UW
RTMENT STICS DEPA UW LINGUI
Volume 1, Issue 1 August 13, 2002
LETTER FROM CHAIR I’m really pleased to aspirations of our department this Inside this issue: initiate the Chair’s column in this year. first number of our newsletter from A major preoccupation Endangered Language 3 the Linguistics Department of the this year has been our Computa- Revitalization University of Washington. I hope tional Linguist search that culmi- that it will serve to inform our nated with the hiring of John Gold- Fundraising review 4 alumni, supporters and community smith. In addition to his excellent associates, and to draw them to stay Alumni Experience in 5 publication record and international in touch with us. The Department Foreign Country reputation, he is very well qualified continues to be recognized for the to create the new specialization, excellence of our undergraduate of America this year. Jurgen Nostrand Professorship 6 since he has already established and graduate programs, the interna- Klausenburger published a single such a program at the University of Visiting Scholar 6 tional reputation of our faculty, and author book, as did Karen Zagona Chicago. We have forged an offi- our service. We are also making who was also keynote speaker of cial department relationship with 40th Anniversary 6 progress towards the goals we laid the Going Romance Conference in Microsoft through University Rela- Information out in our Strategic Plan (to be Amsterdam. She and I edited a tions. These efforts contribute to posted on the new website). We are volume dedicated to Heles the computational linguistics spe- Lectures on Campus 7 thrilled that John Goldsmith, cur- Contreras. Overall the faculty cialization, to ties with other lin- rently at the University of Chicago, produced 17 articles in refereed guists, to the development of a will join our faculty in 2003 to journals and 18 chapters in collec- protocol for faculty-industry inter- devote himself to the creation of a tions. Ellen Kaisse continues her actions and to internship opportuni- first rate Computational program. work as the principal editor of the ties for graduate students. Special points of Four of our faculty were awarded flagship publication in her field, major grants, and our Lead TA, During the past year, Phonology, while Mike Brame interest: Chia-Hui Huang, won the UW Linguistics faculty gave papers in spent his sabbatic year sleuthing Excellence in Teaching Award. Europe, Asia and the Americas (see Shakespeare’s true identity. Toshi • Celebrate 40 years Also, our funding for the Nostrand related story). Fritz Newmeyer—in Ogihara has raised enough money with the Department! Professorship in Language and addition to publishing numerous to sponsor the Semantics and Lin- Cultural Competence increased articles and giving a dozen invited guistic Theory (SALT) conference • Linguistics overseas dramatically. I’ll outline below the talks in six countries—is serving as next May, so now he’s into the • Nostrand Professorship most significant achievements and President of the Linguistic Society logistical planning stage. cont. on page 2... • Send your contact info! FUNDRAISING NEEDS FOR DEPARTMENT • Find out the latest news about professors, In 1970, public funds met 40% cannot maintain excellence with- student to present a paper at a of our budget needs as a univer- out your involvement of time, distant conference; $1,000 brings fellow alumni, and sity—today this figure is down to talent, and financial support. a scholar to Seattle for a lecture current students 14% and the trend seems set to or seminar. You will find an Your gifts make an incredible continue. The Department of envelope in this newsletter invit- difference to us. For example, Linguistics must, like other pro- ing you to renew your support of $25 sponsors one week's faculty- grams at the University of Wash- the Linguistics Department. We student colloquium; $100 pays ington, call on its alumni and hope that you will do so. Your the honorarium for a visiting friends to make a difference. We generosity is deeply appreciated. lecturer; $500 enables a graduate P AGE 2 UW LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT
Letter from Chair Continued…
Sharon Hargus received a grant of amount of instruction for non-majors, since they lected for the same honor next year. $192,000 from the National Science Foundation constitute about 50% of the population. We cap for a three year research project on the Alaskan our graduate program (which is very selective, The Department has benefitted di- language Deg Xinag’s lexicon and grammar. accepting about 15/80+ applicants), so we never rectly from the tech support that was provided by She’s starting work this summer with a trip to anticipate seeing growth in that area. the Provost this past year. Dan Stiefel, who Alaska. Alicia Wassink, Richard Wright and I works 50%, has served mainly in our Phonetics This year we reaped the benefits of a were awarded grants totaling $170,000 from the Lab, a state of the art teaching and research facil- Curriculum Development Grant from 2000-2001. UW Center for Mind, Brain and Learning headed ity used intensively by faculty and students at The grant permitted us to develop Powerpoint by Pat Kuhl and Andrew Meltzoff. My own every level. The wide variety of tools, the spe- slides and detailed interactive websites for Lin- project—funding one quarter research for me and cialized nature of the software and hardware, and guistics 100 and 200. Because the entire faculty five quarters for an RA—examines the acquisi- the high volume of use mean that the Lab is an rotates in teaching the introductory courses, they tion of Spanish by first graders (in their second important resource for researchers in and outside have been able to modify the curricular materials year of immersion) in the John Stanford Interna- Linguistics. to fit their needs. We were also able to offer a tional School. The Wassink-Wright project— new course on maintenance of endangered lan- funding one research quarter for each of them We have embarked on a major out- guages, taught by one of our graduates, Dr. Alice and five quarters for an RA—is examining per- reach effort to contact alumni, donors and the Taff, who works on Alaskan indigenous lan- ception of vowel length, particularly as it relates general public to make our research and teaching guages. The course—which made the front page to parent input to children. In addition, the Col- in Linguistics better represented in the commu- of the Daily—has proved of interest to Anthro- lege funded Alicia’s travel research trip to Ja- nity. To that aim we have established an Advi- pology and Ethnic Studies, as well as Linguistics. maica where she collected data in the field on sory Board which has met twice and has now embarked on a number of projects such as an Jamaican Creole vowel length. Another interdisciplinary effort— improved website, a newsletter, a Fortieth Anni- including letters of support from Psychology, In our undergraduate program, the versary celebration planned for June 2003, in- Computer Science and Music—helped Linguis- awarding of B.A. degrees has increased four-fold, creased visibility through community outreach, tics to garner a Walker-Ames Lecture position for from 12 in 1992 to 46 in 2000. From 1993 to and improved relations with local industry. Professor Ray Jackendoff (Brandeis University) 2001, we have also increased the number of to take place in May 2003. Linguistics and Eng- undergraduates served in courses for both lower lish supported the Communications Department division and upper division. The lower division nomination of a second Walker-Ames Lecture, courses serve non-majors at about 100%. Our Professor Deborah Cameron, who was also se- upper division courses also provide a significant Faculty NEWS In our first issue we’d like to introduce all of A&M) as editors of “Features and Interfaces in Sharon Hargus has published several articles our department professors and give you a brief Romance”, a festschrift for Heles Contreras. concerning her research in Yakima Sahaptin update from each of them on what they’ve been and BC, Canada Witsuwit’en. She presented at Ellen Kaisse’s research this year includes two doing this year! many conferences including the Athabaskan refereed book chapters and three professional Languages Conference, Native Languages and Frederick Newmeyer has been elected Presi- lectures (one in Spanish in Mexico!). She had Cultures and International Conference on Salish dent of the Linguistics Society of America for the honor of being and Neighboring Languages. 2002. The LSA is the main professional group- nominated a senior Sharon received a Royalty ing of linguistics in the US, with over 5000 scholar in the Simp- Research Fund for one year members! He has also published numerous son Center for the “Professor Frederick Newmeyer has been towards her research in articles and lectured all over the world. Humanities 2001- elected President of the Linguistics Yakima Sahaptin Lexicon 2002 and has three Jurgen Klausenburger has recently published and a three year NSF grant to works in progress on Society of America in 2002.” two single-author books, three refereed book study Deg Xiang Lexicon and laterals, vowel har- chapters and two reviews. Following the publi- Grammar. She also advised mony, and Argentin- cation of “Grammaticalization: Studies in Latin the Heritage College on pri- ian intonation. and Romance morphosyntax” in 2000, his orities for Sahaptin language research as they Coursebook in Romance Linguistics appeared Michael Brame has been working in the areas implement a recent award from the Mellon in 2002. He has made numerous of algebraic syntax and using linguis- foundation. For further details on Sharon’s year presentations at European confer- tic methods to determine authorship. see related article in newsletter. ences in the past year as well. In relation to the authorship research Alicia Beckford-Wassink and Wright received he has written a book entitled Karen Zagona continued ongo- a grant from the Center for Mind, Brain and “Shakespeare’s Fingerprints” which is ing research in the area of tense Learning (CMBL) to study the ways in which scheduled to appear this fall. He has and aspect, focusing on contrasts people modify their speech under a variety of also worked with his colleague, Prof. between Spanish and English. conditions. This work builds on “Motherese” Galina Popova in the Dept. of Slavic She also saw the publication of made famous by Patricia Kuhl.While Languages and Lit. to develop what her book “Spanish Syntax” with Motherese is fairly well studied, few studies they call the 4C criterion and have Cambridge University Press, and have placed it in the context of other types of applied it to the Shakespeare author- collaborated with Julia Herschen- exaggerated speech and of normal conversa- ship controversy with some striking sohn and Enrique Mallen (Texas tional speech. Beckford-Wassink and Wright results. continued on page 7… V OLUME 1, ISSUE 1 P AGE 3
ENDANGERED LANGUAGES REVITALIZED
This article will be presented in a 2 part series. of turning this around? younger people. It seems like a good idea but in Watch for the 2nd part in the newsletter quar- Sharon Hargus (SH): That all depends on the practice, to have an 80 year old take care of a two terly update on the new website! Thanks to all particular communities, and how endangered the year old can be difficult. When you have got two involved! language is, how few speakers remain that speak really elderly speakers left and that’s all, it’s going it. What some communities have done is set up to be difficult to transmit the language in some daycare centers, language nests, some people call sort of quasi-natural way. When you have less This spring quarter the U.W. Linguistics Depart- extreme endangerment, some sort of revival along ment offered a new course on Language Endan- them, that are supposed to be staffed by older people so they can transmit the language to the the daycare language nest idea is more practical. germent (Ling 480B), taught by Dr. Alice Taff, a But it’s all a matter of what we mean by revitali- graduate of the department. In an interview ex- zation. Do we want to create first language speak- cerpted below, Dr. Taff and U.W. Linguistics ers? Second language speakers? Professor Sharon Hargus discuss language endan- germent and language revitalization efforts. AT: I would say that whatever state the language (Interview conducted May 22, 2002 by Nancy is in as far as its viability, can be counterbalanced Emery, a linguistics graduate student enrolled in by the amount of energy that’s put into the revi- the course). talization. So even if nobody has spoken the language for several generations in daily use, if Nancy Emery (NE): First, a little background: there are documents that are useful and there’s a what does endangerment of languages mean? huge interest in it and people spend their time on Alice Taff (AT): A language is endangered it, then they can use it more, in the home again. when it will not be used in the future. In this NE: So something can be done to bring a lan- context, let’s mean “used in conversation among guage back into use even if it’s not necessarily a community of speakers”. If children aren’t being passed on with the full range and fluency of learning the language at home we consider that past use? to be a sign that the language will no longer be used in the foreseeable future. AT: Right. “Revitalization”: bring life back to the language. So the language might change some - NE: Language revitalization – is there a chance we hope it would, because all living languages do continued on page 4… THANKS TO UW LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT DONORS
Many thanks to our generous donors, especially Pearl Bennett Chiari Robert and Patricia Nostrand from the last year! We could not have made it 40 Myrna M. Cordova Vernetta Noyes years without your amazing contributions! C. Ben and Kathee Christensen Suzanne and Robert Quillian Friends of Linguistics Donors: Phillip E. Creore Richard and Joan Reed James and Jean Hoard Dorothy L. Culjat Ann and Randy Revelle Tanya and Michel Maes Don and Joyce Davies Paula Rippee James and Kathryn Armagost Gail DelValle Marian Rose Mark E. Wolff James and Dorothy DeYoung Borje and Aase Saxberg David Miles and Hope Hensley Shelley A. E. Faivre Kirsten Scott Jack Odell Lawson Douglas and Mary Fleming William and Joan Scott The Seattle Foundation Susan Gates and Jack Paauw Seattle-Nantes Sister City Org. Diana Peterson and Joseph Limacher Stirling and Lara Haig Michael and Joana Shapiro Ursula M. Erdmann Hector Hammerly Alice J. Strange Tahn and Robert Baskerville H. DeForest and Susan Hardinge SunTrust Bank Mid-Atlantic Jeffrey L. Kallen Harlowe Hardinge Foundation Symantec Corporation Aki H. Namioka Helen E. Hepp Gerald and Cynthia Upp Barbara S. Pearson Julia and Michael Herschensohn Rebecca and Jean Paul Valette Microsoft Corporation Bette and Joseph Hirsch Pieter and Tjitske Van der Meulen Daniel O. Talbot Ronald M. Holden Raymond A. Verzasconi Michael Gamon Julie Hungar George Wallerstein Anna and Colin McCartney Carol Johnson Susan and Kenneth Whittenberg Kristin E. Denham Jeffrey and Margaret Kallen Christina and Philip Wohlstetter Total Enterprise, Inc. Key Foundation Diana and Gregory Woodard Hee-Bok Jung Thomas and Suzanne Knauss Mel and Cindy Yoken Tatsuya Suzuki Marie-Pierre and Albert Koban Paula Johnson Alice Laurens Thanks again to all the generous donors Joanne R. Lonay from this year. Please remember that contin- Nostrand Donors: Gail and John Mensher ued support helps the linguistics department Luther Black Howard and Frances Nostrand continue in its mission of providing an out- Christine Brown Peter F. Nostrand standing and renowned linguistics education! Thomas M. Carr Jr. Richard and Susan Nostrand P AGE 4 UW LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT
ENDANGERED LANGUAGES CONTINUED...
change. This is a concept that people don’t al- the larger Penutian family, I’d say there’s maybe fluency , and fluency is usually achieved in a ways understand – if it’s not the conservative 20 speakers left of the Yakima dialect. That’s conversational mode, an immersion mode. It older language then people tend to think it’s no just the ones I know about. does not happen in school. So there’s a clash good. I think every language has its detractors NE: Although there seem to be programs to try between methodology and desired result that has who don’t want anything to change – but it and pass on some of those (languages) in the caused programs to fail. It’s a problem that changes anyway. schools. shouldn’t be laid at the foot of the teachers. It’s a general overall community need to address the NE: The languages of Washington state – are any SH: I’d say most Native American communities situation. of them endangered? What are the indigenous in this state have some kind of language revitali- languages of this area? zation program going. What most programs lack NE: So the children need people to talk to , and people to talk to them outside of the classroom. SH: The language families that used to be spo- is some kind of assessment, of how well the ken in Washington state are mainly Salishan, program’s working and what could be done to SH: Yeah. Wakashan, Chimakuan, and Penutian is a larger improve it, in my experience. AT: Programs that have been successful at group that would include Sahaptian. Some of the AT: And realistic goal setting – not only about achieving their goals are those programs that languages of these families are clearly extinct, how much do we expect of the students per unit have been initiated by the community. The defi- and they’re all endangered really, dwindling of time, but is our goal to create fluent speakers? nition that we’re using in class is that language is numbers of speakers. Lushootseed, which was And if people say “yes that is our goal”, then they an agreement among a community of speakers the Salish language spoken around Puget Sound, need to confront the necessity to have domains of that certain symbols have certain meanings. So also known as Puget Sound Salish, I think has 6 use for the language. Where are they going to the first thing is an agreement among a commu- speakers left. There’s another branch of Salish use the language? On the sports field? In the nity, and that’s what has to start any language which was spoken to the SW of Olympia, Tsamo- home? In religious events? In business? On the revitalization effort. It doesn’t have to include san branch, four languages that are no longer radio? On TV? Those are things that need to be everybody, it can be a small portion of the com- spoken, like Upper Chehalis. Most of the Waka- addressed too, depending on the goal. It seems munity that is interested and is willing to spend shan languages are spoken in Vancouver Island that one of the first places that is hit with lan- their time doing this. Frequently when the inter- and western parts of B.C. Makah is a representa- guage revitalization work is the school, because ested active people begin to achieve some posi- tive of that family, with 2 speakers left. Sa- people think “well, the kids will learn at the tive results, other people will join in. haptin, which I work on, in the Sahaptian family, school”. But the outcome they want to achieve is Stay tuned for Part 2 in the quarterly update! STUDENT NEWS The Linguistics Department is proud of and 105 BAs awarded. study Serbo-croatian. Benjamin Toronto their thriving students, both undergraduate was awarded a summer FLAS Fellowship, Graduate Students and graduate. and Jeff Stevenson received a Chester Fritz Updates: Travel Grant to do research in Chile. Lin- Department Stats: “Linguistics Lead TA Chia-Hui Huang was The superiority of guistics Lead TA Chia-Hui Huang was one 11 new graduate one of only two (of 24 nominated) who won our graduate students of only two (of two dozen nominated) who students - 44 total, was shown in several won the UW Teaching Excellence Award. 105 undergraduates the UW Teaching Excellence Award.” awards. Susannah Although we have only five regular Levi won both a 1 Phd awarded TAships per year, two of our TAs have won FLAS year-long (congrats Gabe Webster!), 7 graduate stu- the UW Teaching Excellence Award within award and a Fritz Fellowship for next year. dents completed generals, 3 MAs awarded, six years. Excellent work and congratula- Misha Preston won a year-long FLAS to tions to our outstanding students!
CONTACT INFO FOR UW DEPARTMENT FUNDRAISING REVIEW 2001 LINGUISTIC DEPARTMENT Our fundraising letter brought a response of Nostrands who have already made a signifi- Department of Linguistics $4140 to the Friends of Linguistics, an cant gift of over $200,000. In addition, their Box 354340 amount that has helped sponsor colloquia, friends and supporters have donated an pay for student travel to conferences and additional $8575 to the endowment in the Seattle, WA 98195-4340 fund special events in the department. A last year. We are aiming to upgrade our Phone: 206-543-2046, Fax: 206-685-7978 more significant fundraising project is the fundraising efforts as part of the Develop- Email: [email protected] Nostrand Endowed Professorship in lan- ment Plan that we have written. We intend guage and cultural competence, a $500,000 to raise money to fund an additional en- Undergraduate advisor: Kening Li, lin- gift that will eventually fund the research of dowed professorship as well as two gradu- [email protected] a professor of Linguistics while furthering ate fellowships. The Board’s development Graduate advisor: Ellen Kaisse, the vision of the Nostrands. The donation is plan will be posted on our new website. See [email protected] to be funded over five years by the page 3 for thanks to our generous donors! Department Chair: Julia Herschensohn V OLUME 1, ISSUE 1 P AGE 5
ALUMNI EXPERIENCE IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY Tatsuya Suzuki is an alumnus of the UW Belonging to the English Department, I addition to 7 two-hour long meetings per Linguistics Department (see Alumni News must teach English classes, such as English academic year. I try not to count the num- section for further information) and is composition and reading. Since our teach- ber of meetings I must attend in a year… working in Japan. Tatsu has written the ing load is very heavy at the undergraduate following article to give us a brief insight level, I can teach only one course in the into linguistics in a foreign country… graduate program. I teach 7 classes a week, So, it’s very hard to remain a “linguist” in each lasting 90 minutes. Japan. A lot of linguists become “English
teachers”, mostly because they can’t find
There aren’t many graduate programs for time to read new articles or books. It seems generative grammar in the Departments of There is a lot of non-academic work, too. absolutely necessary to set up graduate Linguistics in Japan. Usually, English de- We usually belong to one or two commit- programs in linguistics departments here in partments offer graduate programs in gen- tees, each of which has one meeting a Japan. erative grammar, mainly because there month. In addition, we must attend a de- weren’t many Japanese linguists who were partmental meeting and a faculty meeting at interested in the “new wave” of linguistics least once a month. Thank you Tatsu for sharing your experi- born in the English speaking world 50 years ence! Send us your stories! Stay tuned for ago. Nanzan University is not an exception. future stories about the experiences of UW I teach generative linguistics in the gradu- Currently, I am an associate dean of Nan- Linguistics Department alumni in other ate program of our English Department. zan’s student affairs office. There is a 150 foreign countries... minute long meeting every Wednesday, in
ALUMNI NEWS For our first issue of the UW Linguistics Depart- realization, machine translation, and machine phonology, semantics, and Amerindian languages ment Alumni Newsletter we chose to introduce learning techniques in Natural Language Process- of the northwest. you to our recently formed Advisory Board, ing (especially in sentence realization). Michael Paula Johnson (BA, ‘00) has been working as a consisting of mostly UW alumni. The board is is working on University relations with Micro- Linguistic Test Engineer in the Microsoft Natural committed to delivering on the department’s soft. Language Group for the past two years. She is development plan and helping to ensure the fu- Mark Haslam (BA, ‘97) is working at CARTAH now working on pursuing her interests in Neurol- ture vibrancy of on the UW campus. He is inguistics and Neuroscience by preparing to UW Linguistics working on communica- return for her MD/PhD in Neuroscience. Paula (visit the new web- tions for the Advisory edited and produced this initial newsletter and is site soon to see the “...he is also a past president of the Irish Board. assisting Mark Haslam with communications. current develop- Association for Applied Linguistics and ment plan!). In the Jeffrey Kallen (MA, ‘79) is a senior lecturer in Jim Hoard (MA, '66; PhD, future we hope to currently edits the Association’s journal.” Linguistics and Phonetics in Trinity College '67) taught at the University use this section to Dublin, where he has been teaching since 1980. of Kansas, the University of share news, an- His research interests in sociolinguistics, bilin- Victoria, the University of British Columbia, and nouncements, and other happenings in your lives! gualism, and language acquisition have involved the University of Oregon (where he was Profes- Please fill out the contact information on the back a number of international collaborative efforts sor of Linguistics and English). He joined Boeing and check out our new website where you can supported by the European Science Foundation, in 1986 and led the development of its natural submit your stories for inclusion! We’d love to the Commission of the European Union, the Arts language processing program. He recently retired hear from you and share our stories! and Humanities Research Board from Boeing, where he was a in UK, and the Royal Irish Acad- Jim Armagost (PhD, ‘73) taught at Kansas State Senior Manager, to start up his emy. A member of the LSA and University until retiring in 2001. He now lives in own consultancy, Relational the American Dialect Society, he Mount Vernon, where his wife is a high school Logic, Inc., concentrating on is also a past president of the Spanish teacher. Jim is working on the planning knowledge management and Irish Association for Applied for the Department 40th anniversary celebration. knowledge discovery solutions Linguistics and currently edits for corporate and government Karn Choi (BA, ‘87) was working for Siebel. the Association’s journal. clients. As an Affiliate Profes- She is working on the major gifts project for the sor in the UW Linguistics Dept. Tatsuya Suzuki (PhD, ‘88) Advisory Board. since 1990-91, he instituted the teaches English and English Michael Gamon (MA, ‘91; PhD, ‘96) has been introductory Computational Linguistics course linguistics at Nanzan University in Nagoya, working as a computational linguist in Microsoft (Linguistics 472) and taught it numerous times. Japan. (Did you know Ichiro was originally from research since 1996. His areas of interest include: His interests in linguistics include natural lan- Nagoya area?) Tatsu visits the UW to give a talk computational grammar of German, sentence guage processing, computational linguistics, continued on page 6… P AGE 6 UW LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT
NOSTRAND PROFESSORSHIP Thanks to A&S Perspectives and Nancy Joseph “You can’t really use a language unless you for the original article. To see the complete arti- understand the culture of the people who speak cle visit: it,” says Howard, professor emeritus of Romance http://www.artsci.washington.edu/newsletter/Wint languages and literature. “Cultural competence is erSpring01/WinSprNews.htm#matthewsnostrand so important in business, diplomacy, and even tourism.” Donald Matthews and Howard and Frances Nostrand know a thing or two about the Univer- Howard served as chair of the department from sity of Washington. Having taught at the UW for 1939 to 1965, retiring in 1981. He has written a combined total of 79 years, they’ve experienced more than 100 publications, many of them with the University’s many facets firsthand. So when Frances, who served as a lecturer in the depart- Matthews recently made ment from 1962 to 1979. an $814,000 gift to the “We’ve been thinking about UW and the Nostrands “The goal of the professorship is to this gift for a long time,” says made a $500,000 gift, continue our incomplete life’s work.“ Howard. “The goal of the they did so with an in- professorship is to continue sider’s understanding of our incomplete life’s work. We what private giving can accomplish. invite friends and colleagues who share this goal The Nostrands’ gift—which established the to add their own gifts to this professorship.” VISITING SCHOLAR: Howard and Frances Nostrand Endowed Profes- David Hodge, Dean of Arts and Sciences, de- sorship, based in the Department of Linguistics— scribes both recent gifts as “wonderful not only ROCHELLE LIEBER reflects the couple’s lifelong interest in the con- for the financial support they provide but also for nections between language and culture. the commitment to the College they represent.” He adds, “We are grateful for the extraordinary The UW linguistics department was hon- The Nostrands have been particularly interested ored to have Rochelle Lieber as a visiting in issues of cultural competence—the idea that generosity of these dedicated faculty.” every language student should also know back- For more information or to make a gift to these scholar this year among many other talented ground about the history, geography, literature, professorships, contact Antoinette Wills at (206) individuals. Rochelle is Professor of Eng- social institutions, and value system in which 616-6553 or [email protected]. lish at the University of New Hampshire their language exists. and chair of the English Department. She did her PhD at MIT (1980) and her under- ALUMNI NEWS CONTINUED… graduate work in Anthropology at Vassar College (1976). Rochelle came to Seattle to almost every year. See the article on this page based ontologies with an inference engine. In spend her sabbatical year with her fiancé, about linguistics in Japan! addition, he is generating lexicons for a natural who is a lawyer. She says “It’s been a won- language processing program that can interface Alice Taff (PhD, ‘99) is a freelance linguist, with these ontologies.The goal is to provide the derful year, although too short.” As a visit- currently working on language revitalization computer with a robust semantic component, ing scholar at the UW Linguistics Depart- projects for the Alaskan languages Deg Xinag accessible through natural language input, that ment, Rochelle spent the 2001-2002 aca- (Ingalik Athabascan) and Unangax (Aleut) and allows the computer to make inferences that go demic year working on a book entitled teaching occasional courses at UW and U of far beyond the explicit facts it is provided. The Alaska Fairbanks. Her current research program “Morphology and Lexical Semantics.” In benefits of such a semantic component will be is a phonetic description of Unangas (Western February she gave a colloquium to the de- great improvements to many applications, such Aleut) intonation. partment entitled “Morphology and Lexical as web searching and database management. Non-Board Member Alumni Update: Semantics: what we can learn from –er and Deepest Thanks to the Linguistics Depart- –ee.” Douglas Wulf (PhD, ‘99) was hired by ment Advisory Board for their generous do- Teknowledge Corporation as a senior member of nation of time and effort! Stay tuned for news about other visiting their research staff. He is creating knowledge- scholars in our future newsletters... LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT TURNS 40!
All alumni and friends are invited to three to your husband/wife/other. Make plans. presentation by Fritz and perhaps a toast or days of activities next June as the department Come join two to times past and times to come. celebrates its 40th birthday. Don't even think us for food, old, gray and wrinkled! As a quick glance at camaraderie, Jim Armagost this newsletter makes clear, the department lively retro- Party Director is just as innovative, energetic and involved spectives by in 2002 as it was years ago when the local some of Class of ‘73 overcast first lifted to reveal an eastern hori- your col- zon ablaze in Chomskyan sunshine. Please leagues, a Stay tuned for updates on activities mark your calendar for June 5th - 7th. Talk keynote and information regarding lodging, etc... V OLUME 1, ISSUE 1 P AGE 7
LECTURES AND CONFERENCES ON CAMPUS Last year the department heard from many regarding colloquiums, conferences, and excellent speakers including Bruce Hayes speakers. and Professor Heles Contreras during WE- Walker Ames Lectures: May 19-23, 2003 COL, as well as Alan Kaye on Arabic lin- guistics. The out of town speakers included: Ray Jackendoff - May 20th, 2003, 7pm Stephen Dworkin, U Mich; Lisa Mat- Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) thewson, UBC; Emily Bender, Stanford; Conference 13: May 9-11, 2003 Eleni Miltsakaki, U Penn; John Goldsmith, U Chicago; Brian Roark, AT&T Labs; Ro- Angelika Kratzer—U Mass Amherst chelle Lieber, U New Hampshire; Keith S.-Y. Kuroda—UC-San Diego Johnson, Ohio State; Claire Kramsch, UC Berkeley; and John Ohala, UC Berkeley. William Ladusaw—UC-Santa Cruz During the coming year we will hear from Mandfred Krifka—Humboldt University many more exciting speakers. Contact the (Berlin) department for further information regard- Linguistics Department Colloquiums: ing specific dates, locations, and other perti- Fridays, 3:30pm nent information. Deborah Cameron - April See page 4 for department contact info or visit the updated website for information Watch for updates on colloquium speakers!
FACULTY NEWS CONTINUED… are studying conversational speech and speech published several articles and book reviews. New Linguistics Department Web- under three conditions. They are recording She gave talks at conferences in New Orleans, women from three language varieties that differ Lisbon, Portugal, and Ottawa, Ontario. She site update: crucially in the vowel inventories. Beckford- received a grant for $58,000 from the UW Wassink also is directing the sociolinguistic Center for Mind, Brain, and Learning. For that, We have mentioned a new website component of the Phonetics Lab. She just pub- Julia has been working with graduate RA Jeff for you to visit, so we figured we lished an article entitled “Theme and Variation Stevenson to study acquisition of Spanish verb in Jamaican Vowels.” morphology by first graders in better update you with information the immersion program at the regarding this new site! Richard Wright re- John Stanford International ceived a grant from the “...he was honored with the School. She continues to enjoy CMBL (see Prof. Beck- Mark Haslam, an alumnus and Ad- Distinguished Alumni Award by being chair of the department. ford-Wassink for details). visory Board member, is consulting Indiana University...” He also received a grant Heles Contreras is currently with graduate student Joyce Parvi from IBM to study the working on different aspects of intonational patterns of head movement within the to update the Linguistics website, read speech, which has implications for speech Minimalist Program. He was a keynote speaker
University of Washington Department of Linguistics Box 354340 Seattle, WA 98195-4340
Phone: 206-543-2046 Fax: 206-685-7978 Email: [email protected]
Donate to the department today! Watch for the annual giving campaign in September!
Coming soon the new website for linguistics at http:// depts.washington.edu/lingweb !!!
Birthday Celebration for UW Linguistics Department!!!!!! Yes Folks, we’re cele- brating 40 years this next year! Mark your calendars today. Join us on June 5-7 for fun filled events, learn about the depart- ment’s current endeavors, and help cele- brate our vibrant and thriving department! See page 6 for details! UW LINGUISTICS CONTACT US…. MEMORABILIA PLEASE RETURN DIRECTLY TO DEPARTMENT (IN INCLUDED ENVELOPE) You too can be a proud owner of COOL OR VISIT THE NEW WEBSITE SOON AND COMPLETE ONLINE! memorabilia from the ling. Department!Buy Name: ______your t-shirt or car window stickers for LSUW today! Contact Ben Toronto: bto- Address: [email protected] State: _____ T-shirts: $10 + $2.50 postage (per shirt) Zip: ______Stickers: $3 or 2 for $5 + $0.50 postage (per Phone: ______sticker) Year of degree: ____ Current pursuits (job…): ______Recent news about you: ______Email: ______