Séminaire du Groupe Transversal Prosodie (GTP)
Vendredi 31 janvier 2025
Tajudeen Mamadou Yacoubou
Visiting Assistant Professor of Linguistics, University of Michigan
Bridging Tone and Intonation Research: A Representational Perspective
15h-17h LPL, salle de conférences B011 et à distance par Zoom
Lien Zoom : https://univ-amu-fr.zoom.us/j/81698846447?pwd=w6pQti4c2gUqV49CN5GAhZLQbDjvFA.1
ID de réunion: 816 9884 6447
Code secret: 288495
Abstract: This talk presents the findings of four experimental studies of intonation (production and perception) across three African tone languages with varying degrees of tonal complexity: three, four, and five level tone systems. While the results uphold some of the previous findings in the study of intonation in African languages, they reveal systematic tendances that current models of tonal and intonational representation cannot account for. This talk will briefly introduce a new unified representational model for tone and intonation that accounts for the observed data and makes testable predictions about the place of intonation in tone languages. The new model is then used as parameters in a generative cross-linguistic intonation algorithm. The algorithm is a proof of concept that a unified representation for tone and intonation can truly take full advantage of the advances in tonal and intonational research.
Bio: Dr. Mamadou's research focuses on the representation and computation of tone and intonation, which are two of the most widely shared aspects of human languages. From a theoretical standpoint, he is interested in questions of representation in phonology and how they play into the computation of different phonological processes. Empirically, his work focuses on the prosodic systems of understudied languages in Sub-Saharan Africa, where he conducts fieldwork in a variety of languages, including Ede Chaabe, Baatonum, Dan, and Zarma, spoken across Benin, Côte-d'Ivoire and Niger.
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