Linguistic Fieldwork Working Group

The Linguistic Fieldwork Working Group aims to provide an informal forum to discuss:

• Data and working hypotheses of linguistic analyses in the beginning stages

• Emerging field research methodologies in language description and documentation

• Ethical issues arising from linguistic and cultural fieldwork

• Software, equipment and annotation tools for fieldwork-based projects

• Possibilities of partnership with language revitalization initiatives

• Language field research projects in related disciplines taking place at UCSD

Upcoming meetings 

Meeting time and place for SPRING 2024: Mondays 10:00-11:00am, AP&M4452  

• April 8: Planning meeting

• April 15: Anthony Struthers-Young - Apparent double downstep in Northern Toussian (ACAL practice talk)

• April 22: Nina Hagen Kaldhol  and Sharon Rose - Case marking and word order in Moro and Tira (ACAL practice talk)

• April 29:  Audio recording equipment training

• May 6: Nadine Grimm (Rochester) - Tonal and segmental morphology in Bantu verb inflection (zoom talk)

• May 13: Video recording equipment training

• May 20: Group discussion of the term "fieldwork"

• June 3: AVAILABLE

Past meetings 

Winter 2024

• January 8: Planning meeting

• January 22: Olivia Griffin on Balinese

• February 5: Rachel Miles on Bloom books

• March 4: Anthony Struthers-Young + Claudia Duarte Borquez + JJ Lim

Fall 2023

• October 3: Planning meeting

• October 9: Mark Simmons - overview of new Zugubul tool for automatic transcription

• October 16: Michelle Yuan - "An apparent restriction on 3rd person vocalic clitics in San Juan Piñas Mixtec"

• October 30: Natalie Weber (Yale University) - "Blackfoot Words: a database of Blackfoot lexical forms" (on Zoom)

• November 27: Sharon Rose - "Grammatical tone and person marking in Rere"

• December 4: Etna Teresita Pascacio Montijo (Universidad Autónoma de Baja California) - "The process of documenting medicinal plant knowledge in Cucapá"/ "Proceso de documentación de plantas con usos medicinales en cucapá"

Spring 2023

• April 3: Nico Tedeschi - "Frames of reference in San Juan Piñas Mixtec: a methodology for remote elicitation"

• April 24: Gabriela Caballero, Claudia Duarte Bórquez, and Claudia Juárez Chávez - "Tonal upstep and downstep in San Juan Piñas Mixtec (Tò’ōn Ndā’ví)"

• May 1: Jacob Kodner (Harvard University) - "Language documentation and fieldwork in the nonprofit sector"

• May 8: Carlos Gil Burgoin (Universidad Autónoma de Baja California) - "Morphological complexity in stem formation of Nortehrn Tepehuan verbs"

• May 15: Florian Matter (UOregon) - "A first glimpse at a workflow for writing digital grammars"

• May 22: Madeline Snigaroff (UChicago) - "Revitalization and fieldwork that complements communities: A case study with Aleut"

• June 5: Sharon Rose 

Winter 2023

• January 9: updates, schedule and reconnecting for the new quarter!

• January 23: discussion about AIMM

• January 30: Jessica Coon (McGill University) - "Linguistic elicitation for advanced learners: A community–university partnership" (Collaborative work with Jasmine Jimerson, Karohniióstha Shea Sky, Mary McDonald, Tahohtharátye Joe Brant, Ryan DeCaire, Luis Alonso-Ovalle, Meghan Clayards, Dzéiwsh James Crippen)

• February 6: Rachel Miles - "The emergence of argument ordering: insights from emerging sign languages and late first language exposure" (joint meeting with the Mayberry Lab, will take place in APM 4301)

• February 13: Mark Simmons

• February 27: Carlos Gil Burgoin (Universidad Autónoma de Baja California) [postponed]

• March 6: Nina Hagen Kaldhol - "TAM and deixis marking in Tira" (note special time at 3pm)

• March 13: Anthony Struthers-Young - "Northern Toussian TAMP grammatical tone"

Fall 2022

• September 27: Introductions, updates, and schedule

• October 31: Cathryn Donohue (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University) - “Case variation in Nubri” (Zoom only, no in person meeting)

• November 21: Matt Carter - "Interpredictability in Ket Derivational Paradigms" (Zoom only, no in person meeting)

• November 28: Carlos Gil Burgoin (Universidad Autónoma de Baja California) [postponed]

Spring 2022

• March 30: Planning meeting - Zoom only

• April 6: Wilson de Lima Silva (University of Arizona) - "Language documentation practices based on language vitalization efforts"

• April 27: Jaime Pérez González (UCSC) - "Progressive to Imperfective Shift in Mocho’ (Mayan)"

• May 4: Rodrigo Ranero (UCLA) - "On the Virtues of Individual-Speaker Fieldwork: Lessons from Agreement in Tz’utujil"

• May 18: Patricia Schneider-Zioga (CSU Fullerton) - "The linker, agreement & licensing in Kinande (Bantu)"

• May 25: Mark Simmons - "Autosegmental model of vowel enclitics in San Juan Piñas Mixtec"

• June 1: Matt Zaslansky - "Multiple exponence in Karakalpak"

Winter 2022

• January 12: Ray Huaute - "The intonational structure of Torrez-Martinez Desert Cahuilla"

• February 1: Scott AnderBois (Brown University) - "Preverbs in Yucatec Maya" (Joint work with Grant Armstrong (University of Wisconsin) and Edber Dzidz Yam (University of New Mexico)) - Joint meeting with Syntax and Semantics Babble, Tuesday 11:00-12:30

• February 9: Virtual Open House overview of the Field Research Lab

• February 16: Claudia Duarte-Bórquez - "The representation of tone in San Juan Piñas Mixtec: The role of underspecification" - special time on Wednesday at 2:30pm

Fall 2021

• September 30: Introductions, updates, and schedule

• October 15: Anita Chang (CSU, East Bay) - Book talk and workshop on Third Digital Documentary: A Theory and Practice of Digital Arts Activism, Critical Design and Ethics - Joint meeting with Linguistic Anthropology Lab, Friday 1:00-2:40

• October 21: Discussion of "(Don’t) try this at home! The effects of recording devices and software on phonetic analysis" - Joint meeting with PhonCo

• November 4: Discussion of IRB protocols

• December 2: Adrienne Tsikewa (UC Santa Barbara) - "Collaborative language research and decolonizing methodologies"

• December 9: Enrique Palancar (CNRS) - "Verb conjugations in Matlatzinca: Inflection classes and periphrasis" - Virtual meeting at 11:30am

Spring 2021

• April 2: José Armando Fernández Guerrero - "Strategies of clausal complementation in Rere"

• April 20: Lisa Matthewson (University of British Columbia) - "How experimental should we be?" - Joint meeting with SemanticsBabble, Tuesday 11:00am-12:30pm

• May 3: CANCELED (rescheduled date TBA) Discussion of "(Don’t) try this at home! The effects of recording devices and software on phonetic analysis" - Joint meeting with PhonCo, Monday 12:00-1:00pm

• May 7: Himidan Hassen, Nina Kaldhol, Peter Jenks (UC Berkeley), and Sharon Rose - "Content questions in Tira"

• May 21: Hiroto Uchihara & Juana Mendoza (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) - "Minimality, Maximality and the Perfect Prosodic Word in Alcozauca Mixtec"

• May 24: Michael Obiri-Yeboah - "Interactions between ATR vowel harmony and nasality" - Joint meeting with PhonCo, Monday 12:00-1:00pm

• June 4: Michelle Yuan - "Verb-initial word order in San Juan Piñas Mixtec: Some considerations"

Winter 2021

• January 15: Gabriela Caballero, Claudia Juárez Chávez, and Michelle Yuan - "Tonal and morphosyntactic properties of pronominal clitics in San Juan Piñas Mixtec"

• January 22: Eric Campbell (UC Santa Barbara) - "Advances in the study of (grammatical) tone in diasporic Tu’un Savi varieties"

• January 29: Virtual Open House overview of the Field Research Lab

• March 5: Anthony Struthers-Young - "Multiple exponence in Northern Toussian"

• March 12: Nina Kaldhol - "Polyfunctionality across time and space in Rere"

Fall 2020

• October 2: introductions, summer reports, and updates

• October 16: discussion of working with community collaborators remotely

• October 30: Nina Kaldhol and Sharon Rose in collaboration with Himidan Hassen - "Tira verbal argument marking: The role of tone"

• November 13: Zachary O'Hagan (California Language Archive, UC Berkeley) - discussion of archives and archiving best practices

• December 4: Gabriela Caballero, Claudia Juárez Chávez, and Michelle Yuan - "Tonal and morphosyntactic properties of the San Juan Piñas Mixtec verb complex"

• December 11: Gabriela Caballero, Claudia Juárez Chávez, and Michelle Yuan - "Tonal and morphosyntactic properties of the San Juan Piñas Mixtec verb complex" (continued)

Spring 2020

• May 11: Felipe López (UC San Diego Literature) - "Using social media to teach and maintain Valley Zapotec"

• May 18: Ryan Bennett (UC Santa Cruz) - "Vowel deletion as phonologically-controlled gestural overlap in Uspanteko"

Winter 2020

• January 13: new SSILA abstract guideline discussion

• January 17: Fiona McLaughlin (U. of Florida) - special session on Friday at 2pm 

• January 27: Yuan Chai - "Neutralization of Xiapu Min tones in disyllabic tone sandhi forms"

• February 3: Michelle Yuan on recent fieldwork on Labrador Inuttut

• February 10: Mike Diercks (Pomona) and Justine Sikuku (Moi University) - "Object marking and information structure in Lubukusu"

• February 24: Ben Eischens (UC Santa Cruz) - "Glottalization and root shortening in San Martín Peras Mixtec"

• March 9: Ray Huaute on recent fieldwork on Cahuilla

Fall 2019

• October 7: summer fieldwork reports

• October 14: John Haviland (UC San Diego Anthropology)

• October 21: Ray Huaute (UC San Diego Linguistics) - report on Endangered Language Documentation Programme training

• October 28: Alex Rodriguez (UC San Diego Linguistics) - "Wh-questions in Rere"

• November 4: Coppe van Urk (Queen Mary University) - "Different ways of introducing objects: Transitivity in Fijian"

• November 11: no meeting

• November 18: Carlos Gil Burgoin (Universidad Autónoma de Baja California) - "Interpreting prosodic patterns at the word level in Northern Tepehuan"

• November 25: Michael Ahland (CSU Long Beach) - "Pahka'anil Text Project"

• December 2: Ray Huaute & Gabriela Caballero (UC San Diego Linguistics) - "Reduplication and syncope in Cahuilla distributive verbs"

Spring 2019

• April 8: Wesley Leonard (Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, UC Riverside) - Discussion of "Reflections on (de)colonialism in language documentation". Paper available here.

• April 15: Philip Mutaka (University of Yaounde) - Exploring new research perspectives on African cultures through language documentation

• May 6: Claudia Duarte-Bórquez & Justin McIntosh - practice talk for WAIL (An Introduction to San Juan Piñas Mixtec)

Winter 2019

• March 4: Raymond Incamu Huaute - practice invited talk for SAIL "Towards a Native-Informed Approach to Linguistics: Insights from a Native Linguist & Language Reclamationist"

Fall 2018

• Oct 12: Néstor Hernández-Green (CIESAS) Studies of grammatical tone in Otomi languages (2pm - special time)

• Nov. 5: Wendy López (CIESAS) 

Spring 2018

• June 4: Michael Obiri-Yeboah on nasal vowels in Gua

• May 14: practice MFM talk by Adam McCollum: "Locality, Transparency, and Uyghur backness harmony"

• May 7: practice LabPhon and Tonal Aspects of Language presentations

• April 9: discussion of 'Morphological H-tones in Macuiltianguis Zapotec' (Zimmermann to appear) 

Winter 2018

• March 12: Eric Campbell (UCSB) on grammatical tone in Oto-Manguean languages

• March 5: Lynn Hou (UCSD) on fieldwork in San Juan Quiahije Chatino Sign Language (SJQCSL) 

• February 26: Rory Turnbull (U Hawai'i) on the word prosody of San Jerónimo Acazulco Otomí

• February 12: Justin McIntosh (UCSD) on grammatical tone in Teotepec Eastern Chatino

• January 22: Austin German (UCSD): "Eye gaze as a pointing device in Zinacantec Family Homesign"