two phonology workshops at the lsa

Testing Models of Phonetics and Phonology

Call for Posters
Deadline: May 1 2011
Conference Website

Workshop at the Linguistic Institute 2011: Language in the World
University of Colorado at Boulder
Wednesday, July 13th, 2011

This single day workshop aims to build connections between computational, experimental, and grammar-based research on phonetics and phonology. Studies using each of these general methodologies often have similar goals and produce mutually informing results, but they are usually presented in distinct journals and conferences, creating a barrier to their integration. The workshop brings together researchers in the areas of speech production, speech perception, and modeling of language acquisition.

Spoken Sessions:

  • ‘The Balance Between the Gradient and the Discrete in Language Production’:

Gary Dell (U Illinois Urbana Champaign), ‘Implicit Learning of Artificial Phonotactic Patterns in the Production System: Connections to the Perceptual System and to Real Phonotactic Knowledge’
Matt Goldrick (Northwestern), ‘Gradient Symbol Processing in Speech Production’

  • ‘Listener Adaptation to Variation’:

Jennifer Cole (U Illinois Urbana Champaign), ‘Modeling Listener Variability in Prosody Perception Using Transcription and Imitation as Indirect Measures of Linguistic Processing’
Meghan Sumner (Stanford), ‘Variation-driven Speech Perception’

  • ‘Acquisition Biases and Typological Patterns’:

Andrew Wedel (U Arizona), ‘Extending Computational Models into the Laboratory: Usage Biases and the Development of Contrastive Phoneme Inventories’
Joe Pater (U Massachusetts Amherst), ‘Formally Biased Phonology: Complexity in Learning and Typology’

Organizers:

Matt Goldrick
Joe Pater
Meghan Sumner

Information-Theoretic Approaches to Linguistics
Conference Website

A wide range of research has shown that tools from information theory (e.g. information content/surprisal, entropy) are useful tools in addressing questions of linguistic interest. These range from predicting the targets and outcomes of phonological and syntactic processes, to explaining the cognitive bases for these processes, to evaluating models of linguistic data. A two-day NSF-funded workshop will bring together a number of researchers working on information-theoretic approaches to linguistics in an effort to share knowledge, tools, insights, and specific research findings. There will also be a tutorial on information theory for those not familiar with the approach. The tutorial will be followed by invited talks and a poster session.

Invited Speakers:

Petar Milin, University of Novi Sad, Serbia
John Goldsmith, University of Chicago
John Hale, Cornell University
Kathleen Currie Hall, CUNY: College of Staten Island & The Graduate Center
Elizabeth Hume, The Ohio State University
Florian Jaeger, University of Rochester
Roger Levy, UC San Diego
Fred Mailhot, The Ohio State University
Jason Riggle, University of Chicago
Andrea Sims, The Ohio State University
Adam Ussishkin, University of Arizona
Andrew Wedel, University of Arizona