UBC Linguistics

Huge thank you to everyone who participated in the 2024 Labs of Ling event last week! It was a great opportunity for the various research groups in our department to showcase the work they’re doing and for students to learn how they might get involved. Special thanks to UBC Speech and Linguistics Student Association (SALSA) for organizing! For more information about the research groups, please see: https://linguistics.ubc.ca/research/labs-groups/

Hot off the press! We are delighted to announce that a new volume, "The title of this volume is shorter than its contributions are allowed to be: Papers in honour of Hotze Rullmann" has now been published by UBC Working Papers in Linguistics! This festschrift in honour of Hotze Rullmann was edited by Ryan Bochnak, Eva Csipak, Lisa Matthewson, Marcin Morzycki, and Daniel Reisinger, and celebrates the (very much ongoing!) contributions of our wonderful colleague Hotze Rullmann. The papers are freely available for reading and downloading here: https://lingpapers.sites.olt.ubc.ca/other-volumes/ (Be sure to read the preface for an explanation of the title!)

UBCWPL M. Ryan Bochnak, Eva Csipak, Lisa Matthewson, Marcin Morzycki, and Daniel K. E. Reisinger (eds.). 2024. The title of this volume is shorter than its contributions are allowed to be: Papers in honour of Hotze Rullmann. Vancouver, BC: UBCOPL.

Congratulations to our fall Linguistics and Speech Sciences graduates! We had two PhDs, two MAs, five majors and one minor in Linguistics, three majors and one minor in Speech Sciences, and one Diploma in Linguistics student graduating. We are proud of you all and wish you all the best in your future endeavours!

Two upcoming conference presentations from the Integrated Speech Research Lab (ISRL) have been highlighted in the "Lay Language Paper" section of the Acoustical Society of America’s website for the 187th Meeting. Check them out below:

1. Listen to the Music: We Rely on Musical Genre to Determine Singers’ Accents
Authors: Maddy Walter, Sydney Norris, Sabrina Luk, Marcell Maitinsky, Md Jahurul Islam, and Bryan Gick
For more: https://acoustics.org/listen-to-the-music-we-rely-on-musical-genre-to-determine-singers-accents/

2. How voice training changes the tongue in chest versus head voice
Authors: Jiu Song, Jaida Siu, Jahurul Islam, and Bryan Gick
For more: https://acoustics.org/how-voice-training-changes-the-tongue-in-chest-versus-head-voice/

How voice training changes the tongue in chest versus head voice Researchers are interested in vowels and the pitch range during the passaggio, which is the shift or transition point between different vocal registers.

Check out this great interview with linguistics professor and MDS-CL director Garrett Nicolai! https://languagesciences.ubc.ca/news/october-10-2024/langsci-meets-ai-series-2-dr-garrett-nicolai-nuances-ai-and-llm

Read our conversation with Dr. Garrett Nicolai (Computational Linguistics) on the nuances of AI and LLM. This is the second article for the LangSci Meets AI series, a multidisciplinary dialogue to explore the evolving landscape.

UBC Linguistics

Congratulations to the newly minted Dr. Yadong Liu, who successfully defended the thesis “Integrating Posture Control in Speech Models” on Wednesday! Dr. Liu was supervised by Dr. Bryan Gick, and on the committee were Dr. Márton Sóskuthy (Linguistics) and Dr. Sidney Fels (Electrical & Computer Engineering). Also participating in the defense were Dr. Gunnar Hansson (Linguistics), Dr. Jean-Sébastien Blouin (Kinesiology), and Dr. Romeo Chua (Kinesiology). Dr. Liu and his supervisor, Dr. Gick, are pictured here -- note the very appropriate expressions, as a portion of the thesis was about smiled speech! :)

Congratulations to our latest PhD student to be named a Public Scholar, Ana Laura Arrieta Zamudio! You can read more about Ana Laura’s research work on San Pablo Güilá Zapotec and how it relates to community language revitalization efforts here:

Ana Laura Arrieta Zamudio: Modality in San Pablo Güilá Zapotec As a Public Scholar and as a linguist, I believe it is my responsibility to conduct research that has an impact not only within academic circles but also in a broader social context, where it can contribute to the revitalization of Indigenous languages. My main goal in this project is to create a gr...

UBC Linguistics was well represented at last weekend’s workshop on “Understanding obviation:
A cross-linguistic perspective” at McGill University!

UBC-Ling papers were:
Introduction to Ktunaxa Obviation
Anne Bertrand (UBC) and Rose Underhill (UBC)

Verbal Obviation and situations in Ktunaxa
Anne Bertrand (UBC) and Rose Underhill (UBC)

Challenges from obviative agreement in Border Lakes Ojibwe
Christopher Hammerly (UBC)

Full details are available at

Understanding obviation Obviation is perhaps most commonly discussed in connection with languages of the Algonquian family in which (i) multiple 3rd person nominals in a certain domain must be assigned either proximate or obviative status; (ii) proximate nominals are described as more discourse prominent; (iii) coferential...

An update from the UBC people at Sinn und Bedeutung -- looks like they had a wonderful time!

UBC Linguistics is well-represented at Sinn und Bedeutung 29, happening right now at the Consorzio Universitario Mediterraneo Orientale in Noto, Italy.

Presentations with UBC-affiliated authors include:
• Ana Laura Arrieta Zamudio & Ryan Bochnak: Conjectural questions in Ktunaxa as canonical questions
• Ana Laura Arrieta Zamudio: Epistemic temporal interactions and judge dependency in San Pablo Güilá Zapotec
• Ryan Bochnak: Underspecified coordination, focus and contrast in Wá∙šiw
• Ryan Bochnak, Adam Gobeski, Marcin Morzycki & Starr Sandoval: The Twofold Nature of Degree Nominalizations: Degree Concepts and Qualities
• Starr Sandoval, Yangshuying (Kate) Zhou & Marcin Morzycki: Building Adjunct Questions from Anaphors in Ktunaxa
• Marianne Huijsmans & Daniel Reisinger: The Maximality Puzzle: Evidence from ʔayʔaǰuθəm

Full details here:

HOME - SUB29 SINN und BEDEUTUNG Noto – Siracusa 16 – 20 SEPTEMBER 2024 (deadline extended to Friday 19 April!!!) SUBMIT REGISTRATION invited speakers: Elena Pagliarini Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain) Gennaro Chierchia Harvard University (US) Viola Schmitt Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Germany) ...

Our third thesis defense this month was the newly minted Dr. Michel Assis Navarro, who defended the PhD dissertation "Quantization and Quantification: Countability and Scope of Bare Nouns in Kaingang and Beyond,” supervised by Dr. Hotze Rullmann, on 19 July. Dr. Lisa Matthewson and Dr. Marcin Morzycki were also on the committee, and Dr. Henry Davis, Dr. Ori Simchen (UBC Philosophy), and Dr. Jenny Doetjes (U. Leiden) also participated in the defense. Congratulations, Dr. Navarro!

Next up in our month of congratulations goes to the new Dr. Rose Underhill, who defended the PhD thesis "Expressing multiplicity in Ktunaxa: groups, sentience, and the structure of number" on July 15th. Dr. Underhill was supervised by Dr. Marcin Morzycki; also on the committee were Dr. Hotze Rullmann and Dr. Martina Wiltschko, and participating in the defense were Dr. Lisa Matthewson and Dr. Darko Odic (UBC Psychology). Congratulations!