Plenary Abstracts
Dr. Cathryn Donohue, The University of Hong Kong
9:30-10:30, October 13, 2018
Data-driven approaches to syntactic research
In recent decades, the nature of data used in linguistics has evolved considerably. Relative ease of access to large corpora and various databases, in addition to an increasing number of experimental methods, has enabled new approaches to traditional issues in linguistics. In this presentation I will describe some of my research and how it has benefited from various types of data.
The first research area is differential argument marking, and I will outline the work carried out in two Himalayan languages: one study focuses on the optionality of ergative case on subjects of transitive clauses in Bumthang (Bhutan), the other on the optionality of dative case on objects in Nubri (Nepal). Both languages are little-known, and the data were collected in the field. It makes use of traditional elicitation methods, but also incorporates data from a variety of elicitation genres, in which the key data were found. Follow-up studies are being carried out using more targeted ‘experimental’ approaches, which I briefly outline.
The second study I will discuss focuses on a question of linguistic history and particularly in determining linguistic areas. This is interdisciplinary joint work, comprising specialists in morphosyntax, phonology from the linguistics side and an archaeologist. The linguistic hypotheses were investigated using large databases to identify linguistic areas, setting up some claims about possible areas. These were then compared with what is known from archaeology and corroborated by data from outside the field. The ability to triangulate results using multiple data types, and also drawing on data from outside the field, enables us to be more confident about our claims.
Dr. Seunghun J. Lee, International Christian University
15:40–17:40, October 13, 2018
Workshop on Articulatory Phonetics
This workshop introduces participants to laryngeal movement and phonation types and how to measure these characteristics of speech using an Electroglottograph (EGG). After presenting the basic articulation that can be measured using EGG, case studies from SiSwati and Dränjongke will be discussed. Analysis of the data is done using Eggnog v0.3 (Villegas 2018), which visualizes measurements from an EGG recording. The workshop will also have a demonstration session of the EGG equipment.
Dr. Michael Yoshikata Erlewine
National University of Singapore
09:30–10:30 October 14, 2018
Bikol clefts and topics and the Austronesian subject-only extraction restriction (joint work with Cheryl Lim)
Many Austronesian languages exhibit an extraction asymmetry whereby only the subject DP can be A'-extracted. We show that such extraction restrictions can vary between different A'-constructions in Bikol: local clefting is limited to the subject, whereas topicalization can target subjects and non-subject agents, but not other non-subject DPs. Following the phase-theoretic, locality-based approach to such extraction asymmetries in related Austronesian languages, we propose that clefting and topicalization differ in the featural specifications of their probes, but must always target their closest matching goal. Evidence for this approach comes from interactions between clefting and topicalization in long-distance configurations. Such data motivates the view that the classic Austronesian subject-only extraction restriction is best characterized in terms of syntactic locality, rather than as a restriction on the grammatical function or morphological case of movement targets.