Recent books and monographs

2021

Villena, B., Loncón Antileo, E., & Molineaux, B. (Eds.) (2021). Kuyfike awkiñ dungu, ecos de voces antigua: Textos de la tradición oral mapuche recopilados a fines del siglo XIX. Pehuén Editores. https://tienda.pehuen.cl/products/ecos-de-voces-antiguas?_pos=1&_sid=2ae84e7a1&_ss=r

This book is an updated version of the first substantial collection of traditional Mapuche literature, compiled in late-nineteenth-century Chile by German-born linguist Rudolf Lenz. The texts are provided by a number of indigenous men and women from across the Mapuche territories who, in turn, represent a far more deeply-rooted oral tradition. The texts include stories about animals and the supernatural, historical narratives and songs. This new version of the materials aims to bring the content of the original texts closer to contemporary readers, both cultrally and linguistically. With this in mind, the texts are presented in a more contemporay orthography for Mapudungun (the ancestral language of the Mapuche people), alongside updated Spanish translations. The edition also offers an approximation to the pronunciation of the materials, as they were recited in the particular locality, time and style of the speakers, updating Lenz’s phonetic script to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

2020

Honeybone, P., & Maguire, W. (Eds.) (2020). Dialect Writing and the North of England. Edinburgh University Press. https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-dialect-writing-and-the-north-of-england.html

Analysing examples from 18th century literary texts through to 21st century social media, this is the first comprehensive collection to explore dialect writing in the North of England. The book also considers broad questions about dialect writing in general: What is it? Who does it? What types of dialect writing exist? How can linguists interpret it?

Bringing together a wide range of contributors, the book investigates everything from the cultural positioning and impact of dialect writing to the mechanics of how authors produce dialect spellings (and what this can tell us about the structure of the dialects represented). The book features a number of case studies, focusing on dialect writing from all over the North of England, considering a wide range of types of text, including dialect poetry, translations into dialect, letters, tweets, direct speech in novels, humorous localised volumes, written reports of conversations and cartoons in local newspapers.

Maguire, W. (2020). Language and Dialect Contact in Ireland: The Phonological Origins of Mid-Ulster English. Edinburgh University Press. https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-language-and-dialect-contact-in-ireland.html

Warren Maguire examines Mid-Ulster English as a key case of new dialect formation, considering the roles of language shift and dialect contact in its phonological development. He explores the different processes which led to the development of MUE through contact between dialects of English, Scots and Irish and examines the history of a wide range of consonantal and vocalic features. In addition to determining the phonological origins of MUE, Maguire shows us why the dialect developed in the way that it did and considers what the phonology of the dialect can tell us about the nature of contact between the input language varieties. In doing so, he demonstrates the kinds of analysis and techniques that can be used to explain the development of extra-territorial varieties of English and colonial dialects in complex situations of contact, and shows that Irish English provides a useful testing-ground for models of new dialect formation

Turk, A., & Shattuck-Hufnagel, S. (2020). Speech Timing: Implications for Theories of Phonology, Phonetics, and Speech Motor Control. (Oxford Studies in Phonology and Phonetics ; Vol. 5). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198795421.001.0001

This is a book about the architecture of the speech-production planning process and speech motor control. It is written in reaction to a debate in the literature about the nature of phonological representations, which are proposed to be spatiotemporal by some, and symbolic (atemporal) by others. Making this choice about the nature of phonological representation has several fundamental implications for the architecture of the speech-production planning system, notably with regard to the number of planning components and the type of timing mechanisms. In systems with symbolic phonological representations, a separate phonetic planning component is required for speakers to plan the details of surface timing and spatial characteristics for each context. In contrast, the Articulatory Phonology system, which proposes spatiotemporal phonological representations, has a very different architecture, with fewer components. These contrasting assumptions about the spatiotemporal vs. symbolic nature of phonological representations have important consequences for how these two approaches deal with timing issues. This is because time is intrinsic to phonological representations in Articulatory Phonology, but is not part of symbolic phonology. These two proposals are evaluated in light of existing literature on speech and non-speech timing behavior. Evidence that challenges the Articulatory Phonology model inspired a sketch of a new model of the production process, based on symbolic phonological representations and a separate phonetic planning component to specify surface-timing details. This approach provides an appropriate account of what is known about motor timing in general and speech timing in particular.

Fridland, V., Wassink, A., Hall-Lew, L., & Kendall, T. (2020). Speech in the Western States: Volume III: Understudied Varieties. (Proceedings of the American Dialect Society; Vol. 103). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. https://www.dukeupress.edu/speech-in-the-western-states-1

Gisborne, N. (2020). Ten Lectures on Event Structure in a Network Theory of Language. (Distinguished Lectures in Cognitive Linguistics). Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004375291

In Ten Lectures on Event Structure in a Network Theory of Language, Nikolas Gisborne explores verb meaning. He discusses theories of events and how a network model of language-in-the-mind should be theorized; what the lexicon is; how to probe word meaning; evidence for structure in word meaning; polysemy; the lexical semantics of causation; a type hierarchy of events; and event types cross-linguistically. He also looks at the relationship between different classes of events or event types and aktionsarten; transitivity alternations and argument linking. Gisborne argues that the social and cognitive embedding of language, requires a view of linguistic structure as a network where even the analysis of verb meaning can require an understanding of the role of speaker and hearer.

Kastner, I. (2020). Voice at the Interfaces: The syntax, semantics and morphology of the Hebrew verb. (Open Generative Syntax; Vol. 8). Language Science Press. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3865066.

This books presents the most comprehensive description and analysis to date of Hebrew morphology, with an emphasis on the verbal templates. Its aim is to develop a theory of argument structure alternations which is anchored in the syntax but has systematic interfaces with the phonology and the semantics. Concretely, the monograph argues for a specific formal system centered around possible values of the head Voice. The formal assumptions are as similar as possible to those made in work on non-Semitic languages. The first part of the book (four chapters) is devoted to Hebrew; the second part (two chapters) compares the current theory with other approaches to Voice and argument structure in the recent literature.