A happy new year to everybody. Here in Tromsø, the new semester is starting to roll despite the darkness. Many exciting events and news are in the works, and here’s the first of them: on January 13th, Peter Jurgec, interrupting his stay at Rutgers University, where he currently holds the position of a Visiting Professor, will defend his thesis entitled Feature Spreading 2.0: A Unified Theory of Assimilation, preceded by a trial lecture, where he will tell the audience all there is to know about The interaction of tone and intonation in tone languages. The committee includes Laura Downing of Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft in Berlin, Marc van Oostendorp of Meertens Instituut and Leiden University, and our very own Martin Krämer. Read the introduction to Peter’s dissertation here.
As is their wont, the local phonologists will also have a workshop to celebrate Peter’s defense. This will take place on the next day, January 14th, and the program includes local phonologists, the opponents and several other people closely associated with CASTL’s phonology team. Find the program here.