Phonological Words in South Asia and Southeast Asia

Workshop to be held at the University of Leipzig, Germany, September 19-20, 2007

(funded by the German Research Foundation, DFG)

Invited Speakers:

Gregory D. S. Anderson (University of Oregon & Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages)

Juliette Blevins (MPI EVA Leipzig)

Martine Mazaudon (LACITO, UMR 7107 CNRS-Paris 3 & 4)

Broadly speaking, the study of word structure is concerned with two distinct but interdependent aspects of grammar. First, a word may be prosodically defined by phonological patterns, e.g. assimilation, stress, or tone, which reference a particular domain in morphological structure (e.g. a combination of stem plus suffixes, excluding prefixes). Second, the grammatical word may be defined with reference to syntactic and morphological patterns that apply exclusively to a particular domain in morphological structure (e.g. a stem plus affixes, excluding clitics). In recent years, the relationship between prosodic and grammatical words has received increased attention (e.g. Hall & Kleinhenz 1999, Dixon & Aikhenvald 2002).

Research on the cross-linguistic variation of word domains shed doubt on approaches which aim at formulating a universal architecture of prosodic structure and its dependence on morphological and syntactic components of grammar. The assumptions of Prosodic Phonology (Nespor & Vogel 1986), for instance, are contradicted by current research in a typological project on word domains at the University of Leipzig (see http://www.uni-leipzig.de/~autotyp/projects/wd_dom/wd_dom.html for recent publications).

The languages of South and Southeast Asia provide a particular challenge because in a number of South Asian languages sound patterns do not converge on a single domain of ‘phonological word’ as predicted by theories, and in a number of Southeast Asian languages, no or almost no sound pattern seems to target a domain intermediate between the phrases and the foot. In our project we found that the distribution of phonological domains is however best predicted not by areal connections but by genealogical affiliation and thus ultimately by the individual diachrony behind each language.

We invite abstracts for a two-day workshop on word domains in South and Southeast Asian languages. The meeting aims at bringing together research which focuses on the prosodic and morphological word structure of languages spoken in these areas. Contributions are expected to be theoretically and typologically informed and should either concentrate on the analysis of word domains in individual languages or address areal and/or diachronic aspects of word structure by means of cross-linguistic comparison. One-page abstracts for 45-minutes presentations (30 min. talk + 15 min. discussion) should be submitted electronically via e-mail attachment (mail to: schiering@uni-leipzig.de) and should reach the organizers no later than April 16, 2007. Notification of acceptance will be circulated in late April 2007.

• Conference Program & Schedule
• Complete List of Abstracts
• Conference Registration Information
• Lodging Information
• Transportation, Leipzig Information
• Photocopy Information

The organizing committee:

René Schiering (schiering@uni-leipzig.de)

Balthasar Bickel (bickel@uni-leipzig.de)

Kristine A. Hildebrandt (Kristine.Hildebrandt@manchester.ac.uk)

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