Phonetics Lab project funded by 2004-05 UCSC Committee on Research: Special Research Grant Systemic Constraints in Phonology (Junko Ito, Armin Mester, Jaye Padgett). Recent work in theoretical phonology appeals to functional notions like neutralization avoidance and perceptual distinctiveness: sounds in languages sometimes avoid becoming identical to contrasting sounds, or they become perceptually more distinct from them. Our recent work has uncovered evidence of such tendencies in Japanese (Ito and Mester) and in Polish and Russian (Padgett). Adequately formalized, these notions have the potential to explain a surprising array of phonological patterns. This is a relatively novel approach to phonological problems, bridging a historical divide between theoretical linguistics and experimental phonetics.
Semantics Lab project funded by 2006-07 UCSC Committee on Research Special Research Grant Propositional Attitudes & Scope: An Experimental Approach (Pranav Anand and Donka Farkas). Work in formal linguistics typically proceeds through informal experiments regarding speakers' judgments of well-formedness or appropriateness of linguistic tokens. While these somewhat crude methods are surprisingly effective, they have limitations, especially as the complexity of the stimuli grows. One particularly thorny area is the study of the context dependence of linguistic meaning; whether a speaker would assent to the truth of the sentence [That mouse is big.] depends greatly on the comparison classes implicit in the discourse context. The aim of this project is to develop novel methodologies for presenting stimuli in context, and thus embark on a more experimental study of meaning. We propose to link computer animation (to present contexts) with the method of magnitude-estimation (to track appropriateness) and Internet-based presentation (to enlarge the potential pool of subjects). During the period of the grant, we will consider two specific experimental subjects: how accurate reports of another's belief or desire must be in comparison to reports of what they say and the presence or absence of ambiguities in sentences with quantifiers (e.g., some, every, most, etc.). However, the novelty of this research suggests that the tools developed could themselves have wider impact within the field.
Recent NSF-funded projects:
- Existentials at the Interface, Sandra Chung and James McCloskey, co-PI's.
- Optimal Typology: Syntactic Markedness Hierarchies in Optimality Theory, Judith Aissen, PI.
- The Phonological Lexicon, Junko Ito and Armin Mester, co-PI's.