Cornell Linguistics Department

Abby Cohn

Associate Professor

(PhD, UCLA, 1990)
Department of Linguistics, 203D Morrill Hall, acc4@cornell.edu, 255-1747

Research

My research focuses primarily on phonetics and phonology and their interaction. Often, phonetics and phonology are viewed as distinct areas of study. Yet there is an implicit relationship between phonology --the abstract representation and patterning of sounds as part of a sound system, and phonetics-- the physical output. The nature of this relationship has been at the center of my current research, in which I have investigated both processes and representations within phonology and phonetics. Methodologically Laboratory Phonology has offered new approaches to investigating the interface. With respect to language area, I have a particular interest in Indonesian languages and French.

Graduate Fields Represented: Linguistics, Asian Studies, Cognitive Science, Romance Studies

Teaching

In the past few years, the primary courses I have taught include

Ling 301 - Introduction to Phonetics

Ling 302 - Introduction to Phonology
Ling 401 - Phonology 1
Ling 600 - Field Methods (Balinese)
Ling 604 - Research Workshop
Ling 700 - Seminar in Phonology:
Phonetics vs. Phonology, Theoretical and Experimental Approaches [S04]
Phonemes, Phonemic Awareness, Reading, and Orthography [S05]

Phonology and the Lexicon - co-taught with M. Wagner [S07]

Selected Publications

Cohn, A. (to appear) Laboratory Phonology: Past Successes and Current Questions, Challenges, and Goals. In Laboratory Phonology 10. [pdf]

Cohn, A. (to appear) "Phonological structure and phonetic duration: The role of the mora," to appear in Procee dings of 1st & 2nd North American Phonology Conference. [pdf]

Chitoran, I. and A. Cohn (submitted) Complexity in phonetics and phonology, gradience, categoriality, and naturalness. Submitted to C. Coupe, E. Marsico, F. Pellegrino, I. Chitoran (eds.) Approaches to Phonological Complexity

Cohn, A. (2006) "Is there gradient phonology?" In G. Fanselow, C. Fery, R. Vogel and M. Schlesewsky (eds.) Gradience in Grammar: Generative Perspectives. Oxford: OUP, pp. 25-44. Prepublication version. [pdf]

Cohn, A. (2005) "Truncation in Indonesian: Evidence for violable minimal words and AnchorRight, " Proceeding s of NELS 34, Volume 1, pp. 175-189. [pdf]

Cohn, A. and E. Kishel (2003) "Development of Initial Clusters in American English by Fraternal Twins: An Acoustic Study," 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences Proceedings, pp. 1991-1994. [pdf]

Cohn, A. (2001) "Phonology," In M. Aronoff and J. Rees-Miller (eds.) Handbook of Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwells, pp. 180- 212.

Cohn, A. (1998) "The phonetics-phonology interface revisited: Where's phonetics?" Texas Linguistics Society 1998 Conference Proceedings, pp. 25-40. [pdf]

Selected Working Papers and Talks

Cohn, A. (to appear) "Phonetics in phonology and phonology in phonetics," to appear in Working Papers of the Cornell Phonetics Laboratory 16. [pdf]

Cohn, A. (2007) "The framing of Laboratory phonology and Theoretical Phonology and the Influence of Early Generative Theory," State of the Field Panel, Phonology: An Appraisal of the Field in 2007, LSA meeting Anaheim. [pdf]

Cohn, A. (2007) "The Source of Universals: Features, Segments, and the Nature of Phonological Primitives," Where Do Features Come From?, Paris France, October 2007. [pdf]

Cohn, A., J. Brugman, C. Crawford, and A. Joseph (2006) "Levels of abstractness in phonology and the lexicon: Evidence from English homophones," Haskins Laboratories. [pdf]

Cohn, A. (2006) "Phonological structure of Indonesian abbreviations in 'singkatan,'" keynote address, 10th International Symposium on Malay/Indonesian Linguistics, University of Delaware and Cornell University Southeast Asia Brown Bag series.

Cohn, A and J. McCarthy (1998) "Alignment and parallelism in Indonesian phonology," Working Papers of the Cornell Phonetics Labo ratory 12: 53-137. [Also available from http://roa.rutgers.edu/index.php3 #2 5-0894]