LINGUIST List 21.2721
Fri Jun 25 2010
Calls: Phonetics, Phonology, Typology/Germany
Editor for this issue: Elyssa Winzeler
<elyssalinguistlist.org>
1. Heriberto
Avelino,
Phonetic Universals
Message 1: Phonetic Universals
Date: 23-Jun-2010
From: Heriberto Avelino <heriberto_avelinoeva.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: < click here to access email >
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 relateddisciplines, who are concerned with universals of human language and phoneticuniversals, 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 andClaudia Schmidt (MPI-EVA) will take place at the Max Planck Institute forEvolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig), October 29-30, 2010.
Recent research within linguistics as well as from different fields ranging fromcognitive neurosciences to physics to physiology and mathematical modelinghave widened our understanding of the universals of human language, and inparticular the universal properties of the sound patterns of languages.
Historically, it has been recognized that the research on universals of soundpatterns has a special place in the attempt to arrive at empirically validgeneralizations across languages (Greenberg, 1978). While this is widelyaccepted, it is not always the case that there is agreement on fundamentalquestions such as where do universals of sound patterns come from, whatwould be their ultimate explanation, and what are the best approaches tofurther studying them.
Traditionally, language universals have been explained either as the result ofan innate language faculty or by the communicative function of language (inwhich external factors such as cognitive or anatomical limitations, forinstance, might play a critical role.) Nevertheless, it is not always clearwhether the attested commonalities across languages should be attributedcategorically to either explanation.
We would rather sidestep the issue of whether one explanation hassuperiority over the other. Undoubtedly, both approaches are well groundedand have made complementary and solid contributions to the ultimate goal ofaccounting for language universals. We believe that a shift in the questionwould be beneficial. We could follow the lead from evolutionary anthropologyor evolutionary biology and ask how and when the two sources of explanationfor language universals interact. At any rate, we firmly believe that a morecomprehensive and fruitful research program will emerge from the empiricalstudy of individual languages and the comparison of their properties. Onlythis approach guarantees that the proposed formal universals-and thetheoretical basis underlying them- would represent and conform to the actualtraits found in the set of known human languages.
With this interdisciplinary perspective to the notion of language universals wehope that the conference will allow us to make progress by bringing togetherscholars from different subfields of linguistics as well as other disciplines whoare concerned with the homo sapiens' language sound structures to presentnew insights into the nature of phonetic universals.
If you are interested in participating in the Conference on PhoneticsUniversals please send a title and a short (one page) abstract tophonetic_universalseva.mpg.de. After the abstract is submitted there willbe a selection of papers accepted.
Dates of conference: 29-30 October 2010Deadline for abstract submission: 30 June 2010Notification of acceptance: 16 July 2010
Page Updated: 25-Jun-2010
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