains: (i)
What cues guide incremental interpretation in the face is syntactic
ambiguity? (ii) To what extent are syntactic alternatives maintained in
parallel? (iii) Must semantic interpretations always be licensed by
grammatical structure?  I also compare our Chinese findings with results
from similar experiments done in English and other Indo-European
languages, with an interest in understanding what aspects of sentence
comprehension are universal and what aspects might be tuned by
language-specific properties.

San Duanmu presented the colloquium talk at the Michigan State Linguistics Colloquium on Sept. 25, 2008.

Title and Abstract

The limits of variation in syllable structure: The CVX theory and its implications

Many linguists assume that there is a wide range of syllable types across languages. A common approach to such variation is to assume a set of parameters. I argue instead that the variation in syllable types is far more limited than currently conceived. In particular, if morphological factors are taken into consideration, the maximal syllable size is CVX (CVC or CVV).

The CVX theory claims that a word has the general structure M(C)S(C)M, where M is one or more affix or affix-like consonants, (C) is one consonant, and S is one or more syllables whose maximal structure is CVX. The theory attributes extra consonants, M and (C), to morphology, in the sense that (i) M must be added regardless of whether a neighboring syllable is full, and (ii) an initial (C) is found only in languages that have V-final prefixes, so that (C) can serve as its coda, and a final (C) is found only in languages that have V-initial suffixes, so that (C) can serve as its onset. In non-edge syllables, apparent CC onsets (e.g. [kw, pl, pr]) can all form a ‘complex sound’; in contrast, CC onsets that cannot form a complex sound are not found medially (e.g. sp-, sm-, thr-). In addition, apparent VXC rhymes can also be accounted for in terms of complex sounds, e.g. VNC  ṼC, as in symptom.

I also discuss the implications of the CVX theory, including whether the syllable exists, its relation to metrical structure, the Weight-Stress Principle, the determination of syllable boundaries, the role of sonority, and the notion of parameters in the theory of grammar.