Speaker: Amanda Michel (MIT)
Title: A Variable Account of Norwegian Stress
Time: Tuesday, December 8th, 5pm – 6:30pm
Location: 32-D831
Abstract: The stress system of Norwegian has traditionally been argued to be fixed/predictable with a robust set of exceptions. Much of the analysis of Norwegian stress is based on loanwords, as the inventory of native word shapes is limited. In this talk, I will present my ongoing work with my former advisor (Anya Hogoboom, College of William & Mary). We put forth an alternative account in multiple steps. We first seek to explain stress variability diachronically, looking to the placement of stress on the donor word for a given loanword. We then propose a variable model of the stress phonology utilizing MaxEnt and find that speakers are sensitive to the distribution of stress assignment via a nonce word production experiment.