Teach-ins are scheduled for Wednesday Dec. 14, 2022

Each teach-in runs for the full day.

Spaces are still available for all teach-ins!

The Study of Signed languages: Implications for Linguistic Typology

Austin German, Richard Meier, Justin Power & David Quinto-Pozos

As languages that are articulated and perceived in the visual-gestural modality, signed languages represent a distinct class of human languages. However, the typological diversity among signed languages, and the historical roots of that diversity, have often been overlooked in high-level groupings of the world's languages. In this teach-in, we provide an introduction to the typological diversity of signing communities and of signed languages. We survey the various social conditions within which signing communities have formed and discuss typological features that have been thought to characterize the signed languages of different types of signing communities. This survey includes the auxiliary signed languages of hearing individuals, such as Plains Indian Sign Language and the aboriginal signed language of Australia; the so-called "village" signed languages of de novo signing communities, such as Martha's Vineyard Sign Language; and those signed languages that have arisen within predominantly deaf populations, such as American Sign Language (ASL). We then explore how national or “deaf community” signed languages like ASL or LIBRAS (Brazilian Sign Language) differ amongst themselves with respect to simultaneously-organized linguistic structure, which is a feature of signed languages that underpins their broad typological distinction from spoken languages. In highlighting the diversity of the world's signing communities and their languages, this teach-in will provide access for language typologists of any specialization to a better understanding of the place of signed languages among the world's languages.

Location: RLP 0.112 and streamed virtually (link TBA)

Schedule:

Morning session:

9:00-10:30: Introduction and overview of considerations for the study of signed language typology

11:00-12:30: Sociolinguistic typology and diverse linguistic communities

Afternoon session:

1:30-3:00: The partitioned lexicon in signed language and implications for the study of phonological typology

3:30-5:00: Simultaneity and sequentiality in signed language with examples from an emerging signed language

Amazonian Languages: Diversity, Areality, Typology

Katherine Bolaños, Patience Epps & Martin Kohlberger

Greater Amazonia, the vast area of South America drained by the Amazon and neighboring rivers, is among the most linguistically diverse regions on Earth. Yet it is still relatively underrepresented in typological studies, even while widely recognized as home to a wide range of phenomena that challenge and stretch our understanding of typological possibilities and patterns. This teach-in provides an introduction to Amazonian languages for linguistic typologists. We begin with an overview of the region’s linguistic diversity, with an eye to the distribution and classification of its many languages, and the ways in which these languages cluster and diverge in areal typological perspective. From this vantage point, we explore a range of typologically noteworthy features attested across the region, considering their synchronic attributes and diachronic development alongside their relevance to linguistic theory. In the domain of sounds, features of interest include tone and stress systems, laryngealization phenomena, patterns of nasal harmony, and nasal-oral contours in voiced obstruents. Notable morphosyntactic features include OVS and even OSV basic constituent orders, multifunctional classifier systems, and complex systems of clause chaining and switch reference. Other intriguing phenomena include elaborate systems of evidentiality, associated motion, and applicatives, as well as unusual alignment splits, a high functional load for nominalization, and a relatively porous distinction between morphology and syntax. In addition, Amazonian Indigenous languages invite us to rethink generalizations concerning the dynamics of language contact and change, and the study of discourse across the region provides important opportunities to explore and appreciate forms of verbal art and sociolinguistic dynamics that are rare, unattested, or no longer practiced elsewhere in the world.

Location: RLP 0.102 and streamed virtually (link TBA)

Schedule:

Morning session

9:00-10:30: Amazonian languages: distribution, diversity, and state of the art

11:00-12:30: Typological profiles and regional trends: Areality, contact, and discourse

Afternoon session

1:30-3:00: Typologically noteworthy features: Phonological and morphological categories

3:30-5:00: Typologically noteworthy features: Morphosyntax

Mesoamerican Languages in Typological Perspective

Danny Law, Hiroto Uchihara, and Anthony Woodbury

This teach-in will provide an overview of the diverse indigenous languages of Mesoamerica, spanning numerous language isolates, Mixe-Zoquean, Uto-Aztecan, and with a particular focus on the Mayan and Otomanguean families. We will review typological features that are common to languages of this region, considering early areal typological work on Mesoamerica as well as work in more contemporary frameworks. We will look at language-specific realizations of different alignment systems, aspect, deixis, voice and valency, as well as a detailed look at the different phonological systems represented across Mesoamerica, including tonal phonology and morphology. We will also explore the region from the perspective of language change and language contact, looking at the types of change, contact-induced and otherwise, that characterize the linguistic history of Mesoamerica.

Location: RLP 1.302F

Schedule:

Morning session

9:00-10:30: Mesoamerican languages: distribution, diversity, state of the art; typological profiles of Otomanguean and Mayan

11:00-12:30: Topics in phonological/morphological typology of Mesoamerican languages, with special focus on tone and prosody

Afternoon session

1:30-3:00: Topics in morphosyntactic typology of Mesoamerican languages

3:30-5:00: Topics in Mesoamerican linguistic history; writing; semantics; and verbal art

Quantitative Methods for Typologists Using R

Sandra Auderset, Olena Shcherbakova, and Adam Tallman

In this teach-in we will go over the basics of the programming language R, which is widely used for data analysis in linguistic typology and other research. We will discuss the conceptual basics of statistical analysis, how to read in and clean data sets, principles for good typological databases, visualizations (including maps) and finally how to test a set of specific hypotheses. The class is beginner-friendly and participants do not need to be familiar with programming or statistics. All participants are required to install certain software beforehand and bring their own laptops. The class is not exhaustive but intended to serve as an introduction to help orient to the world of quantitative data analysis and prepare the participants to learn more on their own after the class.

Location: RLP 0.126 and streamed virtually (link TBA)

Schedule:

Morning session

9:00-10:30: Introduction: Conceptual background on statistics, framing research questions and hypotheses, and R

11:00-12:30: Tidyverse, basic concepts, and cleaning

Afternoon session

1:30-3:00: Maps and visualizing data with ggplot

3:30-5:00: Practice session