TurkPhon Reading Group

A reading group for the exchange of knowledge and discussion of ideas relating to Turkic languages and phonological theory between Edinburgh and Uppsala.

About

The TurkPhon Reading Group comes out of the project “The trajectory and distributional typology of phonological change” on which Stephen Nichols and Pavel Iosad at the University of Edinburgh work together with László Károly and Deepthi Gopal at Uppsala University in Sweden.

Using data from various Turkic languages, the project aims to explore issues relating to sound change and phonological theory, including the life cycle of phonological processes. In this same vein, the reading group aims to expose those of us of a phonological bent to more of the literature on Turkic languages and Turcology and, conversely, to help those of us more well-versed in Turcology to become more familiar with the broader phonological literature.

When and where

The reading group is run entirely online via Zoom. It is open to any and all interested staff and postgraduate students from both the University of Edinburgh and Uppsala University. We currently meet more or less every 3 weeks on a Tuesday, usually at 11:30–12:30 in the UK/12:30–13:30 in Sweden.

Contact and mailing list

If you would like to take part or have any questions, get in touch.

Information on our meetings is disseminated via our mailing list:

Readings

2026.03.03

Pycha, Anne. 2009. Lengthened affricates as a test case for the phonetics–phonology interface. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 39(1): 1–31. DOI https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025100308003666

2026.02.10

Obiri-Yeboah, Michael & Ezer Rasin. 2025. Productive phrasal opacity in Gua: A challenge to Stratal Optimality Theory. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 43, 479–508. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-024-09615-7

2026.01.20

Canalis, Stefano & Furkan Dikmen. 2020. Turkish palatalized consonants. Proceedings of the Workshop on Turkic and Languages in Contact with Turkic 5: 41–55. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3765/ptu.v5i1.4781

2025.12.16

Ladd, D. Robert. 2006. “Distinctive phones” in surface representation. In Louis Goldstein, D. H. Whalen & Catherine T. Best (eds.) Laboratory Phonology 8, 3–26. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. URL: http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~bob/PAPERS/lp8.pdf

2025.11.25

Washington, Jonathan North. 2024. Vowel harmony in Turkic languages. In Nancy A. Ritter & Harry van der Hulst (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Vowel Harmony, 741–73. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198826804.013.59

2025.11.04

Esling, John. 2017. The laryngeal articulator’s influence on voice quality and vowel quality. In Chiara Bertini et al. (eds.) Social and Biological Factors in Speech Variation, Vol. 3, 13–26. Milan: Officinaventuno. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17469/O2103AISV000001

Esposito, Christina M. & Sameer ud Dowla Khan. 2020. The cross‐linguistic patterns of phonation types. Language and Linguistics Compass 14(12): e12392. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/lnc3.12392

2025.10.14

Hopkins, Elizabeth & Bert Vaux. 2024. The emergence of vowel harmony in Armenian dialects: Turkic influence, endogeny, or both? Journal of Linguistic Variation 25(2): 306–345. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.23049.hop

2025.05.20

Napoleão de Souza, Ricardo & Kaius Sinnemäki. 2022. Beyond Segment Inventories: Phonological Complexity Measures and Suprasegmental Variables in Contact Situations. Journal of Language Contact 15: 439–80. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-15030001

2025.04.29

Egorov, Ilya M., Anna V. Dybo & Alexei S. Kassian. 2022. Phylogeny of the Turkic Languages Inferred from Basic Vocabulary: Limitations of the Lexicostatistical Methods in an Intensive Contact Situation. Journal of Language Evolution 7(1): 16–39. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jole/lzac006

2025.04.01

Demir, Neşe. 2022. Vowel harmony in Laz Turkish: a case study in language contact and language change. Linguistics Vanguard 8(s5): 531–43. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2021-0055

2025.03.11

Hyman, Larry M. 2008. Universals in phonology. The Linguistic Review 25(1–2): 83–137. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/TLIR.2008.003

2025.02.18

Washington, Jonathan North. 2019. An Investigation of the Articulatory Correlates of Vowel Anteriority in Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Turkish using Ultrasound Tongue Imaging. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 2(1): 219–28. URL: https://repository.upenn.edu/entities/publication/f7195a59-89ce-4a17-a292-20a28b5e2672 [alternative: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/219381037.pdf]

2025.01.28

McCollum, Adam, Karthik Durvasula & Xiayimaierdan Abudushalamu. 2024. O gradience, where art thou? Examining backness harmony in Uyghur. Rutgers University and Michigan State University, ms. URL: https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/007939

2025.01.07

Kiparsky, Paul. 1982 [1973]. How abstract is Phonology? In Paul Kiparsky, Explanation in Phonology, ch. 6, 119–163. Dordrecht: Foris. URL: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783111666242/html [alternative: https://www.proquest.com/docview/2130984259/AF6F897074B545C9PQ/7?sourcetype=Books]

2024.11.12

Dybo, Anna V. 2020. On the reflexes of Proto-Turkic vowel length in the Turkic languages. Studia Linguistica Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis 132: 121–34. URL: https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=422825 [alternatives: https://ejournals.eu/pliki_artykulu_czasopisma/pelny_tekst/4223ff8b-e0fa-4d78-af18-f3aa3870ecbb/pobierz, https://www.proquest.com/docview/1785518379/fulltextPDF/249AB199CD72474APQ/1?sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals]

2024.10.22

McCollum, Adam G. 2020. Vowel harmony and positional variation in Kyrgyz. Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology 11(1): 25, 1–28. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/labphon.247

2024.10.01

Harrison, K. David & Abigail Kaun. 2001. Patterns, pervasive patterns and feature specification. In T. Alan Hall (ed.), Distinctive Feature Theory, 211–36. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110886672.211 [alternative: https://harrison.domains.swarthmore.edu/Harrison-Kaun-2001.pdf]