Meetings: Wednesday, 3:00 – 4:30 PM, in-person or via Zoom in Spring semester 2023. We meet at the regular lab meeting time on the off-weeks when the lab doesn’t meet.
Contact: Yongqing Ye (yeyongqi@msu.edu)
Goal: This is an informal reading group that serve the needs of current faculty and students whose research, qualifying paper or dissertation topics touch on sound change.
People: This group is open to graduate students, staff, alumni and faculty at MSU and beyond.
Reading list:
| Date | Title | Author(s)/Year |
| 2/8/23 | Empirical foundations for a theory of language change | Weinreich, Labov & Herzog (1968) |
| 2/15/23 | Cancelled | |
| 2/22/23 | Labov, sound change, and phonological theory | Kiparsky (2016) |
| 3/1/23 | Diachronic phonology | Bermúdez-Otero (2007) |
| 3/8/23 | Cancelled – Spring break | |
| 3/15/23 | Amphichronic explanation and the life cycle of phonological processes | Bermúdez-Otero (2013) |
| 3/22/23 | Gradient well-formedness in optimality theory | Hayes (1998) |
| 3/29/23 | Postponed | |
| 4/5/23 | The study of variation | Fruehwald (2022) |
| 4/19/23 | Cancelled | |
| 4/26/23 | The initiation and incrementation of sound change: community-oriented momentum-sensitive learning – pt1 | Bermúdez-Otero (2020) |
| 5/3/23 | The initiation and incrementation of sound change: community-oriented momentum-sensitive learning – pt2 | Bermúdez-Otero (2020) |
| 5/17/23-6/15/23 | Break | |
| 6/23/23 | Explanation in variable phonology: an exponential model of morphological constraints | Guy (1991) |
| 7/7/23 | Inherent variability and the obligatory contour principle | Guy & Boberg (1997) |
| 7/21/23 | Empirical foundations for an integrated study of language evolution. Language Dynamics and Change, 10(2), 188-229 | Roberts, G., & Sneller, B. (2020) |
| 8/11/23 | T-d deletion in British English: New evidence for the long-lost morphological effect | Baranowski & Turton (2020) |
| 8/18/23 | Insertion and deletion in Northern English (ng): Interacting innovations in the life cycle of phonological processes | Bailey (2021) |
| 9/1/23 | Variation in English /l/: synchronic reflections of the life cycle of phonological processes | Turton (2014) |
| Note: The fall reading group schedule is tentative. | ||
| 9/15/23 | Categorical or gradient? An ultrasound investigation of /l/-darkening and vocalization in varieties of English | Turton (2017) |
| 9/29/23 | The social motivation of a sound change. Word, 19(3), 273-309. | Labov, W. (1963). |
| 10/13/23 | In defense of the child innovator. Micro change and macro change in diachronic syntax, 10-24. | Cournane, A. (2017) |
| 10/27/23 | Transmission and diffusion. Language, 83(2), 344-387. | Labov, W. (2007) |
| 11/10/23 | Phonological rule spreading across hostile lines:(TH)-fronting in Philadelphia. Language Variation and Change, 32(1), 25-47. | Sneller, B. (2020) |