HKBU Phonology Laboratory

Phonological Undertakings for Fun

(PUFF, established since 2006)

last updated 16 Mar 2021

PUFF?

PUFF is an unofficial reading group where people interested in phonology could meet. It was founded in the summer of 2006 when Lian Hee arrived at Hong Kong Baptist University and couldn't find people to play with on Saturdays. So he came up with the devious idea of getting students to come to school on weekends.

We usually meet on Saturdays, though PUFF may occasionally be cancelled. At PUFF we serve as sounding boards for one another’s ideas and as a place to explore readings that are interesting to any of our members. This means that we sometimes read material outside of phonology, so perhaps PUFF should really be called CUFF (Curious Undertakings For Fun)

PUFF folks range from the highly trained to the regular undergraduate. Our sessions are thus conducted in plain language with the aim to learn rather than to rush. However, we do try to be rigorous in working through the material carefully. We try to be unafraid of difficulty, but it’s hard to say if we could actually tackle rocket science.

If you’re interested in joining us, please write to hkbuphonologylab@gmail.com

*PUFF will automatically be cancelled in cases of extreme bad weather. Please check weather reports before coming.

PUFFers (in alphabetical order)

Current Active Members
LI, Mingxing (Coord., HKBU Phonology Laboratory; Asst. Prof., Dept. English Language & Literature, HKBU)
LI, Yuting (PhD cand., HKBU)
LIU, Yang (Convener & Tech. Asst., HKBU Phonology Laboratory)
WEE, Lian Hee (Prof., Dept. English Language & Literature, HKBU)

Friends of PUFF
BOK, Denise W.F. (dessert chef, BA Hons., HKBU)
CHAN, Queenie (MA, Simon Fraser Univ.)
CHEN, Yitian Chloe (BA & BEd. Hons., HKBU)
CHENG, Monica C.K. (BA Hons., HKBU)
CHEUNG, Fiona K.M. (BA Hons., HKBU)
CHEUNG, Winnie H.Y.
CHIU, Crystal Y.L. (BA Hons., HKBU)
CHIU, Vera W.L. (BA Hons., HKBU)
CONG, Stella Y. (PhD cand., Michigan State Univ.)
HE, Paul D. (Asst. Prof., Universiti Brunei Darussalam)
KAM, Julian H.Y. (BA Hons., HKBU)
KEUNG, Oasis M.L. (BA & BEd. Hons., HKBU)
KWAN, Kate N.T. (BA Hons., HKBU)
KWOK, Eluz K.Y. (BA Hons., HKBU)
LAU, Joseph (MA, CUHK)
LEUNG, Carol K W. (BA Hons., HKBU)
LIU, Fiona H.P. (BA Hons., HKBU)
LIU, Yuwei (PhD 2017, HKBU)
MOK, Candace (MA, HKBU)
OU, Jinghua (MPhil, PolyUHK)
QIN, Craig (PhD 2016, HKBU)
SAMPATH KUMAR, Srinivas (PhD 2015, HKBU; PhD 2012, English and Foreign Languages Univ.)
TANG, Sze-Wing (Prof. & Chair, Dept. Chinese Language & Literature, CUHK)
TSANG, Jade S.P. (BA Hons., HKBU)
TSE, Crono (CUHK)
TSOI, Ivy K. Y. (BA Hons., HKBU)
WU, Yushan (MA, Shenzhen Univ.)
YIU, Suki S.Y. (PhD 2018, HKU)

Events and Announcements

Mar 19, 2021
Prof. Lian-Hee WEE will lead a discussion on an Introduction to Optimality Theory, with Kristie Wong and Regina Ho as discussants (Time: 16:00, ZOOM link: https://hkbu.zoom.us/j/93736235584).

Feb 15, 2021
Prof. Lian-Hee WEE will lead a discussion on a Quick Revision to IPA and Prosody, with Kristie LK Wong as discussant (Time: 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., ZOOM link: https://hkbu.zoom.us/j/99351971753).

Nov 4, 2019
Marco Pak Yin CHAN will present and lead a discussion on Fernández, Eva M. (2002). 8 Relative clause attachment in bilinguals and monolinguals. Advances in Psychology. 134:187-215.

Oct 28, 2019
Yoyo Pui Yiu TSANG will present and lead a discussion on Nakayama, Mariko, Christopher R. Sears, Yasushi Hino & Stephen J. Lupker (2012) Cross-script phonological priming for Japanese-English bilinguals: Evidence for integrated phonological representations, Language and Cognitive Processes, 27:10, 1563-1583.

Oct 25, 2019
Dr. Emily Haoyan GE of The Open University of Hong Kong will give a talk entitled Processing focus in L1 and L2 speakers of English: a visual world eye-tracking.

Oct 21, 2019
Ann Wai Huen TO will present and lead a discussion on Fox, Robert A. and James Unkefer (1985) The effect of lexical status on the perception of tone. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 13(1): 69-90.

Oct 14-15, 2019
Dr. Li Mingxing will introduce the use of Paradigm for experiment programming and data collection.

Sep 2-3, 2019
Mr. Junhui TONG (Technical Manager) and Mr. Rui CHEN (Technical Engineer) from Beijing Brain Vision Science and Technology Co. Ltd (SR Research China Representative), will give a 2-day workshop EyeLink Portable Duo: Hardware and Software Installation and Training.

Jul 11, 2019
Dr. Mingxing Li will introduce the facility update in the lab at 4:30 p.m., followed by an informal discussion on experimental studies of language. As a special guest, Prof. Jie Zhang (The University of Kansas) will join the event.

Jun 11-12, 2019
Mr. Junhui TONG, technical manager from Beijing Brain Vision Science and Technology Co. Ltd (SR Research China Representative), will give a 2-day workshop EyeLink Portable Duo: Hardware and Software Installation and Training.

Sep 20, 2018
Dr. Li Mingxing of HKBU Department of English Language and Literature will present during a workshop on doing statistics using R (an introduction to Mixed Effects Models).

Sep 6, 2018
Dr. Li Mingxing of HKBU Department of English Language and Literature will present during a workshop on experiment software (Paradigm).

Aug 14, 2018
Ms. Yoeng Daai-Syut from Capital Normal University will give a talk on Tibetan dialects studies entitled "西藏語文法與現代藏語方言研究——以甘南洛大藏語為例"

Dec 5, 2017
Professor John Alderete of Simon Fraser University will join our latest session, sharing insights on linguistics and research in general.

Jan 11, 2017
Yang V. LIU and Yuting LI will do a demostration for the workshop on Sorting Prosodic Data Using SSAnova in R.

Oct 13, 2016
Prof. James Myers (National Chung Cheng University) will give a talk on The Logistics of Meta-Megastudies.

Mar - May, 2015 (Now on Hiatus)
Lian Hee leads an exploration in basic syntax. Meetings are irregular, please email hkbuphonologylab@gmail.com if interested.

**PUFF takes a long hiatus**

Nov 2, 2013
Lian Hee will lead a discussion based on Hyman, Larry M. (2006) Word-Prosodic Typology. Phonology 23, 225-257.

Oct 12-Nov 2, 2013
Joseph will lead a discussion of Yip, Moira (2002) Tone, Ch 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Oct 5, 2013
Lian Hee will lead a discussion of McCawley, James (1978) What is a Tone Language? In Victoria Fromkin (ed.), Tone: a linguistic survey, 113-132. New York: Academic Press.

Sept 21, 2013
Srinivas will lead a discussion of Revithiadou, Anthi (2004) The Iambic/Trochaic Law Revisited: Lengthening and Shortening in Trochaic Systems. In Boban Arsenijevic, Noureddine Elouazizi, Martin Salzmann and Mark de Vos (eds.), Leiden Working Papers in Linguistics vol. 1, 37-62. ULCL, Leiden.

Aug 24-Sept 14, 2013
Suki and Craig will lead a discussion of Kager, René (1993) Alternatives to the Iambic-Trochaic Law. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 11(3), 381-432.

Jul 13, 2013
Yang will present Deutsch, Diana (2003) Phantom Words, and Other Curiosities. Philomel Records, Inc. [compact disc]

Jun 15 & 20, 2013
Candace will lead a discussion of Kentowicz, Michael J. (2012) Cantonese Loanwords: Conflicting Faithfulness in VC Rime Constraints. To appear in Special issue on Loanwords Phonology, Catalan Journal of Linguistics.

Jun 1, 8 & Aug 3, 2013
Suki will lead a discussion of Hayes, Bruce (1985) Iambic and trochaic rhythm in stress rules. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting, Berkeley Linguistics Society 11, 429–446.

May 25, 2013
Queenie will lead a discussion of Huang, C.-T. James (1989) Pro-drop in Chinese: a generalized control theory. In Osvaldo Jaeggli and Ken Safir (eds.), The Null Subject Parameter, 185-214. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

May 11 & 18, 2013
Lian Hee will talk about "Basic Music for linguists".

Apr 20-May 4, 2013
Craig will lead a discussion of Levelt, Clara C. and Ruben van de Vijver (2004) Syllable types in cross-linguistic and developmental grammars. In Rene Kager, Joe Pater & Wim Zonneveld (eds.), Constraints in phonological acquisition, 204-218. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Apr 13, 2013
Lian Hee will present Tonegenesis from Prosody: Lesson from the Chinese-English Instructor.

Apr 6, 2013
Jade will lead a discussion of Wang, Wenyu and Quifang Wen (2002) L1 Use in the L2 Composing Process: An Exploratory Study of 16 Chinese EFL Writers. Journal of Second Language Writing 11, 225-246.

March 30, 2013
Srinivas will lead a discussion based on Zec, Draga (1995) Sonority Constraints on Syllable Structure. Phonology, 12(1), 85-129 and Rosenthall, Sam and Harry van der Hulst (1999) Weight-by-Position by Position. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 17(3), 499-540.

Mar 16, 2013
PUFF cancelled due to WOC13.

Mar 9, 2013
Suki will give a dry-run for the WOC13 presentation.

Mar 2, 2013
Candace will give an introduction to the electroglottograph.

Feb 23, 2013
Craig and Jade will both give a dry-run of their open seminar presentations.

Jan 26 & Feb 2, 2013
Special Session: Research Workshop for MALS (registrants only).

Jan 19 & Feb 16, 2013
Queenie will lead a discussion of Huang, James (1988) Wo Pao de Kuai and Chinese Phrase Structure. Language 64(2), 274-311.

Jan 12, 2013
Queenie will present her work on Verb-Resultative Compounds in Hong Kong English.

Jan 5, 2013
Jade will present her work on Cognitive Perspective of the Usage of Logical Connectors.

Dec 22 & 29, 2012
Craig will present his work on Metamorphosis of Second Language and Social-Psychological Constraints.

Dec 15, 2012
Srinivas will lead a discussion on Polish Yers in Harmonic Serialism.

Dec 1, 2012
Jade will present her dissertation entitled A Study of Chinese University Students' Usage of Logical Connectors in English Argumentations, Descriptions and Narrations.

Nov 24, 2012
PUFF resumes at the new HKBU Phonology Lab (OEM708).
Liu Yang takes over as convener of PUFF. We thank Suki for her services.
Srinivas will lead a discussion on the topic of From Syllabification to Syllable Structure.

**PUFF takes a long hiatus**

Jul 9 & 16, 2011
Srinivas will lead a discussion on Candidate Chains (McCarthy, paper to be decided).

Jul 2, 2011
Suki will lead a discussion on Harmonic Serialism (tentatively based on McCarthy (2011) Autosegmental spreading in Optimality Theory).

Jun 25, 2011
Yushan will lead a discussion on Cai (2005) Syllable Structure: evidence from 3 Beijing fanqie languages

Jun 18, 2011
Srinivas will present some Polish data that presents challenges for Wee (2004) Inter-tier Correspondence Theory (sources to be announced).

Jun 11, 2011
Suki will lead a discussion of Fukazawa (2001) Local Conjunction and Extending Sympathy Theory: OCP Effects in Yucatec Maya. In Linda Lombardi (ed.) Segmental Phonology in OT.

Apr 30, May 7 & 21, 2011
Mingxing will lead a discussion on Stratal OT (Kiparsky, paper to be decided).

Apr 23, 2011
Lian-Hee will lead a discussion on Sympathy (McCarthy 1998, 2000).

Apr 2 & 9, 2011
Winnie will lead a discussion on Benua (1998) Transderivational Identity: Phonological Relations between Words

Mar 5-19, 2011
Srinivas will talk about the notions Strict Cyclicity, Bracket Erasure, Non-Derived Environment Blocking, and Derived Environment Effects.

Feb 26, 2011
Lian-Hee will give a dry-run presentation of Opacity isn't so Bad for OT.

Feb 19, 2011
Lian-Hee will lead a discussion of Bagemihl (1995) Play Languages and Related Issues. In J. Goldsmith (ed) The Handbook of Phonological Theory, Blackwell.

Jan 29 & Feb 12, 2011
Srinivas will lead a discussion of Pater, Joe (2008) Morpheme-specific Phonology: Constraint Indexation and Inconsistency Resolution. In Steve Parker (ed.) Phonological Argumentation: Essays on Evidence and Motivation. [slides]

Starting this June 2010, Suki will serve as PUFF convener! We thank Monica for her dedicated service over the last year.

Jun 17 & 24, 2010
Suki will lead a discussion of Yip, Moira (1989) Contour Tones. Phonology 6, 149-174.

Jan 23, 2010
Suki will lead a discussion of Gussenhoven, Carlos (2004) The phonology of tone and intonation, chapter 4. Cambridge University Press.

Jan 16, 2010
Monica will lead  a discussion of Bickmore, Lee (2000)  Downstep and fusion in Namwanga. Phonology 17, 297-331

Jan 9, 2010 (Happy New Year!!)
Fiona will lead  a discussion of Nelson (1998) Mixed anchoring in French Hypocoristic Formation. RuLing Papers 1, 185-199.

Nov 28 - Dec 26, 2009
Puff will not meet for this period of time due to a combination of examinations, Christmas holidays and Lian-Hee's travel obligations.

Nov 21, 2009
Lian-Hee will present his recent research entitled If tones had weights... There is nothing to read in advance.

Nov 14, 2009
PUFF will join WOC-9 at HKUST (For details see, http://www.swtang.net/woc2009.php).

Oct 31, 2009
Suki will lead a discussion of Knight & Nolan (2006). The effect of pitch span on intonational plateaux. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 36, 21 - 38.

Oct 17, 2009
Monica will lead a discussion of Kubozono (1989) Syntactic and Rhythmic Effects on Downstep in Japanese.  Phonology 6, 39-67.

Sep 26, 2009
Suki will lead a discussion of NG, E-Ching (2009) Non-Plateaus, Non-Tonal Heads Tone assignment in Colloquial Singaporean English.  (Available at http://pantheon.yale.edu/~en27/present/2009_assigntone_cls.pdf)

Sep 19, 2009
Special discussion on the Generative tradition of linguistics. Please read this and devote some time to thinking or researching some the ideas contained there in advance.

Sep 12, 2009
Monica will lead a discussion of Ng, E-Ching (2009) Chinese meets Malay meets English: The origins of Colloquial Singaporean English tone.

Jul 11, 2009
Lian-Hee will present Teaching Linguistics to those Thinking of Something Else. This is a dry run of a talk he will deliver at the "Teaching Linguistics" Conference in  Konstanz, Jul 20-22, 2009.

Also, we will have special guests from Canada. They are Dr. Jeff Thomas Meuhlbauer (Univ. of Manitoba), Dr Clare Elizabeth Cook and Shujun Chin (Univ. of British Columbia). They will talk to us about their research and experiences. It would be a very valuable opportunity to interact with scholars outside of Hong Kong..

Jul 4, 2009
Vera presents Jyutping: say hi to Jyutping

Jun 27, 2009
Lian-Hee will present Wang, J (2002) An OT Analysis of Neutral Tones in Three Chinese Dialects. Linguistic Science, vol.1:78-85.

Jun 20, 2009
Last year on Jun 23, Prof Wang Jialing passed away. Prof. Wang was a great teacher and linguist. This PUFF session is dedicated to his memory. Li Mingxing, one of Prof Wang's students, presents a paper Wang, J (1997) Representation of the neutral tone in Chinese Putonghua. In Wang and Smith eds. Studies in Chinese Phonology.

May 23, 2009
Lian Hee gives a dry run of a talk he's going to give as part of an upcoming PhD application recruitment drive in Taiwan. The talk is entitled The Artificial Boundary of Humanities and Science: Arguments from Linguistics and Literature.

May 2, 2009
Chloe will lead a discussion on Mohanan's Relativizing the force of rational conclusions.

Apr 11, 2009
Winnie presents Truckenbrodt (2007) The Syntax-Phonology Interface. In Paul de Lacy (ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of Phonology, Chapter 18. Cambridge University Press.

Mar 28, 2009
Eluz presents her honours project on Deletion of schwa in HKE "-ary" sequences.

Mar 21, 2009
Oasis leads a discussion. Gess, R. (2004). Phonetics, phonology and phonological change in Optimality Theory: Another look at the reduction of three-consonant sequences in Late Latin. International Journal of Latin & Romance Linguistics 16(1), 21-41. Paper available online from HKBU library.

Mar 13-15, 2009
There's a postgraduate forum during the above date at PolyU featuring presentations from postgraduate students from many different countries.

Feb 21, 2009
We are very pleased to announce that Professor Sze-wing Tang of PolyU has joined PUFF. To access Sze-wing's works, please click on his name in the PUFFers list for his webpage.

Suki  will lead a discussion of Duanmu, S. (2002). Two theories of onset clusters. Chinese Phonology 11 (Special issue: glides, syllable and tone), 97-120. (PDF file, Appendix).

Jan 31, 2009 (First talk for the Year of the Ox, SUPER FEATURE)
Mingxing will present his recent research on Minimal Faithfulness to Lexical Tone: Cases from Chinese Tonal Neutralization.
This paper has been accepted for presentation at the incredibly  prestigious GLOW 2009 (France). We congratulate him on two such amazing achievements. 

Jan 24, 2009 (Chinese New Year Eve Special!!)
Monica  will present her recent research on Phonological Correlates: Structural versus Non-Structural Ambiguity.

We have a new facebook page. Join the group for access to other fun things there!

Jan 17, 2009 (New Year Special!!)
Mingxing will present his recent research on Interaction of Preferences for Distinct Contrast: Cases from Mandarin Chinese. This paper has been accepted for presentation at  the very prestigious GLOW in Asia 2009. 

Jan 3, 2009
In this meeting we will explore notions of grammaticality and universality. Nothing to read in advance, but come prepared for a discussion.

Dec 27, 2008
Eluz will lead a discussion of Fun (2005). Available for download here.

Dec 6, 2008
Ying Ying Tan (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) will talk to us on the topic A cyclical Phonological Exercise: Tone Sandhi in Chaozhou (Chiuchow). Handouts will be distributed. Dinner will be held in Ying Ying's honor after the session.

Nov 22, 2008
Lian Hee will talk about Chain shifts as evidence for antifaithfulness. Handouts will be distributed.

Nov 15, 2008
Winnie will lead a discussion of her paper entitled Span of high tones in Hong Kong English. Available for download here. 

Nov 8, 2008
Oasis will lead a discussion of Cai (2005). Available for download here.

Oct 18, and Nov 1 2008
Suki will lead a discussion of Hayes, Bruce (1989) Compensatory Lengthening in Moraic Phonology. Linguistic Inquiry 20(2), 253-306.

Oct 11, 2008 
Joanna Sio will talk to us on her research on [aa] in Cantonese.

Sep 27, 2008
We'll explore the idea of Lexicon Optimization in OT.

Sep 20, 2008
Paul He on his research on  'China English' or Native Speaker Based Standard? A Study of College Teachers' and Students' Perceptions of the Ideal Pedagogic Model of College English in Mainland China

Sep 13, 2008
Winnie will lead a discussion of Odden, D. 1995. Tone: African Languages. In J. Goldsmith ed. The handbook of Phonological Theory, Chapter 12. Blackwell.

Aug 30, 2008
The paper under discussion is
Hall, T. 2006. Derived Environment Blocking Effects in Optimality Theory. Natural Languages & Linguistics Theory 24, 803-856.

Aug 23, 2008
Yao Yao (Univ. of Calif., Berkeley)  will address us on the topic: The pronunciation of THE in American English. Yao Yao will also share with us some recent fieldwork studies at UC Berkeley. Dinner will be held in Yao Yao's honor after the session. PUFF begins at 2.30pm this week and will be held in the same OEM1008.

Aug 16, 2008
Today we discuss a very interesting paper:
Yip, Moira (2003) Casting doubt on the onset-rime distinction. Lingua 113(8), 779-816.

Aug 2, 2008
L.H. Wee presents What is kiw-ling (killing) about OT ah? – LL from English in Singapore and Hong Kong. This is a dry run for talk to be given at Centre for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS) Seminar Series, Nanyang Technological University,Singapore, 07 Aug 2008.

Earlier presentations not documented here because the website only began in Aug 2008.