November 11, 2014

Research Groups: Friday, November 14

9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
Language Variation and Change Group
Discussion of the Journal of Sociolinguistics debate (2014) over the place of the media in language-change.

11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Phonetics/Phonology Group
Peter Jurgec: "Variable palatalization in Slovenian: Local and long-distance restrictions in a derived environment effect."

Slovenian velar palatalization has been described as a morphologically and lexically restricted, variable derived environment effect (Toporišič 2000). I present a corpus-based study which for the first time also considers phonological factors. Much of the variation turns out to be conditioned by local and long-distance consonant co-occurrence restrictions. Velar palatalization is most strongly affected by local phonotactics. In particular, palatalization is blocked if it would result in an illicit consonant cluster, while palatalization invariantly applies to remove an illicit consonant cluster. The more surprising finding is that other consonants anywhere within the root and suffix also have a strong effect. For example, palatalization of the stem-final k → ʧ is more likely if the stem contains another velar stop, but less likely if it the stem contains another affricate or a postalveolar fricative. This effect is weaker if the suffix itself contains another affricate. These data present a previously unknown type of local derived environment effects that are blocked at a distance.

1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Syntax/Semantics Squib Section
Discussion of post-verbal agreement.

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