This week we have a special extra edition of Phonology Circle, featuring a talk by Shigeto Kawahara. Please note the special time!
Speaker: Shigeto Kawahara (Rutgers University)
Title: Probing knowledge of similarity through puns
Time: Friday April 17, 4-6pm
Location: 32-D831
This talk outlines the aims, results and future prospects of a general research program which investigates knowledge of similarity through the investigation of Japanese imperfect puns, dajare. I argue that speakers attempt to maximize the similarity between corresponding segments in composing puns, just as in phonology where speakers maximize the similarity between, for example, inputs and outputs. In this sense, we find non-trivial parallels between phonology and pun patterns. I further argue that we can take advantage of these parallels, and use puns to investigate our linguistic knowledge of similarity. To develop these arguments, I start with an overview of the results of some recent projects, and follow that with patterns that provide interesting lines of future research.