Linguistics Department celebrates its 50th anniversary

60 years of instruction in Linguistics at KU!

We ask you to join us in celebrating this 50th anniversary by making a gift to support the Linguistics Department at the University of Kansas.

Your gift will allow us to:

  • Support student travel to scholarly meetings
  • Establish annual student awards
  • Provide funds for student research 
  • Invite prominent linguistis to deliver lectures on campus

For alumni who make a gift, please indivate your degree and your graduation year next to your las name. We are excited to see which cohort has the most Jayhawk pride! 

Donate Here

The Linguistics Department at KU offers a full range of degrees: B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. The first linguistics courses at KU were offered in 1957. In 1968, Linguistics became a department and was authorized to offer a Ph.D. degree. Today, the unique strength of the Linguistics department is the systematic pairing of theoretical and experimental investigations of linguistic knowledge. Its nucleus of full-time faculty members in Linguistics, plus several actively involved faculty members in other departments, serves a student body of about 35 graduate students, 80 undergraduate majors, and many non-majors taking introductory and intermediate courses each semester.

Areas of special strength in the graduate program include Phonetics, Phonology, Syntax, First and Second Language Acquisition, Psycholinguistics, and Neurolinguistics. The department also cooperates with other departments, such as Speech-Language-Hearing, Child Language, Indigenous Nations Studies, Anthropology, Education, and Psychology.

Linguistics Colloquy Schedule

(Thursdays at 4pm in Blake 206)

September 28 Miquel Simonet, Ph.D. (Deptartment of Spanish and Portugese, University of Arizona)


October 19 Masaya Yoshida (Department of Linguistics, Northwestern University)


November 2 Josh Bolick and Ada Emmett (University of Kansas Libraries)


November 16 Charles Redmon (Department of Linguistics, University of Kansas)


November 30 Brittany Williams (Department of Speech-Language-Hearing: Sciences and Disorders, University of Kansas) 

 

Recent Publications

  • Chien, Y.-F., Sereno, J., & Zhang, J. (2016). Priming the representation of Mandarin tone 3 sandhi. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 31(2), 179-189.More»
  • Chien, Y.-F., Sereno, J., & Zhang, J. (in press). What's in a word: Observing the contribution of underlying and surface representations. Language and Speech.More»
  • Connell, K., Tremblay, A., & Zhang, J. (2016). The timing of acoustic vs. perceptual availability of segmental and suprasegmental information. In C. DiCanio, J. Malins, J. Good, K. Michelson, J. Jaeger, & H. Keily (Eds.), Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Tonal Aspects of Languages (pp. 99-102). International Speech Communication Association (ISCA) Archives.More»
  • Connell, K., Hüls, S., Martínez-García, M., Qin, Z., Shin, S., Yan, H., & Tremblay, A. (2016). “Effects of native language on the use of segmental and suprasegmental cues to stress in English word recognition.” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. More»
  • Connelly, P., Minai, U., & Gabriele, A. (2016). Comprehension of Mimetics by Adult Native Speakers of Japanese. Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, 37, 23-41.More» 
  • Darcy, I., Simonet, M., & Tremblay, A. (Eds.). (2016). Special issue: Phonology in the bilingual and bidialectal lexicon. Frontiers in Psychology.More»
  • Fiorentino, R., Naito-Billen, Y., & Minai, U. (2016). Morphological Decomposition in Japanese De-adjectival Nominals: Masked and Overt Priming Evidence. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 45(3), 575-597.More»
  • Fiorentino, R., Naito-Billen, Y., & Minai, U. (2015). Morphological decomposition in de-adjectival nominals in Japanese: Masked and overt priming evidence. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research. More»
  • Gabriele, A., Fiorentino, R., & Covey, L. 2017). Understanding the symptoms and sources of variability in second language sentence processing. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 20(4), 685-686. More»
More Publications
  • Gaillard, S., & Tremblay, A. (2016). Linguistic proficiency assessment in second language acquisition research: The elicited imitation task. Language Learning, 66, 419-447.More»
  • Herd, W., Sereno, J., & Jongman, A. (2015). Cross-modal priming differences between native and nonnative Spanish speakers. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics More»
  • Jongman, A., & McMurray, B. (2017). On invariance: Acoustic input meets listener expectations. In A. Lahiri & S. Kotzor (Eds.), The Speech Processing Lexicon: Neurocognitive and behavioural approaches. Germany: Mouton DeGruyter.More»
  • Johnson, A., Fiorentino, R., & Gabriele, A. (2016). Syntactic constraints and individual differences in native and non-native processing of wh-movement. Frontiers in Psychology, 17.More»
  • Johnson, A., & Minai, U. (2016). Children's knowledge of structure-dependent semantic interactions between logical words. Language Acquisition.More»
  • Klassen, J., Wagner, M., Tremblay, A., & Goad, H. (2016). Prominence shifts in English and Spanish parallel constructions. In Proceedings of the 20th Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue (pp. 76-85).More»
  • Lee, G., & Jongman, A. (2016). Perceptual cues in Korean fricatives. In A. Agwuele & A. Lotto (Eds.), Essays in Speech Processes - Language Production and Perception. United Kingdom: Equinox Publishing.More»
  • Lee, H., & Jongman, A. (2016). A diachronic investigation of the vowels and fricatives in Korean: An acoustic comparison of the Seoul and South Kyungsang dialects. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 46, 157-184.More»
  • Lee, H., Jongman, A., & Zhang, J. (2016). Variation and diachronic change in the nominal pitch accent system of South Kyengsang Korean. Phonology, 33(2), 325-351.More»
  • Lee, H. & Jongman, A. (2015) Acoustic evidence for diachronic sound change in Korean prosody: A comparative study of the Seoul and South Kyungsang dialects. Journal of Phonetics. More»
  • Leung, K., Jongman, A., Wang, Y., & Sereno, J. (2016). Acoustic characteristics of clearly spoken English tense and lax vowels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 140, 45-58.More»  
  • Li, M., & Zhang, J. (in press). Perceptual distinctiveness between dental and palatal sibilants in different vowel contexts and its implication for phonological contrasts. Laboratory Phonology. More»  
  • Liu, J., & Zhang, J. (in press). A production and perception study on tonal neutralization in Nanchang Chinese. Journal of Chinese Linguistics monograph series no. 25: Studies on tonal aspects of languages. More»
  • Liu, J., & Zhang, J. (2016). The effects of talker variability and variances on incidental learning of lexical tones. In C. DiCanio, J. Malins, J. Good, K. Michelson, J. Jaeger, & H. Keily (Eds.), Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Tonal Aspects of Languages (pp. 23-27). International Speech Communication Association (ISCA) Archives. More»
  • McKenzie, A. (2016). Switch-Reference. In Oxford Bibliographies in Linguistics.More»
  • McKenzie, A., & Newkirk, L. (2016). "Almost" as a variable-force modal. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (pp. 299-308). More»
  • McMurray, B., & Jongman, A. (2016). What comes after [f]? Prediction in speech results from data explanatory processes. Psychological Science, 27(1), 43-52. More»
  • Minai, U. (2017). Yooji-no imikaishaku-wa naze otona-no sore-to-wa kotonarunoka. [Why children's meaning comprehension differs from adults' meaning comprehension]. In K.-I Takami & I. Gyoda (Eds.), Hushigi-ni michi-ta kotoba-no sekai. [The world of language, full of wonder]. (pp. 68-71). Tokyo, Japan: Kaitakusha Publishing Company. More»
  • Minai, U., & Nadtochiy, N. (2017). Native and non-native comprehension of the Japanese existential quantifier nanko-ka. In M. Nakayama & Y.-C. Su, Language Acquisition and Language Disorders series. Studies in Chinese and Japanese Language Acquisition (pp. 197- 219). John Benjamins. More»
  • Minai, U., Gustafson, K., Fiorentino, R., Jongman, A., & Sereno, J. (2017). Fetal rhythm-based language discrimination: A biomagnetometry study. NeuroReport, 28(10), 561-564. More»
  • Minai, U., Isobe, M. & Reiko, O. (2015). Acquisition and use of linguistic knowledge: scrambling in child Japanese as a test case. Journal of Psycholinguistics Research. More»
  • Peter, L., Hirata-Edds, T., Feeling, D., Kirk, Wyman, Mackey, R., & Duncan, P. T. (2017). The Cherokee Nation immersion school as a translanguaging space. Journal of American Indian Education, 56(1), 5-31​.More»
  • Politzer-Ahles, S., & Zhang, J. (in press). Evidence for the role of tone sandhi in Mandarin speech production. Journal of Chinese Linguistics monograph series no. 25: Studies on tonal aspects of languages.More»
  • Pye, C. & Pfeiler, B. (2017). A comparative study of the acquisition of nominative and ergative agreement in European and Mayan languages. In Diane Massam, Lisa Travis and Jessica Coon (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Ergativity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.More»
  • Pye, C. (in press). The Comparative Method of Language Acquisition Research, University of Chicago Press.More»
  • Pye, C., Pfeiler, B., & Mateo, P. (2017). The acquisition of negation in three Mayan languages. Estudios de Cultura Maya 49, 227-246.More»
  • Pye, C., Pfeiler, B., & Mateo, P. (2017). The acquisition of Mayan languages. In Nora England, Judith Aissen and Roberto Zavala (Eds.), Handbook of Mayan Languages, 19-42, London, Routledge. More»
  • Pye, C. (2016). Mayan Negation Cycles. In Elly van Gelderen (ed.), Cyclical Change Continued, 219-247. Amsterdam:  John Benjamins.More»
  • Qin. Z., Chien, Y.F., & Tremblay, A. (2016). Second language processing of English stress by Mandarin-speaking learners. Applied Psycholinguistics. pp. 1-30, doi: 10.1017/S0142716416000321. More»
  • Qin, Z., & Jongman, A. (2016). Does second language experience modulate perception of tones in a third language? Language and Speech, 59(3), 318-338. More»
  • Qin, Z., Chien, Y.F., & Tremblay, A. (2017). Processing of word-level stress by Mandarin-Speaking second-language learners of English. Applied Psycholinguistics, 38(3), 541-570. More»
  • Reichle, R. V., Tremblay, A., & Coughlin, C. E. (2016). Working memory capacity in L2 processing. Probus, 28, 29-55.More»
  • Sereno, J., Lammers, L., & Jongman, A. (2016). The relative contribution of segments and intonation to the perception of foreign-accented speech. Applied Psycholinguistics, 37, 303-322. More»
  • Sereno, J. (in press). How category learning occurs in adults and children. In A. Lahiri & S. Kotzor, The Speech Processing Lexicon: Neurocognitive and behavioural approaches. De Gruyter Mouton. More»
  • Tang, L., Hannah, B., Jongman, A., Sereno, J., Wang, Y., & Hamarneh, G. (2015). Examining visible articulatory features in clear and plain speech., Speech Communications. More» 
  • Tremblay, A., & Coughlin, C. E. (2017). Cue-weighting mechanism and bilingualism. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 20(4), 708-709. More»
  • Tremblay, A., Namjoshi, J., Spinelli, E., Broersma, M., Cho, T., Kim, S., Martínez-García, M. T., & Connell, K. (2017). “Experience with a second language affects the use of fundamental frequency in speech segmentation.” PLOS One. More»
  • Tremblay, A. (2016). Linguistic convergence/divergence or degree of bilingualism? Journal of French Language Studies, 26, 167-170. More»
  • Tremblay, A., Broersma, M., Coughlin, C. E., & Choi, J. (2016). Effects of native language on the learning of fundamental frequency in second-language speech segmentation. Frontiers in Psychology,  7,  985. More»  
  • Wang, Y., Jongman, A., & Sereno, J. A. (in press). L2 Acquisition of Chinese Tone. In R. Sybesma, W. Behr, Y. Gu, Z. Handel, C.-T. Huang, & J. Meyers, Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics (ECLL). Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics. Brill Publishers. More»
  • Yakup, M., & Sereno, J. A. (2016). Acoustic correlates of lexical stress in Uyghur. Journal of the International Phonetics Association, 46(1), 61-77. More»
  • Yan, H., & Zhang, J. (2016). Pattern substitution in Wuxi tone sandhi and its implication for phonological learning. International Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 3(1), 1-45.More»  
  • Zhang, J. (2017). Review of The phonology of Standard Chinese, 2nd edition, by San Duanmu, Oxford University Press, 2007 Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 47(1). More»
  • Zhang, J. (2016). Using nonce-probe tests and auditory priming to investigate speakers’ phonological knowledge of tone sandhi. In C. DiCanio, J. Malins, J. Good, K. Michelson, J. Jaeger, & H. Keily (Eds.), Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Tonal Aspects of Languages (pp. 12-18). International Speech Communication Association (ISCA) Archives. More»
  • Zhang, J., & Liu, J. (2016). The productivity of variable disyllabic tone sandhi in Tianjin Chinese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics, 25(1), 1-35. More»
  • Zhang, J., & Meng, Y. (2016). Structure-dependent tone sandhi in real and nonce words in Shanghai Wu. Journal of Phonetics, 54(1), 169-201. More» 

Read more

 

 

Graduate Student Presentations

  • Chien, Y-F., Fiorentino, R., Yang, X., & Sereno, J. (2016). Surface phonetic or underlying phonological representations: A mismatch negativity study of Mandarin tone assimilation. Poster presented at the 5th Joint Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and Acoustical Society of Japan. Honolulu, HI. More>>
  • Connell K., Hüls S., Martínez-García, M.-T., Qin Z., Shin S., Yan H., & Tremblay, A. (2016). Effects of Native Language on the Use of Segmental and Suprasegmental Cues to Stress in English Word Recognition: An Eye-Tracking Study. Paper presented at the 5th  joint meeting Acoustical Society of America and Acoustical Society of Japan, Honolulu, HI. More>>
  • Connell, K., Tremblay, A., & Zhang, J. (2016). “The timing of acoustic vs. perceptual availability of segmental and suprasegmental information.” Poster presented at the 2016 Tonal Aspects of Language Conference. Buffalo, NY. More>>
  • Connell K., Hüls S., Martínez-García, M.-T., Qin Z., Shin S., Yan H., & Tremblay, A. (2016). Time Course of Chinese and Korean Listeners’ Use of Stress in English Word Recognition. Paper presented at the 8th International Symposium on the Acquisition of Second Language Speech (New Sounds), Denmark. More>>
  • Covey, L., Gabriele, A., & Fiorentino, R. (2017). "Investigating island sensitivity in the processing of wh- dependencies: An ERP study." Poster presented at 30th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing. MIT. More>>
  • Covey, L., & Yang, X. (2016, October). An EEG investigation of the role of prediction and individual differences in word-pair semantic priming. Joint presentation given at 2016 KU Cognitive Brain Science Brownbag Talk series. Lawrence, KS. More>>
  • Doherty, J-P. (2017). Pieces of the Periphery. Kansas Linguistics Colloquy Series: Lawrence, KS. More>>
  • Doherty, J-P. (2016). The left periphery of Ibibio. Undergraduate Research Symposium 2016. Lawrence, KS. More>>
  • Duncan, P. T. (2017). When a language is consistently ergative (& how it gets that way). Department of Linguistics Colloquy. Lawrence, KS. More>>
More Presentations
  • Duncan, P. T., & Torrence, H. (2017). Verbal complementizers and the Indirect Agree relation in Ibibio. 91st Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. Austin, TX. More>>
  • Duncan, P. T. (2016). Patterns of case and agreement in Meꞌphaa. Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies Fall Meriendas. Lawrence, KS. More>>
  • Duncan, P. T. (2016). El caso ergativo como caso dependiente y ergatividad sintáctica en K’iche’[Dependent ergative case and syntactic ergativity in K’iche’]. Form and analysis in Mayan Linguistics 4, Saki’ (Valladolid). Yucatán, México. More>>
  • Duncan, P. T. (2016). Parallel chain formation in Ibibio contrastive verb focus. Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Berkeley, CA. More>>
  • Duncan, P. T., Major, T., & Udoinyang, M. (2016). Verb and predicate coordination in Ibibio. 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics: Berkeley, CA. More>>
  • Fiorentino, R., Gabriele, A., & Covey, L. (2016). "Using event-related potentials to examine individual differences in the processing of pronominal reference." Poster presented at 29th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing. University of Florida. More>>
  • Gabriele, A., Covey, L., Feroce, N., & Fiorentino, R. (2017). Individual differences in the processing of pronominal ambiguity in English and Spanish: An ERP investigation. Poster presented at Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics. Georgetown University. More>>
  • Harada, M. (2016). The Existence of Pseudoclefts in Japanese. Poster presented at the Buckeye East Asian Linguistics Forum 2. Columbus, OH. More>>
  • Harada, M. (2016). The Preference of the Pair-List Reading in Japanese Multiple Sluicing. Poster presented at the 12th Workshop on Altaic Formal Linguistics. New Britain, CT. More>>
  • Harada, M. (2016). Sluicing of non-finite clauses in Japanese. Poster presented at the Linguistic Society of America 2016 Annual Meeting. Washington, D.C.. More>>
  • Jongman, A. Qin Z., Sereno, J. & Zhang, J.(2016). JNDs for pitch height and pitch contour for Chinese and American listeners. Paper presented at the 5th joint meeting Acoustical Society of America and Acoustical Society of Japan, Honolulu, HI. More>>
  • Kummer, D. (2017). A ton of planks in plankton: Examining morpho-orthographic decomposition in the early stages of complex word processing. Poster presented at KU Graduate Research Competition: Lawrence, KS. More>>
  • Kummer, D. (2017). Developing constructed language morphology. Guest lecture presented at Wichita State University: Wichita, KS. More>>
  • Kummer, D. (2016). Control and related constructions in Ibibio. Poster presented at 47th meeting of the Annual Conference of African Linguistics:  Berkeley, CA. More>>
  • Leung, K., Redmon, C., Wang, Y., Jongman, A., & Sereno, J. (2016). Cross-linguistics perception of clearly spoken English tense and lax vowels based on auditory, visual, and auditory-visual information. Poster presented at the 5th Joint Meeting of the ASA and ASJ: Honolulu, HI. More>>
  • Li, M. (2017). Sibilant place contrast: Perception, production, typology, and sound change. Spring 2017 Kansas Linguistics Colloquy Series: Lawrence, KS. More>>
  • Li, M., & Zhang, J. (2017). The neutralization of dental and palatal sibilants: a sound change in progress in Xiangtan Chinese. Poster presented at The 91st Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America: Austin, TX. More>>
  • Nakata, K. (2017). Explicit learning of Japanese mimetics using voicing, gemination, and reduplication rules. Presentation at the 2017 Annual Spring Conference of American Association of Japanese Teacher (AATJ): Toronto, Canada. More>>
  • Nakata, K., & Sereno, J. (2016). Second language learners’ (English learners of Japanese) perception of sound symbolism in Japanese mimetic stimuli. Poster -resented at the 2nd Buckeye East Asian Linguistics Forum (BEAL Forum): Columbus, OH. More>>
  • Phom, P., & Redmon, C. (2016). Quantifying the information carried in tonal contrasts in Phom. Poster presented at the 22nd Himalayan Languages Symposium: Guwahati, India. More>>
  • Qin, Z. (2017). How native listeners and adult second-language learners of Chinese process tones in recognition of Chinese spoken words: an eye-tracking study. Department of Linguistics Colloquy and Child Language Proseminar: Lawrence KS. More>>
  • Qin, Z. (2016). How native Chinese listeners process tonal information in recognition of Chinese words: an eye-tracking study. Lab meeting of Center for Brain and Cognitive Science, Peking University, Beijing. More>>
  • Redmon, C. (2016). Acoustic classification of velar fricatives in Assamese. Poster presented at the 171st Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America: Salt Lake City, UT. More>>
  • Redmon, C., & Jongman, A. (2016). Source properties of dorsal fricatives. Poster presented at the 5th Joint Meeting of the ASA and ASJ: Honolulu, HI. More>>
  • Torrence, H., & Duncan, P.T. (2016). Wh-expressions in non-interrogative contexts in Kaqchikel. Society for the Study of Indigenous Language of the Americas. Washington, D.C. More>>
  • Yang, X., Fiorentino, R., & Minai, U. (2017). Context-dependent Meaning Computation: The Role of Question Under Discussion and Individual Differences in Scalar Implicature. Invited presentation at the Child Language Proseminar. Lawrence, KS. More>>
  • Yang, X., Fiorentino, R., & Minai, U. (2017). The role of individual differences in the context-dependent interpretation of ’some’. Poster presented at the 30th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing. Cambridge, MA. More>>
  • Yang, X., & Covey, L., (2016). An EEG investigation of the role of prediction and individual differences in word-pair semantic priming. Joint presentation given at 2016 KU Cognitive Brain Science Brownbag Talk series. Lawrence, KS. More>>
  • Yang, X. (2016). An EEG investigation of the role of prediction and individual differences in word-pair semantic priming. Presentation given at 2016 KU Graduate Research Competition. Lawrence, KS. More>>

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