We cover a vast geographic area and a wide range of linguistic families, with an emphasis on endangered languages.
We study rare and complex phonological phenomena such as implosives, bilabial trills, ejectives, voiceless nasals, and whistled fricatives, as well as other types of sounds. We use acoustic, articulatory, aerodynamic and perceptual methods, in conjunction with the cross-cutting theme Methods: Corpus, analytic tools, experimental and computational approaches.
We also aim to identify the structures and principles that are shared across these languages, by focusing on phonological properties related to syllable structure, vowel harmony, nasal harmony, coarticulation, secondary articulations, and tone systems, and on the interface of phonology with morphology and syntax.
By studying a wide range of languages, our research makes it possible to identify similarities and differences in their structures. This work is done in conjunction with the theme Theory: processing and units of representation, and enables us to develop theories and models to explain different phenomena, such as the voiceless nasals of Mbugu and Ikema, vowel harmony in Mongol and Mbugu, or geminate consonants in the Japonic, Romance and Amazigh families.
Research being developed under this theme includes the promising project made possible by an agreement between our laboratory and the University of Mongolia, with the goal of documenting the articulatory movements of the speech sounds of Mongol.