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From a research
perspective, my general interests are fairly broad - running the gamut of
non-linear phonology, the phonetics-phonology interface, typology, diachronic
change, dialect difference, acquisition and sign language linguistics. Although my past (and some current)
work has primarily been about prosodic organization (see below), much of my
current work concentrates on the following three basic lines of research: 1) The formal relationship between phonetics and
phonology This
focus is born of a belief that although phonetics and phonology inform each
other in complex ways that deserve careful exploration, they are, in fact,
distinct. Thus, any attempt at
explaining patterns of sounds must consider their physical characteristics
(articulatory, acoustic and aerodynamic), their mental representations
(abstract features and structures), and the mapping between the two. This is particularly important when
we consider signed languages, which pose serious challenges to literature/theories
relying on universal features. 2) The role of representation in phonological
theory This
focus stems from a general unease with the current state of affairs in the
phonological literature. Since
the advent of Optimality Theory, the focus has shifted from features,
representations and rules to one of constraints and
constraint-interaction. Although
viewing sound patterns through the lens of constraint-interaction has led to
many advances in the field, it has also distracted us from a number of issues
that are independent of the rules-versus-constraints question. For example, the motivations behind
feature theory and feature geometry, and the problems they were developed to
address, are just as vital and unresolved today as they were ten years
ago. However, not enough work is
being done in these areas. Much of my current research attempts to refine the
phonological features we assume to be universal and to determine their
relationship to one another within the segment. I believe this work will play an important role in better
understanding phonological phenomena and in addressing some of the questions
for which OT currently has no answers. 3) A detailed description of the phonetics and
phonology of Lule Sami (still a
twinkle...) Lule
Sami is one of the Sami languages belonging to the Finno-Ugric language
family. It is spoken primarily
in a region stretching from Luleå in northeastern Sweden to Tysfjord in
northwestern Norway. It is
closely related to neighboring Ume and Pite Sami to the south and Northern
Sami to the north; however, it has several phonological and
morpho-phonological characteristics that distinguish it from its
neighbors. At
present, a complete and systematic description of the phonetics and phonology
of Lule Sami is lacking in the literature. There are only a couple of cursory modern phonological
descriptions (Spiik 1989, Kuoljok 1997), one very broad articulatory
comparison between Lule Sami and Norwegian (Kintel 1992) and several limited (and
related) acoustic studies (Engstrand and Kuoljok 1982, Engstrand 1987a, b, c,
d). It
is vital that a full and systematic phonetic and phonological investigation
of this language be carried out because: ·
There is a lack of a
complete description of the language ·
It has an interesting
segment inventory ·
It has an interesting
set of segment alternations (including what is called “consonant gradation”), ·
It is a language
threatened by extinction (only approximately 1500 speakers and increasing
influence from Northern Sami) Such
an investigation would: ·
Provide a sound
archive (to be made available on the internet) ·
Be a resource for
linguistic study ·
Further our
understanding of the similarities and differences among Sami (and
Finno-Ugric) languages ·
Provide a detailed set
of data that could be used for pedagogical purposes - thus returning
something to the language community Such
a study would also provide a detailed historical record and possibly aid in
language revival efforts. Research
topics and products (for
a full listing, see my CV): 1. Prosodic Organization (segment weight typology, Thai tone, North Germanic
pitch accent) Publications
(prosody) Morén,
B. and E. Zsiga (2006) The Lexical and Post-lexical Phonology of Thai
Tones. Natural Language and
Linguistic Theory. Morén,
B. (2003) Weight Typology: An Optimality Theoretic Approach. The
Linguistic Review 20 “Typology in
Phonology” special issue, pp. 281-304. Miglio,
V. and B. Morén. (2003) Merger Avoidance and Lexical Reconstruction: An
Optimality-Theoretic Model of the Great Vowel Shift. In D. Eric Holt (ed.), Optimality
Theory and Language Change, pp.
191-228. Kluwer Academic Publishers, The Netherlands. Morén,
B. (2001) Distinctiveness, Coercion and Sonority: A Unified Theory of
Weight. Routledge Publishers, New
York, USA. Morén,
B. and E. Zsiga. (2001) Markedness and Lexical Tone in Standard Thai:
Phonetics and Phonology. Proceedings of the 27th Annual Meeting
of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (BLS 27). Berkeley, USA. Morén,
B. (2000) The Puzzle of Kashmiri Stress: Implications for Weight Theory. Phonology 17.3, pp. 365-396. Morén,
B. and V. Miglio. (2000) Issues in Icelandic Phonology: A Unified Approach.
In Gudrún Thórhallsdóttir (ed.), The Nordic Languages and Modern
Linguistics. Vol. 10, pp. 155-168.
Reykjavík, Iceland. Morén,
B. (1999) Syllable Weight Asymmetries in Distinctive and Coercive
Environments. Proceedings of the 29th Meeting of the
Northeastern Linguistics Society (NELS 29). Morén,
B. (1999) Distinctive Moraicity in Two Hungarian Dialects. University of
Maryland Working Papers in Linguistics,
Vol. 8, pp. 294-322. Maryland, USA. Morén,
B. (1998) The Puzzle of Kashmiri Stress. University of Maryland Working Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 7, pp.126-149. Maryland, USA. Morén,
B. (1996) Markedness and Faithfulness Constraints on the Association of
Moras: A Look at Metropolitan New York English. University of Maryland
Working Papers in Linguistics, Vol.
4, pp. 125-151. Maryland, USA. Presentations
(prosody) Morén,
B. (2007) Central Swedish Pitch Accent: a retro approach. The fourth Old
World Conference in Phonology (OCP4), Rhodes, Greece. Morén,
B. (2005) Danish Stød and Eastern Norwegian Pitch Accent: Prosody, Morphology
and Non-tonal Lexical Specification. The 11th Meeting on the
Norwegian Language (11. møte om norsk språk - 11MONS), Bergen, Norway. Morén,
B. (2005) Scandinavian Tones: Back to Basics. Workshop on Tone and Intonation
(±Europe), Konstanz, Germany. [Note: I now disavow the use of
“Scandinavian” to refer exclusively to the North Germanic languages of
Scandinavia. The Sami languages
are not Germanic and yet properly belong to Scandinavia and thus are also
Scandinavian.] Morén,
B. (2005) Danish Stød and Eastern Norwegian Pitch Accent: The Myth of Lexical
Tones. The 13th Manchester Phonology Meeting (MFM13), Manchester,
England. Morén,
B. (2005) The Relationship between Here/Now and There/Then: Synchrony and
Diachrony in Peninsular Scandinavian Pitch Accent. Workshop: Synchrony meets
Diachrony in Phonology. Generative Linguistics in the Old World (GLOW28),
Geneva, Switzerland. [Note: I now disavow the use of “Scandinavian” to
refer exclusively to the North Germanic languages of Scandinavia. The Sami languages are not Germanic
and yet properly belong to Scandinavia and thus are also Scandinavian.] Morén,
B. (2004) The Phonetics and Phonology of Front Vowels in Staten Island
English: When the Traditional Descriptions and the Facts do not Agree. 9th
Conference on Laboratory Phonology (LabPhon9), Illinois, USA. Morén,
B. (2003) When ‘Tense’ is Lax and Lax is Long: A Phonetic and Phonological
Investigation of Front Vowels in Staten Island English. Department of
Linguistics Speaker Series, Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA. Morén,
B. and E. Zsiga. (2003) The Mora is the Tone-bearing Unit in Thai. Annual
Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA 2003), Atlanta, Georgia,
USA. Morén,
B. (1999) Typology, Optimality Theory and a Unified Theory of Weight.
Department of Linguistics Colloquium Series, Georgetown University,
Washington DC, USA. Morén,
B. and E. Zsiga. (2001) Markedness and Lexical Tone in Standard Thai:
Phonetics and Phonology. 27th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley
Linguistics Society (BLS27), Berkeley, California, USA. Morén,
B. (2000) Using Optimality Theory to Re-examine the Nature of Typology: An
Example from Phonological Weight Theory. 4th Utrecht Biannual
Phonology Workshop, Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS, The Netherlands. Miglio,
V. and B. Morén. (2000) Language Change in OT: The Great Vowel Shift. 45th
Annual Meeting of the International Linguistics Association (ILA 2000),
Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA. Morén,
B. (1999) Moraic Faithfulness Constraints and Violations of a ‘Universal’.
Rutgers University/ University of Maryland Phonology Workshop, Baltimore,
Maryland, USA. Morén,
B. (1998) Syllable Weight Asymmetries in Distinctive and Coercive
Environments. 29th Meeting of the Northeastern Linguistics Society
(NELS29), Newark, Delaware, USA. Morén,
B. (1998) Distinctive Moraicity in Two Hungarian Dialects. Annual University
of Maryland Linguistics Student Conference, College Park, Maryland, USA. Morén,
B. and V. Miglio. (1998) A Unified Account of Icelandic Preaspiration and
Spirantization. Xth Conference of Nordic and General Linguistics, Reykjavík,
Iceland. Morén,
B. (1997) Vowel Length and Consonant Weight Dependencies in Three English
Dialects. Major Varieties of English Conference (MAVEN), Växjö, Sweden. Morén, B. (1997) Stress
and Weight Dependencies in Kashmiri. 26th Annual Meeting of the
Linguistics Association of the Southwest (LASSO), Los Angeles, California,
USA. Morén,
B. (1997) Markedness and Faithfulness Constraints on the Association of
Moras: Vowel Length and Consonant Weight in Three English Dialects. Hopkins
Optimality Theory Workshop/ University of Maryland Mayfest (H-OT97),
Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Morén,
B. (1997) A Factorial Typology of Syllable Weight. Rutgers
University/University of Maryland Phonology Workshop, New Brunswick, New
Jersey, USA. Morén,
B. (1997) The Puzzle of Kashmiri Stress. Annual University of Maryland
Linguistics Student Conference, College Park, Maryland, USA. Morén,
B. (1997) Vowel Length and Consonant Weight in Icelandic Stressed Syllables.
Annual University of Maryland Linguistics Student Conference, College Park,
Maryland, USA. Morén,
B. (1996) A Re-analysis of New York æ-Tensing: An OT Approach. Annual
University of Maryland Linguistics Student Conference, College Park,
Maryland, USA. 2. Feature Theory (features, segment-internal
organization, Parallel Structures Model) Publications
(features) Morén,
B. (2007) The Division of Labor between Segment-internal Structure and
Violable Constraints. In M. Krämer, P. Bye, and S. Blaho, eds., 'Freedom of
Analysis?'. Morén,
B. (2006) Consonant-Vowel Interactions in Serbian: Features, Representations
and Constraint Interactions. Lingua. Morén,
B. (2003) Affricates, Palatals and Iotization in Serbian: Representational
Solutions to Longstanding Puzzles. In Erik Egeberg and Tore Nesset (eds.), Poljarnyj
Vestnik 6, pp. 46-70. Tromsø,
Norway. Morén,
B. (2003) The Parallel Structures Model of Feature Geometry. Working
Papers of the Cornell Phonetics Laboratory 15, pp. 194-270. Ithaca, USA. Presentations
(features) Morén,
B. and P. Jurgec (2007) Consonants and Vowels in Slovenian and Serbian:
Phonetic similarities, (morpho)phonological differences and vice versa. 7th
European Conference on Formal Description of Slavic Languages (FDSL-7).
Leipzig, Germany. Morén,
B. (2007) Minimalist/Substance-free Feature Theory: Why and How. 1-week
course at the Eastern European Generative Grammar summer school (EGG). Brno,
the Czech Republic. Morén,
B. (2007) Minimalist/Substance-free Feature Theory: Case Studies and
Implications. 1-week course at the Eastern European Generative Grammar summer
school (EGG). Brno, the Czech Republic. Morén,
B. (2007) Minimalist Phonological Feature Theory: A beginning. Toronto School
of Contrast mini-course. Tromsø, Norway. Morén,
B. (2007) The Parallel Structures Model: A Minimalist Phonological Feature
Theory. Department of English Linguistics and the Theoretical Linguistics
Programme at Eötvös Loránd University. Budapest, Hungary. Morén,
B. (2007) The Parallel Structures Model Approach to Hungarian Vowels.
Department of English Linguistics and the Theoretical Linguistics Programme
at Eötvös Loránd University. Budapest, Hungary. Morén,
B. (2007) The Parallel Structures Model Approach to Hungarian Consonants.
Department of English Linguistics and the Theoretical Linguistics Programme
at Eötvös Loránd University. Budapest, Hungary. Morén,
B. (2007) Phonological Segment Inventories and their Phonetic Variation: a
substance-free approach. Workshop: Segment Inventories. Generative
Linguistics in the Old World (GLOWXXX), Tromsø, Norway. Morén,
B. (2006) How far can we go toward substance-free phonological features and
why? The Phonological Bases of Phonological Features Workshop, Tromsø,
Norway. Morén,
B. (2006) Looking Beyond Harmony: a more complete picture of Hungarian
vowels. 14th Manchester Phonology Meeting (MFM14), Manchester,
England. Morén,
B. (2006) “ATR” Harmony in Ka$lç$N and Nez Perce without [±ATR]: Abstraction, Economy
and Primitives. The third Old World Conference in Phonology (OCP3), Budapest,
Hungary. Morén,
B. (2006) Toward Constructing a Minimalist Phonological Feature Theory. The
Center for Advanced Study in Theoretical Linguistics Colloquium Series.
Tromsø, Norway. Morén,
B. (2005) The Division of Labor between Segment-internal Structure and
Violable Constraints. The workshop on The Freedom of Analysis in phonology,
Tromsø, Norway. Morén,
B. (2005) A Unified Approach to Manner of Articulation in Signed and Spoken
Languages. Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA 2005),
San Francisco, California, USA. Morén,
B. and T. Nessett. (2005) Russian Softening Explained: Phonetics, Phonology
and Morphology Combined. The second Old World Conference in Phonology (OCP2),
Tromsø, Norway. Morén,
B. (2004) Interactions among Phonetics, Phonology and Morphology in Serbian:
Explaining Consonant-Vowel Interactions and Alternations. Annual Meeting of
the Modern Language Association (MLA 2004), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Morén,
B. (2004) A Brief Introduction to the Parallel Structures Model of Feature
Geometry. Reykjavík/CASTL Workshop, Reykjavík, Iceland. Morén,
B. (2004) Accounting for Serbian Consonant-vowel Interactions and
Alternations Using the Parallel Structures Model of Feature Geometry. 12th
Manchester Phonology Meeting (MFM12), Manchester, England. Morén,
B. (2003) The Parallel Structures Model of Feature Geometry: Some
Manner/Major Class Feature Acquisition Predictions. Acquisition of Grammar
Workshop, Tromsø, Norway. Morén,
B. (2003) Featural and Representational Economy: The Parallel Structures
Model of Feature Geometry. Center for Advanced Study in Theoretical
Linguistics (CASTL) Kick-off Conference, Tromsø, Norway. Morén,
B. (2002) Manner of Articulation in Two Modalities: A Unified Approach.
Applied Linguistics Program, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Linguistics
Student Conference, College Park, Maryland, USA. 3. Lule Sami Presentations
(Lule Sami) Morén,
B. (2007) The Importance of Detailed and Multifaceted Data in Analyzing
Allomorphy. 15th Manchester Phonology Meeting (MFM15), Manchester,
England. Morén,
B. (2006) Selected Issues in Lule Sami Phonetics and Phonology: What do we
know and what do we think we know? Sami Linguistics Symposium. Tromsø,
Norway. Morén,
B. (2006) A Planned Phonetic and Phonological Study of Lule Sami. Seminar on
Northern Norwegian Language Relations (Seminar om nordnorske språkforhold),
Tromsø, Norway. Morén,
B. (2006) Participant in the working group on Lule Sami language research.
Conference on Sami Language Research, Health and Social Research, and Culture
and Society Research in the Lule Sami Area. Árran Lule Sami Center, Drag,
Norway. Go to the Top Go to the Bruce's
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Last updated December 2007 -- By the way, my name is pronounced like "more rain" with the stress on the second syllable. |
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