Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft Leibniz-Gemeinschaft

Universality and variability in segment-prosody interactions

Organizer(s) Christine Mooshammer, Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel & Marzena Żygis
Affiliaton(s) ZAS Berlin, MIT, USC, Los Angeles & Haskins Laboratories
Workshop Linguistic Institute 'Universality and variability' 2013, U Michigan
Start of event 12.07.2013, 09.00 o'clock
End of event 12.07.2013, 18.00 o'clock
Venue U Michigan

Several studies on universals in phonology and phonetics pertain either to segmentals (e.g. sound frequencies, gaps in inventories, preferences for certain cluster types) or supra-segmentals (e.g. preferences in stress and intonational patterns). In recent years, accumulating evidence has suggested that language-specific interactions between the two levels can induce systematic temporal and qualitative variability on the segmental level. For example, most sounds lengthen substantially following a phrase boundary, but there are exceptions such as the sibilants; lax vowels do not lengthen under stress; and glottal stop insertion also depends on the quality of the following vowel. This workshop is aimed at gaining more insight into the interdependence of the segmental and prosodic levels from a cross-linguistic perspective. Papers which deal with the following questions are of particular importance:

(i) What patterns of segmental and supra-segmental interactions are found cross-linguistically?

(ii) How does metrical structure influence segments, phonotactics and phonological processes?

(iii) What principles govern segment-specific variation due to prosodic effects, e.g. localized hyper articulation, feature enhancement, syntagmatic dissimilation or prominence enhancement?

(iv) Why do some segments or larger units resist the more global prosodic variations, e.g. in order to maintain a contrast?

(v) How do different models deal with the segmental-prosodic variation, e.g. Exemplar Theory (Pierrehumbert 2001), pi-gesture model (Byrd & Saltzmann 2003), (bidirectional) OT (Boersma 1998) and others?

Invited speakers:

  • Laura Dilley, Michigan State University
  • Jelena Krivokapic, Yale University & Haskins Laboratories
  • Paul de Lacy, Rutgers University

Program

9.30-10.00
Marzena Żygis (Centre for General Linguistics (ZAS) & Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Christine Mooshammer (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) & Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel (MIT)
Segment-prosody interaction. An overview of perspectives.

10.00-11.00 
Jelena Krivokapic (Yale University & Haskins Laboratories, New Heaven)
Prosodic boundaries:  Structurally induced variability

11.00-11.30
Coffee break

11.30-12.00
Michael Wagner & Meghan Clayards (McGill University, Montreal)
Syntactic effects on variable phonological processes and the locality of production planning 

12.00-12.30
Nicholas Bacuez (University of Texas, Austin)
Phonetic variation of intonation contours. A quantitative analysis using the PRInt model and c-means clusters.

12.30-13.00
Petra Augurzky (University Tübingen), Fabian Tomaschek (University Tübingen) & Arndt Riester (Stuttgart University)
The interplay of prosodic, segmental and syntactic cues in German adjunct/argument phrases.

13.00-14.30
Lunch break

14.30-15.30
Laura Dilley (Michigan State University, East Lansing)
How many phonological units? How many words? Context speech rate and segment-prosody interactions.

15.30-16.00
Dolly Goldenberg (Yale University, New Heaven)
Phrase initial temporal effects in Hebrew

16.00-16.30
Meghan Clayards & Thea Knowles  (McGill University; Montreal)
Prosodic strengthening and sibilants 

16.30-17.00
Coffee break

17.00-18.00
Paul de Lacy (Rutgers University, New Jersey)
The inadequacy of evidence for sonority‐driven stress