Symposium on Vowel Harmony

The Symposium on Vowel Harmony is a two-day international conference to be held at the HUN-REN Research Centre for Linguistics, Budapest. The language of the conference is English. Papers are invited on empirical, theoretical and diachronic aspects of vowel harmony in any language.

Programme:

16 November, Thursday

13:00--14:00 Registration

13:50 Opening

14:00--16:20 Session 1 (Chair: Péter Szigetvári)

14:00--14:35 Markus Pöchtrager (University of Vienna): Yoruba vowel harmony, openness, and [–ATR]

14:35--15:10 Greeshma Joseph (Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi): Vowel Harmony in Malayalam: Native v/s Borrowed

15:10--15:45 Ivo Boers (Károli Gáspár Református Egyetem & Universidade de Vigo): Hungarian vowel harmony in code-switched nouns

15:45--16:20 András Cser (HUN-REN Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics & Pázmány Péter Catholic University) & Zsuzsa Várnai (HUN-REN Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics): The vowels that almost harmonized. On Old Hungarian long vowels.

16:20--16:50 Coffee break

16:50--17:50 Plenary talk -- James White (University College London): Factors in vowel harmony learning: Insights from artificial language experiments

17 November, Friday

9:00--10:00 Plenary talk -- Miklós Törkenczy (Eötvös Loránd University & HUN-REN Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics): (What we Thought we Knew &) What we Think we Know Now about Hungarian Vowel Harmony

10:00--10:30 Coffee break

10:30--12:50 Session 2 (Chair: András Cser)

10:30--11:05 László Fejes (HUN-REN Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics): Patterns in Erzya suffixes: a case of vowel-consonant harmony

11:05--11:40 Péter Rebrus (HUN-REN Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics) & Péter Szigetvári (Eötvös Loránd University): Either templatic or harmonic

11:40--12:15 Malgorzata Cavar & Steven Lulich (Indiana University): What can harmonize and how consonantal harmonies are like vowel harmonies

12:15--12:50 Jesus Jiménez (Universitat de València) & Maria-Rosa Lloret (Universitat de Barcelona): Asymmetries between enclitics and proclitics in the scope of vowel harmony in Eastern Andalusian Spanish

12:50: Closing of the symposium

Venue: HUN-REN Research Centre for Linguistics,  Benczúr u. 33, Budapest, Hungary (click for map). The venue is best reached from the city centre with M1 (the vintage underground); the closest stop is Bajza utca.

To reach from the airport, take 100E (Airport to Deák Ferenc tér), then take M1 from there to Bajza utca. Note that for the airport bus 100E you need a separate ticket, day tickets or other ordinary tickets are not valid for it.

Conference fee: 80 EUR, to be paid at registration; this covers the conference package (stationery) and the coffee breaks.