Subject: syllable structure and gesture timing

call for papers : syllable stucture and gesture timing as part of the conference lp ' 98 to be held at ohio state university sept . 15-20 , there will be a workshop funded by the national science foundation sept . 19-20 , on ' syllable structure and gesture timing ' , covering issues related to phonetic and phonological accounts of segmentation , and timing and ordering of gestures in speech , especially how sequences of consonants e . g . [ spr ] , [ ntw ] are formally represented . speech is traditionally represented as a string of segments , defined in terms of features which are implemented simultaneously . in that conception , the phoneme is the minimal phonological unit where time and ordering are defined . as has long been known , the transition from phoneme to phoneme is phonetically realized as a continuous change . there has been a steady progression in phonological theory from linear generative theory to nonlinear representations where the mapping between segments and features is quite relaxed , and highly articulated suprasegmental structures are assumed . a consequence of nonlinear models , which allow single 's egments ' to bear multiple values of a feature and allow one feature to be associated with many 's egments ' , is that one can meaningfully question the existence of the 's egment ' as a formal object . the theory of feature geometry does not explicitly represent the notion 's egment ' , and it has been argued that the traditional segment does not correspond to any specific level of representation in current models . nonlinear models have increasingly tended towards positing complex but internally timeless single 's egments ' in place of clusters of segments : thus , what was formerly represented as a triconsonantal sequence [ ntw ] might also be represented as a single segment , a ' voiceless prenasalised rounded alveolar ' . some languages , such as bella coola and georgian , seem to allow unbounded arbitrary sequences of consonants , which suggests that phonological theory may ultimately need to allow infinitely long syllables and unstructured onsets and codas . one of the central questions to be taken up in the workshop is " are there any universal limits on possible strings of segments in various positions within the syllable " ? this statement of the question begs two quite important questions : do segments per se exist ( and how can one identify whether a given temporal stretch of the phonetic output corresponds to one or more segments ) , and do syllables themselves exist ? both of these assumptions remain controversial , especially in nonlinear phonology . invited speakers for this workshop include donca steriade , john ohala , john harris and louis goldstein . further details on the issues being investigated in this workshop can be found at http : / / ling . ohio-state . edu / events / phon _ workshop . html . one - page abstracts for 30 minute papers to be presented at this workshop are solicited ( due date for receipt of abstracts : august 10 ) . lodging and up to $ 400 to cover economy travel expenses will be provided to authors presenting papers at the workshop . abstracts may be sent by email to odden @ ling . ohio-state . edu , or by surface mail to : syllable workshop department of linguistics ohio state university columbus , oh 43210 please include a surface mail address , email address , and phone number .
