Current Projects

This page has some information about my various research projects. When I can't figure out how to organize this page (which is often), things appear rather haphazardly, but in something that vaguely resembles reverse chronology. If there are papers or handouts or abstracts available, I've tried to include them as well. However, if you need more information, or if the download is funky, just send me a note .

I. Phonology, generative metrics, and other closely related projects.

A. Review of Gjert Kristoffersen's OUP book The Phonology of Norwegian. My review of Kristoffersen's book will appear in the journal Phonology, and is currently planned for issue 19.3, in 2002. There are a couple of places in the review in which the font SILDoulosIPA-Regular is used, and since it can't be read into pdf files, you'll have to have it on your machine in order to see the correct characters. Click here to download the review; go to Adobe's web site to get Acrobat if you can't read pdf files.

B. Norwegian imperatives and implications for the null parse.
This is a project in its infancy, looking at dialectal variation in how speakers of Norwegian deal with imperatives that present syllabification challenges. An example of such a word is the verb meaning 'to climb' å klatre. The imperative for this verb should be klatr, but that is a problematic syllable, and Norwegians show several different strategies for dealing with it, including avoidance.
I'm exploring this problem in the context of Optimality Theory, and my analysis is relevant to work in that theory in a number of ways. It is an example of microvariation and constraint re-ranking; it is related to the discussion of the null parse (and competing theories, such as control) as strategies for modelling avoidance of certain structures, and it is relevant for discussion of the interface between phonology and morphology.
Different versions of this paper have been presented twice in 2002, first at the Scandinavian Conference on Linguistics, held in Tromsø in January, and then at GLOW, held in Amsterdam, in April. If you're interested, you can download pdf versions of the GLOW abstract and handout A working draft of the paper will appear in the proceedings of SCL.

C. Implications of richness of the base for the analysis of Germanic quantity contrasts
This is a paper I'm currently writing, based on a recent series of presentations (University of Tuebingen colloquium (March 1999), Møte om norsk språk (November 1999), Fourth Utrecht Biannual Phonology Workshop: Typology in Phonology (June, 2000), Tromsø workshop in honor of Patrik Bye's dissertation defense (June, 2001)). The idea is to use the concept of the richness of the base to facilitate an analysis of the different possible implementations of quantity in Norwegian, and to view this in a typological context. An HTML version of the Utrecht handout is here. This paper also extends the angle I take on Norwegian in my paper in the Eurotyp book, Prosodic systems of the languages of Europe, which was published in 2000 by Mouton, and edited by H. van der Hulst.

D. Gererative metrics
I have several papers available in this field, which I hope to get up here soon; until then, just ask . An overview article entitled simply Generative metrics, appeared in GLOT International in 1997. This paper is to be reprinted soon in a book edited by Lisa Cheng and Rint Sybesma. I also have a metrics paper on the implications of variation, which appeared in a 1997 book called Phonology in progress - progress in phonology , edited by Geert Booij & Jeroen van de Weijer, and published by Holland Academic Graphics. I have a paper called Stress clash and metricality which was presented in Toronto in October, 1999, at Formal Approaches to Poetry: Recent Developments in Generative Metrics . This paper is currently being written for a book on generative metrics.

E. Prosodic V2 in Northern Norwegian
This paper, co-authored with Peter Svenonius , is languishing in re-submission. The abstract is available, and a downloadable version of the paper itself is coming soon. (Hard copies available now by request.)

F. Sámi phonology
Although I don't have much to offer here yet, no one in the linguistics environment in Tromsø can stay away from this. I have given at least one conference talk, but the handout has evaporated. Dave Odden and I did field work on Sámi in the spring of 2000, and we envisage some projects emerging from that. Some of that work has recently been presented in Toronto (at MOT) and Berkeley (at TREND). I have supervised two M.A. theses on Sámi phonology (Lisa An Work and Patrik Bye). I also supervised Patrik Bye's dr.art. dissertation on the theoretical implications of an analysis of consonant gradation. I am currently supervising Berit Anne Bals' M.A. thesis on the acquisition of the consonant gradation system in a dialect of North Sami.

G. Old stuff
This is mostly work on stress systems. If there's anything you want, I'll send it to you.

II. Grammatical gender

This is a long-standing interest of mine, originally triggered by my first linguistics teacher, Don Steinmetz.

A. The evolution of gender in English.
An abstract , co-authored with Don Steinmetz , which was presented at GLAC-5 (Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference), April 17, 1999. We also presented a version in Tromsø in May, 2000; a text-heavy handout is available now, and we would be delighted for feedback, since we are currently writing this up for journal submission. If you've been wondering about what happened to gender in English, we're increasingly confident that we know, so do have a look.

B. Optimizing gender
This project considers the possibility of casting a theory of grammatical gender in terms of optimality theory. Available here is an abstract of a talk to be presented at the Second Mediterranean Morphology Meeting in Malta, September 10-12, 1999. [Well, I ended up not making it to Malta – alas – but the paper is in progress.]

C. Gender and inflectional classes
The University of Tromsø hosted a week long course on this topic, aimed primarily at doctoral students. The course was held approximately from May 22-27, 2000. The course on gender was taught by Professor Don Steinmetz (Minneapolis), and the course on inflectional classes was taught by Professor Wurzel (Berlin). Details forthcoming.

D.Old stuff
Coming soon.

III. Language acquisition

A. Language Reacquisition
An abstract , co-authored with Tove Dahl , reflecting a preliminary overview of our reacquisition project. A talk on this topic was presented in November, 1999, at the 8th Møte om norsk språk , which was held in Tromsø . This paper is currently in the final stages of revision, and will appear in Nordlyd this fall. The paper is, alas, in Norwegian, but we have plans for a much expanded English version.

B. Bilingval oppl&aeligring som strategi for flerspr&aringklighet (Bilingual education as a strategy for multilingualism)
This is a proposal for a five year project, currently (summer 2000) under review by the Norwegian Research Council. The core idea is to experiment with having a teacher in a day care or elementary school who speaks only English or German with the children. The inspiration for this proposal is Henning Wode's project at the University of Kiel. We think that this may be a better way to effect bilingualism among Norwegian children. If a second language can be acquired early and relatively painlessly, then a third language can be tackled in elementary school, while children still find it easier to learn languages. This would allow Norway to move in the direction of the EU goal of having European citizens control two foreign languages, and goal which is realized today only by the fewest of these Vikings.
The project description is written in LaTex, and has been converted to HTML here. I've converted it using a program called Tex-->HTML, which isn't nice to those special Norwegian letters, and I haven't fixed them, so there's an extra space after every special symbol (although the German ones seem mysteriously fine). If you have a tip on fixing this globally, don't hold back.