29.4112, Calls: Phonology, Typology/Germany

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-29-4112. Mon Oct 22 2018. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 29.4112, Calls: Phonology, Typology/Germany

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Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2018 15:49:30
From: Steven Moran [steven.moran at uzh.ch]
Subject: Phonological (In)stability and Language Evolution

 
Full Title: Phonological (In)stability and Language Evolution 
Short Title: PILE 

Date: 21-Aug-2019 - 24-Aug-2019
Location: Leipzig, Germany 
Contact Person: Eitan Grossman
Meeting Email: eitan.grossman at mail.huji.ac.il

Linguistic Field(s): Phonology; Typology 

Call Deadline: 11-Nov-2018 

Meeting Description:

(Session of 52nd Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea)

The aim of this workshop is to explore the stability and instability of sound
patterns, understood here as the set of phonetic and phonological properties
of languages. The inherent stability of linguistic properties is a crucial
component of any explanation of cross-linguistic and language-specific
distributions, alongside considerations such as the number, frequency, and
complexity of diachronic sources and developmental pathways (Greenberg 1978,
Harris 2008) on the one hand, and the likelihood of diffusion, on the other. 

The question of stability is an important one because linguists often draw
inferences about human language on the basis of a sample. Specifically, it
would be ideal if linguists could infer the universal probability of a
linguistic type from the empirical frequency of that type (Cysouw 2011).
Drawing valid inferences of this sort depends, however, to an extent on some
version of the uniformitarian assumption, i.e., the idea that ‘human languages
have always been pretty much the same in terms of the typological distribution
of the units that compose them’ (Newmeyer 2002).

The uniformitarian assumption has been called into question in a number of
ways. Maslova (2000), Dunn et al. (2011), Cysouw (2011), and Bickel (2015)
have argued that present-day distributions do not necessarily represent
panchronic truths about language. Greenberg (1978) observed that particular
distributions might indicate different degrees of stability. Nichols (1992,
2003) and Wichmann & Holman (2009) provide measures of the stability of
cross-linguistically comparable properties. Of the 137 properties examined, 19
deal with sound patterns, which show varying degrees of stability, e.g.,
consonant inventories are ‘very unstable,’ while tone is ‘very stable.’ While
these studies provide us with a picture of the stability of a number of
properties, as well as some methodological foundations, we are still far from
understanding the relative stability of a wide range of sound patterns. In
particular, many aspects of (in)stability are potentially invisible to
particular methodologies. For example, it may be the case that the phonetic
precursors of, e.g., three-way length distinctions, are frequently innovated
by speakers yet are not phonologized (Greenberg 1978).

Some proposals have been made about the inherent stability or instability of
particular sound patterns. Jacques (2011) argues that aspirated fricatives,
despite the multiplicity of diachronic sources, are inherently unstable due to
their tendency to merge with other sounds. Dediu and Cysouw (2013) find that
the feature [round] is unstable, i.e. hard to get and easy to lose. Blevins
(2008) proposes that three-way vowel nasality distinctions or three-way length
distinctions may be inherently unstable, and tend to be eradicated by sound
change. On the other hand, coronal places of articulation for consonants seem
to be especially stable, since total coronal loss is vanishingly rare (Blevins
2009). Moran and Verkerk (2018) find that consonants and vowels change at
different rates, albeit not uniformly across language families; these findings
may point to broad differences between consonant inventories and vowel
inventories in terms of stability.


Call for Papers:

We invite proposals for 20-minute talks that explore the stability of
particular sound pattern types and on any of the following or related
questions:
 
- How can ‘stability’ be defined and operationalized?
- What are the units of analysis in the study of phonological?
- What are the differences between present-day distributions of sound patterns
and earlier distributions?
- Can differential rates of change for different types of sound patterns be
identified, and if so, what explains these differences?
- Are different patterns of (in)stability found in different parts of the
world or at different stages in the evolution of human language?
- What light can experimental phonetics and phonology shed on (in)stability?
- What are the causal links between facts of human physiology and cognition
and the (in)stability of sound patterns?
 
To submit an abstract, please email a PDF(200 words max, plus references) to
eitan.grossman at mail.huji.ac.il by November 11. 
 
This workshop will be submitted to the annual meeting of the SLE (Leipzig,
21-24 August), so it will first go through a preliminary round of evaluation.
If the workshop proposal is successful, participants will be asked to submit a
full abstract.
 
Important dates:

- Internal deadline workshop proposal: November 11
- Notification of inclusion in workshop: November 16
- Notification of acceptance for workshop: December 15
- Deadline submission full abstract if proposal is successful: 15 January




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