Phonology
音 韻 學
Fall 2025 Wednesday 14:10-17:00 文學院413
課碼: 1305002
How to find me
James
Myers (麥傑)
Office: 文學院247
Tel: x31506
Email: Lngmyers at the university address (ccu...)
Office hours: Thursday 10-12, or by appointment (made at least 24 hours ahead)
Goals
You will learn to analyze phonological data, understand classic and current theories of phonology, design and run laboratory phonology experiments and corpus analyses, and read and write phonology papers, so that you can contribute to the development of phonological theory and apply its results to your own research.
Readings
There is no textbook. The only readings will be class handouts and the following:
Gussenhoven, Carlos, and Haike Jacobs. 2025. Ch. 5 in Understanding phonology (5th edition). Routledge. [“G&J”]
McCarthy, John J. 2008. Doing Optimality Theory: Applying theory to data. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. [brief selections]
Ohala, John J. 1986. Consumer’s guide to evidence in phonology. Phonology Yearbook 3: 3-26.
Wax Cavallaro, Maya C. 2023. The syllable in domain generalization: Evidence from artificial language learning. Proceedings of the Annual Meetings on Phonology 2023/2024. https://doi.org/10.7275/amphonology.3011
Grading
60% Homeworks (due by 12 noon on the day it is due)
40% Term paper (due 12/24, 5 pm, via email as a font-embedded PDF)
There will be readings every week, including the handout for the following week’s class. Please try to read everything before class, since I want you to help me choose which parts we should focus on (there’s too much to discuss all of it in class)!
Most weeks there will be a set of phonology exercises for homework, due one week after it’s distributed. Some will be ungraded practice questions for in-class discussion, and others will be for grading. You’re strongly encouraged to share ideas with your classmates in this class (not with students who have already taken this class and were told the answers!), but you have to write up your own answers. The homeworks will be made available via the eCourse2 system shortly before class. Your answers to the graded questions must be uploaded to the system as a Word file or PDF file by 12 noon on the day the homework is due. Name your file HWX_ID_Name (e.g. HW01_1234567_麥傑 or HW01_1234567_James) and include the same information in the actual text, at the top of the first page. I’ll send you feedback on your homework via the eCourse2 system.
To make sure that the homeworks were done solely by human minds (no AI at all, sorry!), each week a student will be chosen at random to explain his or her answers in class. (Doesn’t AI make life so much easier...?)
One week we will discuss a short phonology paper. I will lead this discussion, but hopefully everybody will have something to say. The discussion isn’t graded.
The term paper (12 pages maximum, plus references, double-spaced, in English) should solve a theoretical problem posed by a specific phonological pattern in a specific language. You MUST decide on a paper topic by 11/26, when you present an informal ungraded introduction to your research plan.
At the end of the semester (12/17), you’ll give an informal presentation on your research. The presentation is ungraded; the main purpose is for you to get feedback.
The term paper itself is due on 12/24, before 5 pm, as a PDF file emailed to me, with your ID number included in the filename and on the first page. When I grade, I will focus on your academic style, logic, and understanding of the theoretical issues discussed in class.
WARNING #1: Plagiarism (pretending that ideas and words from other people or from AI are your own) is a serious crime and will not be tolerated. Homework or term papers containing plagiarism will receive a score of zero, and you will be reported to the department chair.
WARNING #2: Submit your homework and term paper on time! Unless you have a really good excuse, you will lose 5 points for each day you are late. So don’t make yourself sick working overnight, but get your stuff done early enough.
Other useful phonological resources
General textbooks
Bale, Alan, and Charles Reiss. 2023. Phonology: A formal introduction. MIT Press.
Davenport, Mike, and S. J. Hannahs. 2011. Introducing phonetics and phonology (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.
de Lacy, Paul. 2007. The Cambridge handbook of phonology. Cambridge University Press.
Gussenhoven, Carlos, and Haike Jacobs. 2025. Understanding phonology (5th edition). Routledge.
Hannahs, S. J. and Anna Bosch (eds.) 2017. The Routledge handbook of phonological theory. Routledge.
Hayes, Bruce. 2008. Introductory phonology. Wiley-Blackwell.
Kennedy, Robert. 2016. Phonology: A coursebook. Cambridge University Press.
Kenstowicz, Michael. 1994. Phonology in generative grammar. Blackwell.
Kula, Nancy C., Bert Botma, and Kuniya Nasukawa. 2011. Continuum companion to phonology. Continuum International Publishing Group.
McCarthy, John J. (ed.) 2003. Optimality Theory in phonology: A reader. Wiley-Blackwell.
Odden, David. 2005. Introducing phonology. Cambridge University Press.
Peng, Long. 2013. Analyzing sound patterns: An introduction to phonology. Cambridge University Press.
Roca, Iggy, and Wyn Johnson. 1999. A course in phonology. Blackwell.
Silverman, Daniel. 2006. A critical introduction to phonology: Of sound, mind, and body. London & New York: Continuum.
Sole, Maria-Josep, Patrice Speeter, and Manjari Ohala. 2007. Experimental approaches to phonology. Oxford University Press.
van Oostendorp, Marc, Colin J. Ewen, Elizabeth V. Hume, and Keren Rice. 2011. The Blackwell companion to phonology. John Wiley and Sons.
Zsiga, Elizabeth. 2020. The phonology/phonetics interface. Edinburgh University Press.
Some interesting languages
Brentari, Diane. 2019. Sign language phonology. Cambridge University Press.
Cheng, C.-C. 1973. A synchronic phonology of Mandarin Chinese. Mouton.
Chomsky, Noam, and Morris Halle. 1968. The sound pattern of English. MIT Press.
Chung, Rung-fu (鍾榮富). 1996. The segmental phonology of Southern Min in Taiwan (台灣閩南語的音段). Crane.
Duanmu, San. 2007. The phonology of Standard Chinese (2nd ed). Oxford University Press.
Lin, Yen-Hwei. 2007. The sounds of Chinese. Cambridge University Press.
Schedule
* Marks when something related to your own paper is due
|
Week |
Topic |
Readings (in addition to the handouts) |
|
9/10 |
What’s phonology? |
|
|
9/17 |
Phonological evidence |
Ohala (1986) |
|
9/24 |
Phonetics vs. phonology |
|
|
10/1 |
Features |
Gussenhoven & Jacobs (2025): Ch. 5 on features |
|
10/8 |
Rules and constraints |
McCarthy (2008): How to construct an analysis |
|
10/15 |
Phonology vs. morphology |
|
|
10/22 |
Syllables |
|
|
10/29 |
Tone |
|
|
11/5 |
黃慧娟 presentation |
|
|
11/12 |
Stress and feet |
|
|
11/19 |
Discuss phonology reading |
Wax Cavallaro (2023) |
|
*11/26 |
PAPER TOPICS DUE |
|
|
12/3 |
Phonology above the word |
|
|
12/10 |
Rule ordering and opacity |
|
|
*12/17 |
Presentations [last class] |
|
|
*12/24 |
TERM
PAPER DUE |
|