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CSLI Calendar, 10 June 1998, vol. 13:37



   
     C S L I   C A L E N D A R   O F   P U B L I C   E V E N T S
______________________________________________________________________

10 June 1998                    Stanford               Vol. 13, No. 37
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                     A weekly publication of the
       Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI)
      Stanford University, Ventura Hall, Stanford, CA 94305-4115
                             ____________

              ACTIVITIES DURING 10 JUNE TO 19 JUNE 1998

THURSDAY, 11 JUNE
        11:00am CCRMA Hearing Seminar
                CCRMA Library
                Speech Perception and Learning
                The Connection Between Acoustic Processing and Reading
                Athanassios Protopapas
                Scientific Learning
                Abstract below
     
         4:00pm Xerox PARC Forum
                George Pake Auditorium, Xerox PARC
                Dinosaur Research in the U.C. Museum of Paleontology: The
                Real Jurassic Park
                Mark Goodwin
                U.C. Museum of Paleontology
                http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/
                http://www.parc.xerox.com/ops/projects/forum
                
         7:30pm Sociable Syntax/Socio-Rap session
                Margaret Jacks Hall 146
                Copula Deletion and other myths of AAVE
                Tom Wasow and Ivan Sag
                Stanford
                Abstract below
                
FRIDAY, 12 JUNE
        12 noon Neurobiology Talk
                Fairchild D202
                Neuromuscular Function Clarified with Monte Carlo
                Modeling
                Dr. Miriam M. Salpeter
                Department of Neurobiology and Behavior
                Cornell University
                Host: Dr. U. J. McMahan
                http://www.stanford.edu/dept/nbio/June1998.html
              
SATURDAY, 13 JUNE
         2:00pm Documentary Film and Video Program
                Cubberly Auditorium
                Screening of Thesis Projects by Graduating 2nd year A.M.
                students
                http://www.stanford.edu/dept/communication/events/events.html
                
SUNDAY, 14 JUNE
         9:30am Stanford Commencement
                Stanford Stadium
                Main speech by Ted Koppel, ABC Nightline
                no tickets required

WEDNESDAY, 17 JUNE
        12 noon Berkeley Phonology Laboratory Colloquium
                46 Dwinelle Hall, Berkeley
                Subglottal Pressure, Accentuation and Prominence.
                Some Results from a Pilot Study in Sweden
                Gunnar Fant     
                Royal Institute of Technology
                Stockholm
                
THURSDAY, 18 JUNE
        11:00am CCRMA Hearing Seminar
                CCRMA Library
                Temporal Processing Techniques
                Srikantan Nagarajan
                http://www-ccrma.stanford.edu/CCRMA/Events/Events.html

        12 noon CSLI TALK
                Cordura Hall, Room 100
                Inside Nortel's Corporate Design Group 
                Peter Dodd
                Nortel
                Abstract below
          
         4:00pm Xerox PARC Forum
                George Pake Auditorium, Xerox PARC
                Superfluidity in Helium-Three: The Discovery Through the
                Eyes of a Graduate Student
                Douglas Osheroff
                Stanford University
                http://www.parc.xerox.com/ops/projects/forum
                             ____________
                                   
                                NOTES

We are coming to the end of the Academic Year at Stanford and the
campus is preparing for graduation (it is amazing how they managed to
control the weather this year so that many wildflowers are still in
bloom for the ceremony).  During the summer the CSLI Calendar is
published only when there are events to announce.
                             ____________

                        CCRMA HEARING SEMINAR
                  on Thursday, 11 June 1998, 11:00am
                       CCRMA Library, The Knoll
        http://www-ccrma.stanford.edu/CCRMA/Events/Events.html

   Acoustic  Processing is Related to Reading and Language Ability
                        Athanassios Protopapas
                         Scientific Learning

It has long been known that language impaired and reading impaired
children have perceptual difficulties, especially with speech stimuli.
Recent data indicate that such difficulties may arise from fundamental
acoustic processing deficits in time and frequency resolution.  For
example, abnormally elevated backward masking thresholds have been
obtained from language impaired children, and elevated modulation
detection thresholds from adult dyslexics.  In our ongoing studies we
aim to disentangle various processing components and describe the
extent and the variability of the observed deficits in various
populations.  In this talk I will present data from adults showing a
correlation between reading ability and performance in frequency
discrimination, especially for backward masked tones, and in tone
sequencing (a task known to pose difficulties for language impaired
children as well).  I will also present data from unimpaired children
showing age effects on frequency discrimination and on task learning,
as well as a correlation between language scores and detection
thresholds for backward masked tones.  These data are consistent with
the hypothesis that auditory processing difficulties may lead to
language (and thereby reading) difficulties through impaired phonetic
development.
                             ____________

                  SOCIABLE SYNTAX/SOCIO-RAP SESSION
                  on Thursday, 11 June 1998, 7:30pm
                     Margaret Jacks Hall 460:146

               Copula Deletion and other myths of AAVE
                        Tom Wasow and Ivan Sag
                               Stanford

One evident difference between African American Vernacular English
(AAVE) and Standard American English (SAE) in that the latter requires
finite verbs in certain environments where the former does not.  The
clearest case of this is the so-called 'copula deletion' construction,
illustrated by (1):

        (1)a. Chris at home
           b. We angry with you.
           c. You a genius!
           d. They askin for help.  

Other examples include what have been termed 'aspect markers' such as
invariant 'be', BIN, and 'done', as well as the absence of the
third-person singular -s suffix on verbs:

        (2)a. I be eatin then.
           b. The children BIN ate.
           c. The children done ate.
           d. Andy make a lot of money.

We argue that (1) can be handled straightforwardly in HPSG as a
headless clause, without recourse to deletion rules or phonetically
null elements.  Such an analysis brings out the commonalities between
verbless clauses in AAVE and those in other languages such as Russian
and Hungarian.

We analyze the examples in (2a-c) as headed by finite, non-auxiliary
verbs.  (2d) illustrates a morphological fact about AAVE, reflecting
the near disappearance of subject-verb agreement from this language.
But we show that all of the examples in (2) can be treated as finite
clauses, providing a straightforward account of the syntax and
semantics of such sentences.

Finally, we consider Labov's case for deletion account of examples
like (1).  In particular, we go in detail through the list of
environments that he claims are exceptions to copula deletion, showing
that our analysis gives a consistently more elegant and less
stipulative account of the phenomena.
                             ____________

                            CSLI COGLUNCH
                 on Thursday, 13 March 1998, 12 noon
                        Cordura Hall, Room 100
             http://www-csli.stanford.edu/csli/Coglunch/

                Inside Nortel's Corporate Design Group
                              Peter Dodd
                                Nortel

Nortel's Corporate Design Group is just 100 people strong, and
represents a variety of design and research skills.  We deliver ideas,
product concepts, customer research, and design intent into the five
lines of business. Sometimes we have been known as the flea on the tip
of the tail of the dog, other times as the lunatic fringe.  Whatever
the label, we have had influence on a number Nortel's products that
has led to success in the marketplace.

I will give an overview of Nortel, the Advanced Technology Program and
CDG's role as a "core competency".  Through a case study of one
project, I will give a perspective on the variety of research and
design activities we undertake.
                             ____________

                             END MATERIAL

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                             ____________