25th MFM

The 25th Manchester Phonology Meeting was truly special! Not only because of the silver jubilee, but also because of the outstanding weather :-) 28 degrees in May was something very much unexpected -- instead of zipping our jackets up in the cold walls of the Old Dining Hall, we were all gasping for air in T-shirts and tank tops...
The meeting started with a Fringe Workshop organised by the Phonological Theory Agora. We were exploring ternarity in English from various perspectives. This was followed by a delicious meal in the Indian Tiffin Room.

On Thursday May 25th the conference was officially open. Among the highlights, tone and stress patterns, vowel typologies, the use of indexed constraints, morphosyntactic insights into phonology and laryngeal contrasts were prevalent. There were 38 oral presentations and 39 posters. Apart from that, there was a special discussion session concerning typology in phonological research, with presentations by Mark Donohue and Birgit Alber. We were wondering in what ways typological research can help phonologists, as well as what phonological theory and experimentation can do for typology.

Of course the MFM would not exist without the charisma of Patrick Honeybone and without its great social programme (mostly phonological discussions over a beer)! Once again, I confirmed my belief in the unity of phonologists from across the globe despite the fragmentation of our research frameworks and topics. I had a great time discussing syllables, voicing, vowel centralisation, Optimality Theory and other issues with my colleagues from all over Europe, the US and beyond :-)

What's more, this year I became a subject instead of taking my usual role of an experimenter... I participated in an experiment comparing  Italian and Polish preconsonantal vowel duration. The study involved EGG (electroglottography) to measure voicing, and Ultrasound equipment for tongue movements. It was a great experience! Many thanks to Stefano Coretta and Patrycja Strycharczuk from the University of Manchester. I hope the data I produced will serve you well :-D  I provide a small photo session below.

Also, best wishes to Danielle Turton, Xico (Francesc Torres-Tamarit), Edoardo Cavirani, Björn Köhlein, Violeta Martínez-Paricio, Jesús Jiménez, Sławek Zdziebko, Eva Zimmermann, Noam Faust, Bartek Czaplicki and other MFM participants!
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