Friday October 7th at 3:30 PM: Fieldwork Recap Session Part 1!

Please join us for the first part of this year’s Fieldwork Recap Session, where students will talk about where in the world they’re conducting their research and the challenges associated with working and establishing contacts in different places. Our first group of presenters (along with the regions where they work) includes: Adam Singerman (the Amazon), […]

Continue reading →

Barbra Meek (University of Michigan) @ LVC on Wednesday, May 4th!

“Linguistic Manifestations in Encounters of Loss” Barbra Meek University of Michigan The prediction for most aboriginal languages has been extinction and a scholarly orientation toward “loss.” However, many of these languages are still with us today, including those presumed lost. This means that someone somewhere has imagined a future for these languages, for current language […]

Continue reading →

Britta Ingebretson @ LVC on Friday, March 11th!

Friday, March 1st @ 3:00PM in Rosenwald 015 Shepu or Mandarin? Attention and second order indexicality in a Chinese yoga studio Britta Ingebretson University of Chicago In this talk, I will examine how the phonetic qualities of language become mobilized in processes of second-order indexicality in a yoga studio in Huangshan, China. Shepu, a portmanteau […]

Continue reading →

Betsy Pillion, Sarah Kopper & Lenore Grenoble @ LVC on Friday, February 12th

Friday, February 12th @ 3:00PM in Rosenwald 015 “Is ‘huh’ really a universal word? Clicks, kisses & whistles in Cameroon” Betsy Pillion, Sarah Kopper & Lenore Grenoble University of Chicago, MSU, University of Chicago Cameroon, a linguistically diverse country of more than 240 languages, is host to a set of cross- linguistic communicative signals that […]

Continue reading →

Kathryn Franich @ LVC on Friday, November 6th!

Friday, November 6th @ 3:00PM in Rosenwald 301 Intrinsic and Contextual Cues to Tone Perception In Medʉmba (or: A How-To Guide for Doing Phonetics Experiments in the Field) Kathryn Franich University of Chicago In this talk, I discuss results of experimental work on tone perception in Medʉmba, a Grassfields Bantu language spoken in Cameroon. The […]

Continue reading →

2nd June: Claire Halpert (UMinnesota)

Monday, June 2nd @ 3:00 PM, Cobb 104 Nominal Licensing and vP In this talk, I discuss aspects of nominal distribution patterns in several Bantu languages.  While Bantu languages have been claimed to lack case-licensing altogether (e.g. Harford 1985, Diercks 2012, a.o.), I outline a research path for investigating structural licensing of nominals in Bantu. […]

Continue reading →

12 May: Rachel Lehr (UChicago)

Monday, May 12th @ 3:00 PM, Cobb 104 Linguistics in a Challenging Environment Linguists choose to work on languages and in environments for a variety of reasons.   Choices may be determined by locations of interest, funding, mentors, prior experience, and urgent need. The choice to work in a conflict zone poses unique challenges. When attention […]

Continue reading →

14 April: Tony Woodbury (UT Austin)

Monday, April 18th @ 3:00 PM, Pick 016 The Emergence from Tone of Vowel Register and Graded Nasalization in the Eastern Chatino of San Miguel Panixtlahuaca (based on joint work with John Kingston, University of Massachusetts, Amherst) The Chatino languages (Otomanguean; Oaxaca, Mexico) generally retain the conservative Proto-Chatino vowel inventory: */a, e, i, o, u/, with […]

Continue reading →