mfm - 28th Manchester Phonology Meeting

The 28th
Manchester Phonology Meeting

CANCELLATION

Due to COVID-19, the mfm has been cancelled.

We aim to hold the 28mfm in May 2021,
with the Special Session and Fringe Workshop which were originally advertised for 2020.

We now expect the dates for the 28mfm to be Thursday 27th - Saturday 29th May 2021,
but will confirm this in due course.

We have written to all abstract-senders about this.
(If you have not heard from us, please get in touch: patrick.honeybone@ed.ac.uk.)

Given that the mfm has been cancelled, the programme for 2020 will not be published.
Abstracts submitted for 2020 may be resubmitted for 2021 (once the call for papers has been released).

With a special session entitled

Second Language Phonology and Phonological Theory

featuring Ellen Broselow, Charles Chang and Ellen Simon

Thursday 28th - Saturday 30th May 2020

Held in Manchester, England.

Organised through a collaboration of phonologists at the University of Edinburgh, the University of Manchester and elsewhere.

For information about the mfm and its history and background, see the mfm homepage.

There will also be a separately-organised Fringe Workshop on Wednesday 27th May entitled

Moraic vs. X-Slot Syllabification: The Debate

organised by Bjoern Koehnlein and Shanti Ulfsbjorninn.

background || call for papers || special session || organisers

Background

[NB: this text is retained here for reference, from the original call for the 28mfm which was sent out in 2019 - we will readvertise the conference once we are confident that we will be able to hold it in May 2021.]

We are pleased to announce the initial plans for our Twenty-Eighth Manchester Phonology Meeting (28mfm). The mfm is the UK's annual phonology conference, with an international set of organisers. It is held in late May every year in Manchester (central in the UK, and with excellent international transport connections). The meeting has become a key conference for phonologists from all over the world, where anyone who declares themselves to be interested in phonology can submit an abstract on anything phonological in any phonological framework. In an informal atmosphere, we discuss a broad range of topics, including the phonological description of languages, issues in phonological theory, aspects of phonological acquisition and implications of phonological change.

The conference will be located just south of the city centre and will be easily accessible by public transport or on foot. Last year, the conference costs (including general conference costs, coffee and biscuits, midday and evening meals, but not accommodation) was GBP 190.00, with a reduction to GBP 95.00 for students and unwaged participants. We expect to charge comparable but maybe somewhat higher fees this year.

If you would like to get a feeling for the conference series, you could take a look at the website for last year's 27mfm, and at the mfm homepage, which includes lots of information about the mfm conference series.

Advice on how best to travel to Manchester and on where to stay will be posted on this website in due course.

Call for papers

There will be a new call for papers once we are confident that we will be able to hold the 28mfm in May 2021.

Special session

A special themed session is being organised for Friday 29th May by members of the organising committee and the advisory board. This will feature invited speakers, as listed below, and will allow for open discussion when contributions from the audience will be very welcome.

Second Language Phonology and Phonological Theory

How do two (or more than two) phonologies interact if they exist in the same mind? Or don't they interact - is each language's phonology kept separate in the grammar? Is there a fundamental difference in these issues if a speaker acquires a second language as a child or as an adult? Can two phonologies ever have equal dominance for a speaker? In what ways, precisely, can an L1 influence an L2? And what happens in language attrition, when an L2 influences an L1? How can the answers to questions like these inform our theories of phonology in general? These are some of the questions that we hope our invited speakers will address in this special session.

Invited speakers

Ellen Broselow (Stony Brook University)

Charles Chang (Boston University)

Ellen Simon (Ghent University)

Organisers

Organising Committee
The first named is the convenor and main organiser - if you have any queries about the conference, feel free to get in touch (patrick.honeybone@ed.ac.uk).

Patrick Honeybone (University of Edinburgh)
Ricardo Bermudez-Otero (University of Manchester)
Patrycja Strycharczuk (University of Manchester)