21.2721, Calls: Phonetics, Phonology, Typology/Germany

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LINGUIST List: Vol-21-2721. Fri Jun 25 2010. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 21.2721, Calls: Phonetics, Phonology, Typology/Germany

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1)
Date: 23-Jun-2010
From: Heriberto Avelino < heriberto_avelino at eva.mpg.de >
Subject: Phonetic Universals
 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2010 18:35:01
From: Heriberto Avelino [heriberto_avelino at eva.mpg.de]
Subject: Phonetic Universals

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Full Title: Phonetic Universals 

Date: 29-Oct-2010 - 30-Oct-2010
Location: Leipzig, Germany 
Contact Person: Heriberto Avelino Claudia Schmidt
Meeting Email: phonetic_universals at eva.mpg.de
Web Site: http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/conference/10-PhoneticUniversals/index.html 

Linguistic Field(s): Phonetics; Phonology; Typology 

Call Deadline: 30-Jun-2010 

Meeting Description:

We invite papers from linguists, as well as from scholars from related 
disciplines, who are concerned with universals of human language and phonetic 
universals, in particular.

Invited Speakers:
Ian Maddieson (UC Berkeley/U New Mexico)
David Poeppel (New York University)
Christine Shadle (Haskins Laboratories)
John Kingston (University of Massachusetts)
Pascal Perrier (GIPSA Lab, CNRS) 

Call for Papers

The Conference on Phonetic Universals, organized by Heriberto Avelino and
Claudia Schmidt (MPI-EVA) will take place at the Max Planck Institute for
Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig), October 29-30, 2010.

Recent research within linguistics as well as from different fields ranging from 
cognitive neurosciences to physics to physiology and mathematical modeling 
have widened our understanding of the universals of human language, and in 
particular the universal properties of the sound patterns of languages. 

Historically, it has been recognized that the research on universals of sound 
patterns has a special place in the attempt to arrive at empirically valid 
generalizations across languages (Greenberg, 1978). While this is widely 
accepted, it is not always the case that there is agreement on fundamental 
questions such as where do universals of sound patterns come from, what 
would be their ultimate explanation, and what are the best approaches to 
further studying them.

Traditionally, language universals have been explained either as the result of 
an innate language faculty or by the communicative function of language (in 
which external factors such as cognitive or anatomical limitations, for 
instance, might play a critical role.) Nevertheless, it is not always clear 
whether the attested commonalities across languages should be attributed 
categorically to either explanation. 

We would rather sidestep the issue of whether one explanation has 
superiority over the other. Undoubtedly, both approaches are well grounded 
and have made complementary and solid contributions to the ultimate goal of 
accounting for language universals. We believe that a shift in the question 
would be beneficial. We could follow the lead from evolutionary anthropology 
or evolutionary biology and ask how and when the two sources of explanation 
for language universals interact. At any rate, we firmly believe that a more 
comprehensive and fruitful research program will emerge from the empirical 
study of individual languages and the comparison of their properties. Only 
this approach guarantees that the proposed formal universals-and the 
theoretical basis underlying them- would represent and conform to the actual 
traits found in the set of known human languages.

With this interdisciplinary perspective to the notion of language universals we 
hope that the conference will allow us to make progress by bringing together 
scholars from different subfields of linguistics as well as other disciplines who 
are concerned with the homo sapiens' language sound structures to present 
new insights into the nature of phonetic universals.

If you are interested in participating in the Conference on Phonetics 
Universals please send a title and a short (one page) abstract to 
phonetic_universals at eva.mpg.de. After the abstract is submitted there will 
be a selection of papers accepted.

Dates of conference: 29-30 October 2010
Deadline for abstract submission: 30 June 2010
Notification of acceptance: 16 July 2010




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