On the 13th March at 13h30, at the ENS-LSH in Lyon, Parvis René Descartes (Métro Debourg), Alexis Michaud will be talking about tonal languages for the second Conf’Expresso*(Expresso Talk) of the semester . He will provide us with basic notions of tonal typology and then move on to a case study – namely an analysis of Naxi language – (a Burmese-Tibetan language spoken in China).
Click here for tonal experience… (aka: the poster)
You can also check out Alexis’s personal page or the website of his research group.
A summary of the talk will follow. Stay tuned!
* This cycle of talks focuses on introducing ENS students (and others…) to different ways of studying linguistics.
The Expresso Talk generally takes place right after lunch time (around 1 30 pm, hence the need for a nice expresso), provides the eager audience with coffee (thanks to Caroline’s wonderful expresso machine) and scrumptious cakes (thansk to Aliyah’s and Caroline’s talents, mostly). It is rather quick (but more efficient than most afternoon talks) and strives to introduce young and interesting linguists to the world.
For the first one (January 13), Jean-Baptiste Michel (PhD Candidate in the department of Systems biology at Harvard University) explained how English irregular verbs become regular, and how it is possible to find a mathematical model to predict future evolutions. Indeed, the half life of an irregular verb is a simple function of its frequency… You can click here for more detail, and here to check out the poster.
NB: Soon there will be filmed versions of the talks on the ENS website – we shall keep you posted about the wonders of our technicians.
