Other activities
Formal language theory, as the mathematical study of string patterns, provides for the direct study of the computational complexity of linguistic patterns. This allows for comparison of distinct linguistic theories, development of methods for machine processing of language, and the discovery of inductive principles for learning algorithms that generalize from positive data—a context relevant to both human language acquisition and induction from text corpora.
Annual Meeting on Phonology (October 2018)
An informal meeting of graduate students and faculty from the Southern California area (generally). Repeated in 2017 at UCLA (as Southern California Meeting on Phonology, or SCaMP), in 2018 at USC, and at CSU Long Beach in 2019.
The participants in this workshop explore the role of competition as a mainstay in the organization of linguistic systems. Competition has played an implicit role in modern linguistic theory since the outset (e.g., in such fundamental notions as allophones and allomorphs). The interaction of constraints and rules in generative phonology, variationist sociolinguistics, and Optimality Theory can be fruitfully regarded in terms of competition. Recent work has shown that blocking, within both morphology and phonology, can also be understood as competition (Aronoff & Lindsay 2014, Baković 2013, Lindsay & Aronoff 2013). Competition-based analysis of language can easily be framed in statistical terms, which permits the exploitation of large data sets in a variety of new and enlightening ways.
A collection of squibs, greetings & thanks, stories, music, images, poetry & prose, items from the archives and from family & friends for Alan Prince on the occasion of his retirement, May 2015.
An anthology of works on phonology, morphology, syntax, animal communciation, cognitive science, and Optimality Theory by the colleagues and students of Alan Prince, presented on the occasion of his 60th birthday, June 2006.