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Colloque GDRI Phonological Therory Agora

Emergent markedness, universal features, or the reverse?

Appel à communication (date limite : 15 janvier 2019)

Le GDRI Phonological Theory Agora (http://pta.cnrs.fr/) organise sa manifestation de clôture les 15 et 16 mars 2019 à Nice. Le thème débattu sera «The Balance Between Universals and Variation in Grammar», implémenté par la question suivatnte :
«Emergent markedness, universal features, or the reverse?»

Il y aura trois types de sessions :

  1. tutoriel à propos du thème retenu, par Bridget Samuels (Pomona) et Paul de Lacy (Rutgers)
  2. stand up and make a claim (à propos du thème retenu): 10 min de présentation, 20 min de discussion.
  3. data set sur la structure syllabique: à télécharger sur le site. Des analyses différentes de ce data set seront présentées.

Des soumissions pour les points 2) et 3) sont invitées jusqu’au 15 janvier. Les notifications seront envoyées avant la fin du mois de janvier.

Les organisateurs :
Jonathan Bucci
Alexander Chabot
Paolo Danesi
Diana Passino
Tobias Scheer

Descriptif

Markedness and melodic primes (of various kinds: binary or monovalent features, Elements, particles) are standard notions manipulated by phonological theory and there is broad agreement that languages have preferences for certain structures (markedness), and that segments (or sounds) are decomposed into smaller units (primes). What is not agreed, however, is if markedness and melodic primes are universal properties of language, and thus a part of UG and innate, or if they are emergent patterns based on environmental information gathered by the child. Defenders of the emergentist position need to come up with a mechanism that explains cross-linguistically recurrent patterns in inventories and computation, whose existence is a central motivation for the universalist position.
We are inviting functionalist and formalist contributions from domains of study including dialectology, typology, acquisition, cognition (domain-specific vs. domain-general) that can be brought to bear on the question of whether markedness and melodic primes are cross-linguistically stable or language-specific.
In particular, we are interested in determining which properties of phonological objects and computation are subject to universal restrictions imposed by UG and which enjoy language-specific freedom – and what kinds of evidence, in segmental inventories, in phonological processes, or outside of phonology entirely, can be used to provide arguments for the respective positions.

View online : Site du colloque

published by Nicolas Bertrand - updated on