Conference 2004

Eighth International Columbia School Conference
on the Interaction of Linguistic Form and Meaning with Human Behavior
City College, New York City
February 14-15, 2004

Summary

The Eighth Columbia School Conference took place just one mile from the site of the first conference, back in 1989. It was sponsored by the Columbia School Linguistic Society and by the City College School of Education. It carried on the traditions of previous CS conferences that have worked so well for us: high-quality, research-based presentations on a variety of linguistic topics covering a wide range of languages; stimulating invited speakers; a mix of Columbia School and other compatible functionalist perspectives; the avoidance of concurrent sessions; plenty of time for discussion; and an ambiance conducive both to reunion and the making of new contacts. The Eighth Conference also had two innovations: This was the first conference with a session devoted to applications, with a Sunday afternoon session on Linguistics in Education (The Seventh Conference had a session devoted to phonology). And this was the first two-day, as opposed to three-day, conference.

Papers were presented on grammar, lexicon, phonology, morphology, and sociolinguistics and included analysis of a variety of languages. Authors of papers hailed from four countries and six US states. The session on Linguistics in Education drew students from several academic departments in the metropolitan area and featured model ESL lesson plans based on CS grammar by two masters-degree teaching candidates at the City College School of Education. A display table featured publications by conference participants and information about CSLS and about the CCNY School of Education.

One of our invited speakers was Betty Birner, Associate Professor of English at Northern Illinois University and author of numerous articles and, with Gregory Ward, of Information Status and Noncanonical Word Order in English (1998, Benjamins). Professor Birner spoke on a topic that is central to Columbia School work: inference. During discussion following her presentation, it was clear that she had succeeded in making connections with work being done by other conference participants.

Invited speaker Ricardo Otheguy, Professor of Linguistics at the Graduate Center of CUNY and Director of its RISLUS, is a co-founder of the CS conference series, as well as a founding and charter member of the CSLS, and a former member of the Society's Executive Board. Professor Otheguy accomplished a feat complementary to Professor Birner's: carrying CS thinking into new territory, namely the sociolinguistic study of the use of subject pronouns by speakers of Spanish in New York City.

Several conference participants enjoyed an informal Saturday evening dinner at a local restaurant. Reports are that some of those from out of town were also able to find time over the long holiday weekend to take advantage of some of the countless attractions that New York City has to offer. The Ninth Conference will also be held in the New York area, in 2006.

Program

Saturday, February 14

Welcome: Nancy Stern; Gretchen Johnson, Chair, Department of Childhood Education, School of Education, CCNY
Monosemy vs Polysemy Revisited Wallis Reid (Rutgers University)
Phonology as Human Behavior from an Evolutionary Point of View Yishai Tobin (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)
Resultativeness in English: A Sign-Oriented Approach Marina Gorlach (Metropolitan State College of Denver)
Between you and me: English Pronouns in Conjoined Expressions Nancy Stern (City College)
Articulatory (Sub)gestures as Discrete-Valued Scalars Thomas Eccardt (Independent Scholar)
The Single Pragmatic Meaning of the Mandarin BA-Construction: A Sign-based Analysis Zhuo Jing-Schmidt (University of Cologne)
Structuring Cues Provided by English yet, but, and still Charlene Crupi (Rutgers University)
Summary presentation of two co-authored works: 1. Suprasegmental Features in Normal and Pathological Speech of Buenos Aires Spanish According to the Theory of Phonology as Human Behavior Claudia Enbe (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), Jorge Gurlekian (Laboratorio de Investigaciones Sensoriales, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas), and Yishai Tobin 2. "Non-Vocalization" - A Phonological Error Process in the Speech of Adults with Hearing Impairment - from the Point of View of the Theory of Phonology as Human Behavior Orly Halpern and Yishai Tobin (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)
What Happens with the Meaning when a Lexical Item Extends its Range? The Development of Spanish bueno from Adjective to Discourse Particle Francisco Ocampo (University of Minnesota)
The Morphological Incorporation of Inflectional Meaning in Fusional Languages Mark Elson (University of Virginia)
Kinship Terms and Asymmetrical Animacy in Swahili Ellen Contini-Morava (University of Virginia)

Sunday, February 15

Invited speaker: Ricardo Otheguy (Graduate Center, CUNY) Fishing in the Columbia River: Pronouns, Predictions, and Expeditions
The Development of the Hebrew Vowel System According to the Principles of the Theory of Phonology as Human Behavior Alexey Yuditsky (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)
Invited speaker: Betty Birner (Northern Illinois University) Form, Function, and Inference in English Noncanonical Constructions

Session On Linguistics In Education (3:30-5:45)

Making Grammar Meaningful for Teachers
Joseph Davis (City College) and Betsy Rodriguez-Bachiller (Kean University)

Two Model Lesson Plans for Teaching Meaningful Grammar to Children
Antonio Perez-Espinar, Michele Wan (City College)

A Model Columbia-School ESL Lesson
Alan Huffman (New York City College of Technology, CUNY)

Non-standard like
Robert Leonard and Lisa Gangi (Hofstra University)

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The Conference was sponsored by:
The School of Education, CCNY

The support of The Columbia School Linguistic Society is gratefully acknowledged.

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Conference organizers: Joseph Davis (City College), Nancy Stern (City College), and Yishai Tobin (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)
Thanks to Bob de Jonge (Groningen University) and Michael Kaplan (CSLS)