Proceedings Published by the LSA (Linguistic Society of America)
Not a member yet
4323 research outputs found
Sort by
Universal Design for Learning as a pathway to accessibility in the linguistics classroom
Get PDFThis paper offers suggestions on enhancing accessibility in our introductory linguistics courses, with a particular focus on teaching phonetics and phonology to students with hearing and visual disabilities. After reviewing some existing resources designed to make linguistics content more accessible, we address some of the practical constraints we experienced in trying to adopt these resources for our own courses. In light of such challenges, we offer practical strategies for improving accessibility both in the physical classroom as well as for online or hybrid courses. We suggest that implementing such strategies, which are in line with the principles of Universal Design for Learning, can prove beneficial for all students, with or without the need for accommodation. Finally, we encourage instructors to take proactive steps to make their course content more accessible, both in their current and future classes
Serial directional evaluation of rhythmic reversal in Axininca
Get PDFThis paper updates the analysis of rhythmic reversal in Axininca with a more economical one using serial/directional evaluation that dispenses with alignment constraints. The serial/directional evaluation is more superior to a parallel/directional counterpart with respect to quantity-sensitivity, as adopting directionally evaluated constraints for parallelism cannot avoid overgeneration problems.
Unbalanced case and the syntax of coordination
Get PDFCoordinate structures seem to display a mix of both asymmetric and symmetric properties. As a result, individual theories of the syntax of coordination roughly divide into two classes: those that argue for an asymmetric syntax and those that adopt a symmetric syntax. This paper investigates an apparently asymmetric property of coordination, unbalanced case, where not all conjuncts in a coordinate structure realize the same case. I examine data from Bosnian/Croatian/ Serbian which provide evidence of a first-conjunct effect, where the acceptability of an example depends on the ability of the first conjunct to realize the case licensed on the coordinate structure. Despite this case asymmetry, I show that the data are compatible with theories that argue for symmetric syntax, which have gained traction in recent work. The proposed analysis relies on a theory of concord as realization and a postsyntactic condition on case adjacency
A San Diegan debate: Take 8 or Take the 8: Investigating the use of the determiner “the” before numeric freeways in San Diego
Get PDFThe determiner “the” before numeric roadways in Southern California has become salient enough that it has reached mainstream media. However there has been little formal research done on this linguistic variant, and especially in subregions of California such as San Diego county. This study examines the use of the by ten speakers through sociolinguistic interviews and a map task. It was found that people from San Diego had the highest usage of the, long term transplants also favored the but to a lesser degree, and recent transplants disfavored the. Additionally, it was found when recent transplants used this variable they did not apply it to unknown roads, though long term transplants used the not only for roads in San Diego but also for unknown roads. These differences between transplants may inform us about factors influencing second dialect acquisition. Furthermore a mixed methods analysis revealed that the might have diffused from Los Angeles to San Diego in the 1980s
The subject of a stative object experiencer verb is an intensional Cause
Get PDFIn the domain of experiencer verbs, little attention has been paid to the potential intensionality of object experiencer (OE) verbs (but see Cheung & Larson 2015). Relying on diagnostics identified in the literature (Dowty 1979; Schwarz 2020), I argue that the intentionality of OE verbs is correlated with their aspectual properties: they are intensional in their subject when stative but not when eventive. I then consider whether this finding can help us choose between competing theories of the argument structure of OE verbs (Arad 2000; Landau 2010). I will argue that the answer is negative
Language use in Indigenous-authored television series
Get PDFFor much of telecinematic history depictions of Indigenous characters and languages have instantiated racist stereotypes that perpetuate White, colonial frameworks. However, a new generation of Indigenous writers, directors, producers, and actors use scripted performances to illuminate, contest, and reconfigure these representations, and ideally provoke new interpretations. Our paper examines how Indigenous screen creatives address the linguistic and representational erasures of dominant White, colonizing frameworks through the restructuring and performance of a (sub)genre of scripted speech: fictionalized land acknowledgements. Using discourse analysis, we examine land acknowledgements across five Indigenous-authored television series (two in the U.S. and three in Australia), focusing on how they diversify and complicate mainstream characterizations and bring in Indigenous discourses and perspectives. By “bending the rules,” characters (and authors) maintain the (sub)genre, but regain authority over it through such discursive refashioning. Our analysis explores how Indigenous screen creatives use language to transform, critique and/or reappropriate this (sub)genre. Ultimately, our research contributes to ongoing conversations about Indigenous language, discourse, and media’s role in transforming societal norms and structural injustices
The preserve of the rural elderly, or a language for modern life? Authenticity, anonymity and indexical ambiguity in Martinican Creole
Get PDFThis paper investigates the effects of (ongoing) standardization on linguistic attitudes and representations in the French Caribbean island of Martinique, where traditionally stigmatized Martinican Creole (MC) boasts a quasi-official orthography and some representation in formal domains. We use socio-biographical, perceptual and attitudinal data from a questionnaire-based study to investigate the relation between respondents’ (i) exposure to ‘activist’ MC – as a proxy for standardization; (ii) attitudes to MC on the status dimension; (iii) purism and (iv) breaking away from traditional MC indexicalities. Two findings are particularly noteworthy. First, exposure to activist MC fails to predict purist attitudes towards MC, which are similarly high regardless of respondents’ degree of exposure. Secondly, we find a mismatch between highly positive status attitudes and the persistence of traditional low-status MC indexicalities. We argue that, while some traditional indexicalities may wane as the standardization process progresses, others are essential to MC’s enduring representation as an authentic language and, therefore, less likely to recede
Realizations of [j] vs. hiatus in different vocalic contexts
Get PDFGlide-like formants can arise either through articulation of a glide or through articulation of hiatus, which often results in similar formant movements (e.g. she yachts, she ought). Davidson & Erker (2014) established that the glide-like formant movements are measurably different from actual, phonological glides. The current study compares a wider range of vowel environments to investigate the different realizations of [j]. Analysis of modal V#(j)V sequences finds significant differences in intensity change and duration in most vowel environments examined, and additionally finds significant differences in formant movements for one ambiguous vowel environment. However, the large degree of overlap in acoustic properties is noted, casting doubt that the differences could be strongly disambiguating perceptually. Additionally, this work gives a detailed picture of the multitude of different ways in which a phonological [j] can be acoustically realized
What prosody does when morphosyntax is absent: The case of Korean relative clauses
Get PDFThis study investigates the role of prosodic information in linguistic interpretation in the absence of an explicit linguistic marker to resolve ambiguity. We particularly focus on the impact of prosody on comprehension of restrictive relative clauses (RRC) and non-restrictive relative clauses (NRC) in Korean, a language that lacks morphosyntactic or orthographic markers that distinguish between RRC and NRC. We hypothesize that narrow focus prosody may be associated with RRC, while broad focus prosody with NRC, which we test in two experiments through a picture selection task (Experiment 1) and an audio selection task (Experiment 2). Results showed that Korean listeners associated narrow focus prosody more often with RRC-biased pictures than NRC-biased pictures, suggesting that prosodic information has an impact on the resolution of syntactic ambiguity in the absence of any explicit linguistic marker. Further investigation suggests that there is variation in the impact of prosody across individuals and their sensitivity to prosody seems to be affected differently depending on the type of task
Foreword: Special issue on teaching history of linguistics in the 21st century
Get PDFThis special issue of Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America (PLSA) contains papers presented during an organized session on teaching history of linguistics in the 21st century at the 2024 LSA Annual Meeting. The session was organized as a session of the North American Association for the History of Language Sciences (NAAHoLS) with the aim of surveying current approaches to teaching history of linguistics and the provision of resources and insights for those who wish to do so themselves