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Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication ACLC

Empirical Foundations of Phonology

EmpiPhon

The aim of this group is to investigate and enhance the empirical foundations of phonology in the broadest sense. We pursue diversity in terms of the empirical source materials and methodologies we explore (documentation, experimental phonetics, modelling, theory testing) but also in our interest in a wide variety of (often underdescribed) languages.

Key Objectives

  • With a variety of empirical methods we develop and scrutinize phonological theories that can account for the phonetics-phonology interface, the mapping of phonological onto orthographical representations, and contact phenomena such as loanword adaptations and L2 acquisition
  • We collaborate with descriptive and/or fieldwork linguists in order to
    - Co-develop methodologies of phonological and phonetic descriptions
    - Obtain access to new data for typological studies
    - Detect and discuss relevant developments in the field, in a way that is inclusive and welcoming to students and staff alike

Impact

An important goal for our group is to be able to contribute to the development of language learning and documentation tools that can be directly relevant to speech communities, as evidenced by our interest in for example the phonological underpinning of orthographies.

Events

The group meets biweekly and aims to provide one ACLC lecture per year.

Group Composition

ACLC members:
Silke Hamann (coordinator)
Nour Tamim
Marijn van ’t Veer
Cesko Voeten
Titia Benders
Michaela Watkins
Rui Cai

ACLC collaborations:
DeepFon group (formalization of phonetics/phonology)
LLLM group (acquisitional theories for non-sound domain; literacy)

External affiliates:
Camilla Horslund, Aalborg University
Rasmus Puggaard-Rode, LMU Munich
Francesc Torres-Tamarit, UAB Barcelona
Chao Zhou, University of Lisbon
Mishko Bozhinoski, Ghent University
Hamza Khwaja, Leiden University
Roland Noske, guest researcher
Chengjia Ye, Radboud University