martin J sneath | University of Toronto (original) (raw)

Conference Presentations by martin J sneath

The languages of Turtle Island (North America) had coexisted and in some ways affected each other... more The languages of Turtle Island (North America) had coexisted and in some ways
affected each other long before the arrival of the Europeans. Starting sometime around
the 1500s Europeans began trading along the East Coast. They introduced a language
contact situation that may have affected the existing languages and trade jargons.
Language families such as Iroquoian or Algonquian are how linguists conceive of the
relatedness of languages.
The newly introduced languages, with their Indo-European family roots and
impoverished inflectional systems, would affect and be affected by the many existing
Algonquian and Iroquoian languages with their highly productive morphology and
agglutinating structure.
Areal influences are how linguists describe when different language families come into
contact. These, and borrowings between languages, such as the large number of
indigenous words adopted and adapted into English and French, are further examples of
linguistic contact at work.
Languages change and sometimes change faster when they come in contact with new
languages and when they are transferred to new environs. Did this happen in Upper
Canada ? If so what can we find out about the process and results and will it help us
understand the process of linguistic change ?
I will attempt to reconstruct some of the linguistic

“Contact After Contact: Linguistic Contact on Turtle Island Post Contact”: The languages of Turtl... more “Contact After Contact: Linguistic Contact on Turtle Island Post Contact”: The languages of Turtle Island (North America) had coexisted and in some ways affected each other long before the arrival of the Europeans. Starting sometime around the 1500s Europeans began trading along the East Coast. They introduced a language contact situation that may have affected the existing languages and trade jargons. Language families such as Iroquoian or Algonquian are how linguists conceive of the relatedness of languages.
The newly introduced languages, with their Indo-European family roots and impoverished inflectional systems, would affect and be affected by the many existing Algonquian and Iroquoian languages with their highly productive morphology and agglutinating structure. Areal influences are how linguists describe when different language families come into contact. These, and borrowings between languages, such as the large number of indigenous words adopted and adapted into English and French, are further examples of linguistic contact at work.
Languages change and sometimes change faster when they come in contact with new languages and when they are transferred to new environs. Did this happen in Upper Canada? If so what can we find out about the process and results and will it help us understand the process of linguistic change?
I will attempt to reconstruct some of the linguistic events that marked the contact of the language families and identify any contemporary traces, bearing in mind that the traces of oral cultures are as footprints before the tide. I hope this talk will be of use to all participants interested in Eastern North American languages specifically and linguistics in general.

Emigrants, Isolation, Urban Influx - Variable (ing) in Haliburton, Ontario. Variable ing has bee... more Emigrants, Isolation, Urban Influx - Variable (ing) in Haliburton, Ontario.
Variable ing has been studied since 1958 (Fischer). Researchers have concluded that the variable is
stable although there are correlations with variant usage that may suggest age grading (Abramowicz,
2007, p. 30, Tagliamonte, 2012, p. 187, Hazen 2008, p. 122, 2006, p. 583, Houston 1985, p. 25).
This variable is pronounced three different ways as can be seen from these examples.
a. I was thinking(1) I was thinkin'(2) it had somethin'(2) to do (HAL/V)
b. we were away for traineen(3) um safety training(1) (HAL/U)
This study is based on 1723 tokens from 12 speakers. The data was collected in Haliburton, Ontario
in 2011 as part of the Ontario Dialects Project (Tagliamonte, 2010-2013).
Multivariate regression analyses were performed using Goldvarb (Sankoff, Tagliamonte & Smith,
2005). The tokens were coded for age, gender, number of syllables, part of speech, preceding and
following phonemes.
Methodological opportunities concerning coding for number of syllables and previous phonemes
will be discussed as well as possibilities of patterns based on lexical properties. Coding of phoneme
properties in a manner which is compatible with Goldvarb will also be addressed.
The data was analyzed with and without indefinite pronouns and partitioned by part of speech. It
was expected to show patterns similar to those reported in the literature of the past 55 years and in
internal factors those expectations were met.
Interestingly the external factors of age and gender proved to be the most significant factors
affecting variation. The use of the tense variant (-een or -ing) by young women up to 30 was 88 %
as compared to 25 % for males over 60. Urban patterns of variation were documented including the
introduction of the third variant -een common to urban areas of Canada but not recorded in most
international studies.
References
Abramowicz, Lukasz. (2007). Sociolinguistics Meets Exemplar Theory: Frequency and Recency
Effects in (ing). University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 13(2):27-37.
Fischer, John. (1958). Social influence of a linguistic variant. Word 14:47–56.
Hazen, Kirk. 2006. ‘IN/ING Variable’. In Keith Brown (ed.) Encyclopaedia of Language and
Linguistics, Vol. 5. Oxford, U.K.: Elsevier. 581–584.
Hazen, Kirk. 2008. (ING): A vernacular baseline for Appalachia. American Speech 83: 116–140.
Houston, Ann. 1985. Continuity and Change in English Morphology: the Variable (ing). Doctoral
Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.
Sankoff, David, Tagliamonte, Sali A. & Smith, Eric (2005). Goldvarb X. Department of Linguistics,
University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
http://individual.utoronto.ca/tagliamonte/Goldvarb/GV_index.htm.
Tagliamonte, Sali A. (2010-2013). Transmission and diffusion in Canadian English. Standard Research
Grant #410-101-129. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. (SSHRCC)
Tagliamonte, S. (2012). Variationist sociolinguistics : change, observation, interpretation. Malden,
Ma: Wiley-Blackwell.

The languages of Turtle Island (North America) had coexisted and in some ways affected each oth... more The languages of Turtle Island (North America) had coexisted and in some ways affected each other long before the arrival of the Europeans. Starting sometime around the 1500s Europeans began trading along the East Coast. They introduced a language
contact situation that may have affected the existing languages and trade jargons.

Language families such as Iroquoian or Algonquian are how linguists conceive of the relatedness of languages.

The newly introduced languages, with their Indo-European family roots and impoverished inflectional systems, would affect and be affected by the many existing Algonquian and Iroquoian languages with their highly productive morphology and agglutinating structure.

Areal influences are how linguists describe when different language families come into contact. These, and borrowings between languages, such as the large number of indigenous words adopted and adapted into English and French, are further examples of linguistic contact at work.

Languages change and sometimes change faster when they come in contact with new languages and when they are transferred to new environs. Did this happen in Upper Canada ? If so what can we find out about the process and results and will it help us understand the process of linguistic change ?

I will attempt to reconstruct some of the linguistic events that marked the contact of the language families and identify any contemporary traces, bearing in mind that the traces of oral cultures are as footprints before the tide.

I hope this talk will be of use to all participants interested in Eastern North American

languages specifically and linguistics in general.

"Analysis of variation of the syllable represented orthographically as ing has a long history. On... more "Analysis of variation of the syllable represented orthographically as ing has a long history. One of the
first published sociolinguistic variation studies was presented in the journal of the New York Linguistic
Circle in 1958 (Fischer, 1958) on the topic of (ing) variation in a group of school children. The list of
authors who have since studied the variable and the locations that they have documented and analyzed
it in cover the globe and the 55 years since that publication.
Studies have concluded that the variable is a stable variant although there are correlations with variant
usage that may suggest age grading. (Abramowicz, 2007, p. 30, Tagliamonte, 2012, p. 187, Hazen
2008, p. 122, 2006, p. 583, Houston 1985, p. 25)
This variable is pronounced three different ways as can be seen from these examples.
a. I was thinking(1) I was thinkin'(2) it had somethin'(2) to do (HAL/V)
b. we were away for traineen(3) um safety training(1) (HAL/U)
This study is based on 1723 tokens from 12 speakers. The participants spoke for 40 minutes or longer
and were encouraged, with varying degrees of success, to tell stories which were recorded and
transcribed. The data was collected in Haliburton, Ontario in 2011 as part of the Ontario Dialects
Project (Tagliamonte, 2010-2013).
Many linear regression analyses were performed using Goldvarb (Sankoff, Tagliamonte & Smith,
2005). The tokens were coded for external factors of age and gender. Internal factors analyzed were
number of syllables, part of speech, preceding and following phonemes.
Methodological opportunities concerning coding for number of syllables and previous phonemes will
be discussed as well as possibilities of patterns based on lexical properties. Coding of phoneme
properties in a manner which is compatible with Goldvarb will also be addressed.
The data was analyzed with and without indefinite pronouns and partitioned by part of speech. It was
expected to show patterns similar to those reported in the literature of the past 55 years and in internal
factors those expectations were met.
But the external factors of age and gender proved to be the most significant factors affecting variation.
The use of the tense variation by young women up to 30 was 88 % as compared to 25 % for males over
60.
As well urban patterns of variation were documented including the introduction of the third variant
-een common to urban areas of Canada but not recorded in most international studies was identified.
It would appear that variable (ing) indeed “has much to offer in the differences that might be found
across communities and contexts, and even within the speech communities in which they are found”
(Tagliamonte, 2012, p. 195).
The talk will be accompanied by a computer presentation. It will be of interest to an audience interested
in variationist sociolinguistics.
References
Abramowicz, Lukasz. (2007). Sociolinguistics Meets Exemplar Theory: Frequency and Recency
Effects in (ing). University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 13(2):27-37.
Fischer, John. (1958). Social influence of a linguistic variant. Word 14:47–56.
Hazen, Kirk. 2006. ‘IN/ING Variable’. In Keith Brown (ed.) Encyclopaedia of Language and
Linguistics, Vol. 5. Oxford, U.K.: Elsevier. 581–584.
Hazen, Kirk. 2008. (ING): A vernacular baseline for Appalachia. American Speech 83: 116–140.
Houston, Ann. 1985. Continuity and Change in English Morphology: the Variable (ing). Doctoral
Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.
Sankoff, David, Tagliamonte, Sali A. & Smith, Eric (2005). Goldvarb X. Department of Linguistics,
University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
http://individual.utoronto.ca/tagliamonte/Goldvarb/GV_index.htm.
Tagliamonte, Sali A. (2010-2013). Transmission and diffusion in Canadian English. Standard Research
Grant #410-101-129. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. (SSHRCC)
Tagliamonte, S. (2012). Variationist sociolinguistics : change, observation, interpretation. Malden,
Ma: Wiley-Blackwell."

An Electropalatographic Study of Coarticulation in Serbian Though early writers postulated a str... more An Electropalatographic Study of Coarticulation in Serbian
Though early writers postulated a strict one to one relationship between
segments and sounds it became obvious even before the use of speech recording
devices that neighbouring segments were affecting each other. With the
introduction of recording devices it became easier to identify these effects
and start to analyze the contextual variability in the production of sounds in
connected speech.
Electropalatography is a technique to record the location and timing of tongue
to palate contact. It provides a visual record that can be analyzed much more
thoroughly than other forms of palatography.
I have analyzed coarticulation of lingual consonants in Serbian. I look for
instances of progressive and regressive coarticulation. The paper is based
on data collected from 2 Serbian speakers from a reading passage.
This presentation was presented at University of Ottawa in Fall of 2011.

Though early writers postulated a strict one to one relationship between segments and sounds it... more Though early writers postulated a strict one to one relationship between segments and sounds it became obvious even before the use of speech recording devices that neighbouring segments were affecting each other. With the introduction of recording devices it became easier to identify these effects and start to analyze the contextual variability in the production of sounds in connected speech.

Electropalatography is a technique to record the location and timing of tongue to palate contact. It provides a visual record that can be analyzed much more thoroughly than other forms of palatography.

I have analyzed coarticulation of lingual consonants in Serbian. I look for instances of progressive and regressive coarticulation. The paper is based on data collected from 2 Serbian speakers from a reading passage.

Talks by martin J sneath

Annual Report 2013/2014 JHI by martin J sneath

Workshops Given by martin J sneath

hillside 2014 proposal Non-Confrontational Conflict Mediation Workshop This is an interacti... more hillside 2014 proposal

Non-Confrontational Conflict Mediation Workshop

This is an interactive workshop laying out the sources of conflict, the issues of the mediator, tools available to the mediator and how to achieve successful outcomes.

it is based on the experiences over the last 12 years of the facilitators in their jobs and as volunteers at a number of events. The sources include, but are not limited to, Hillside's own Robin Young. Burning Man, Om festival, Occupy Toronto to name just a few

- Introductions, Icebreakers, Themes for the day
- Exercise for experiencing change and scene survey
- Lecture on framework for conflict mediation
- Demonstration of approach
- Sources of Conflict
- Brainstorming on Empathy
- Group discussion of Trigger Issues
- Conflict Resolution Wrapup - What did we just teach you
- Listening styles - Active and Passive
- Pair up and practice listening styles
- Feedback
- Scenarios if time

Given the large possible variation in number of attendees the above could be too much for 50 minutes. I will have to gauge the workshop as it progresses and remove nice-to-haves if necessary to fit within the timeframe

Workshops Attended by martin J sneath

Drafts by martin J sneath