| List of publications | Selected recent talks | Miscellanea |
| Manuscripts in progress | GLOT International columns | Curriculum Vitae (April 2024; pdf 350 KB) |
Dresher, B. Elan and Aditi Lahiri. 2023. Some applications of the Primary Accent First parameter. In Jeroen van de Weijer (ed.), Representing phonological detail: Part II: Syllable, stress and sign, 191–208. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.
Download pdf of the submitted ms. (330 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan and Harry van der Hulst. 2022. Introduction: Leading ideas in phonology. In B. Elan Dresher and Harry van der Hulst (eds.), The Oxford History of Phonology, 1–15. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Download pdf of the submitted ms. (295 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan and Daniel Currie Hall. 2022. Developments leading toward generative phonology. In B. Elan Dresher and Harry van der Hulst (eds.), The Oxford History of Phonology, 372–395. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Dresher, B. Elan and Harry van der Hulst (eds.). 2022. The Oxford History of Phonology, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dresher, B. Elan and Aditi Lahiri. 2022. The foot in the history of English: Challenges to metrical coherence. In Bettelou Los, Claire Cowie, Patrick Honeybone, and Graeme Trousdale, eds., English historical linguistics. Change in structure and meaning (CILT 358), 42–59. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Download pdf of the submitted ms. (450 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2021. Contrastive hierarchies and phonological primes. In Sabrina Bendjaballah, Ali Tifrit, and Laurence Voeltzel (eds.), Perspectives on Element Theory (Studies in Generative Grammar 143) , 33–64. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
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DeCaen, Vincent and B. Elan Dresher. 2021. Prosodic dependency in Tiberian Hebrew. In Robert D. Holmstedt, ed., Linguistic studies on Biblical Hebrew (Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics 102), 39–59. Leiden: Brill.
Download pdf of the submitted ms. (227 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan and Daniel Currie Hall. 2021. The road not taken: The Sound Pattern of Russian and the history of contrast in phonology. Journal of Linguistics 57(2), 405–444. doi:10.1017/S0022226720000377
DeCaen, Vincent and B. Elan Dresher. 2020. Pausal forms and prosodic structure in Tiberian Hebrew. In Aaron D. Hornkohl and Geoffrey Khan, eds., Studies in Semitic Vocalisation and Reading Traditions (Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures 3), 331–377. Cambridge: University of Cambridge & Open Book Publishers.
Download the book from the official website linked to the title.
Dresher, B. Elan and Iryna Osadcha. 2019. Mobile Lexical Parentheses in Metrical Grids. In the Proceedings of the 2019 annual conference of the Canadian Linguistic Association, 13 pages.
Download pdf from the CLA 2019 meeting Proceedings (304 KB).
Dresher, B. Elan. 2019. Contrastive feature hierarchies in phonology: Variation and universality. In David W. Lightfoot and Jonathan Havenhill, eds., Variable properties in language: Their nature and acquisition,, 13–25. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Download pdf of author's manuscript (651 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2018. Review of Morten H. Christiansen and Nick Chater. 2016. Creating language: Integrating evolution, acquisition, and processing. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 63(3), 2018.
468–470. doi:10.1017/cnj.2018.13.
Download pdf of author's manuscript (100 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2018. Contrastive feature hierarchies in synchronic and diachronic phonology. Phonological Studies (Journal of the Phonological Society of Japan) 21: 91–98.
Download pdf of author's manuscript (191 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan, Christopher Harvey, and Will Oxford. 2018. Contrastive feature hierarchies as a new lens on typology. In Larry Hyman and Frans Plank, eds., Phonological typology, 273–311. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton.
Download pdf of authors' manuscript (1.1 MB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2018. Contrastive hierarchy theory and the nature of features. In Wm. G. Bennett, Lindsay Hracs, and Dennis Ryan Storoshenko, eds., Proceedings of the 35th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, 18–29. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
The above links to the table of contents, from which you can access the abstract and complete paper.
Dresher, B. Elan. 2018. Contrastive feature hierarchies in Old English diachronic phonology. Transactions of the Philological Society 116(1): 1–29.
Download pdf of April 2017 revised submitted manuscript (451 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan and Andrew Nevins. 2017. Conditions on iterative rounding harmony in Oroqen. Transactions of the Philological Society, 115(3): 365–394.
Dresher, B. Elan. 2016. Covert representations, contrast, and the acquisition of lexical accent. In Jeffrey Heinz, Rob Goedemans and Harry van der Hulst, eds., Dimensions of phonological stress, 231–262. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Download pdf of author's final manuscript (312 KB)
Hall, Daniel Currie and B. Elan Dresher. 2016. Trade-offs in the contrastive hierarchy: Voicing versus continuancy in Slavic. In Christopher Hammerly and Brandon Prickett, eds., NELS 46: Proceedings of the Forty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society, Concordia University, Montréal, Volume Two, 43–56. Amherst, MA: GLSA.
See pdf of the slides of the talk.
Dresher, B. Elan. 2016. Contrast in phonology 1867-1967: History and development. Annual Review of Linguistics 2: 53–73.
Download pdf of April 2015 manuscript version (425 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2015. Rule-based generative historical phonology. In Patrick Honeybone and Joseph Salmons, eds. The handbook of historical phonology, 501–521. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available at Oxford Handbooks Online
Download pdf of March 2013 manuscript (476 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2015. The Motivation for contrastive feature hierarchies in phonology.
Linguistic Variation 15: 1–40.
Download pdf of December 2014 version (1.8 MB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2014. The arch not the stones: Universal feature theory without universal features. Nordlyd 41.2: 165–181, special issue on Features ed. by Martin Krämer, Sandra Ronai and Peter Svenonius. University of Tromsø — The Arctic University of Norway. http://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlyd.
Download pdf offprint. (295 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan, Christopher Harvey and Will Oxford. 2014. Contrast shift as a type of diachronic change. In Hsin-Lun Huang, Ethan Poole and Amanda Rysling, eds., NELS 43: Proceedings of the Forty-Third Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society, The City University of New York, Volume One, 103–116. Amherst, MA: GLSA.
Download pdf of pre-publication version (284 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2013. Contrastive vowel features in West Germanic. In Shan Luo, ed., Proceedings of the 2013 Annual Conference of the Canadian Linguistic Association, 10 pages.
Download paper from the CLA website (230 KB).
Dresher, B. Elan. 2013. The influence of loanwords on Norwegian and English stress. Nordlyd 40.1: 55–43, special issue 'A Festschrift on the Occasion of X Years of CASTL Phonology and Curt Rice's Lth Birthday' ed. by Sylvia Blaho, Martin Krämer and Bruce Morén-Duolljá. University of Tromsø. http://www.ub.uit.no/baser/nordlyd/
Download pdf offprint. (469 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2013. Biblical Accents: Prosody. Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics. Edited by Geoffrey Khan. Brill Online, 2013. Reference. http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-hebrew-language-and-linguistics/biblical-accents-prosody-COM_00000248.
Download pdf offprint (634 KB)
Holmstedt, Robert D. and B. Elan Dresher. 2013. Clitics: Pre-Modern Hebrew. Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics. Edited by Geoffrey Khan. Brill Online, 2013. Reference.
http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-hebrew-language-and-linguistics/clitics-pre-modern-hebrew-COM_00000023?s.num=1.
Download pdf of proofs (240 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2013. Review of G. Nick Clements and Rachid Ridouane (eds.), Where do phonological features come from? Cognitive, physical and developmental bases of distinctive speech categories. Language 89, 643-646.
Dresher, B. Elan. 2013. Contrastive Features and Microvariation in Vowel Harmony. In Stefan Keine and Shayne Sloggett, eds., NELS 42: Proceedings of the Forty-Second Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society, University of Toronto, Volume One, 141-153. GLSA, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
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Dresher, B. Elan. 2012. Methodological Issues in the Dating of Linguistic Forms: Considerations from the Perspective of Contemporary Linguistic Theory. In Cynthia Miller-Naude and Ziony Zevit, eds., Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew, 19-38. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.
Download pdf offprint (691 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2012. Is Harmony Limited to Contrastive Features? In A. McKillen and J. Loughran, eds., Proceedings from Phonology in the 21st Century: In Honour of Glyne Piggott. McGill Working Papers in Linguistics 22.1, 16 pages. https://secureweb.mcgill.ca/mcgwpl/sites/ mcgill.ca.mcgwpl/files/ dresher2012.pdf".
Compton, Richard and B. Elan Dresher. 2011. Palatalization and "Strong i" across Inuit Dialects. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 56, 203-228.
Get article from the journal website.
Dresher, B. Elan. 2011. The Phoneme. In Marc van Oostendorp, Colin J. Ewen, Elizabeth Hume and Keren Rice eds.,
The Blackwell Companion to Phonology, Volume 1, 241-266. Malden, MA & Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Download the chapter (if you have access).
Dresher, B. Elan. 2010. Feature Hierarchies and Contrast in Phonology. In Greville G. Corbett and Anna Kibort, eds., Features: Perspectives on a Key Notion in Linguistics, 37-63. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dresher, B. Elan. 2009. The Contrastive Hierarchy in Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dresher, B. Elan. 2009. Stress Assignment in Tiberian Hebrew. In Charles Cairns and Eric Raimy, eds., Contemporary Views On Architecture and Representations in Phonological Theory, 213-224. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Download pdf of pre-publication proofs (76 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2008. Between Music and Speech: The Relationship between Gregorian and Hebrew Chant. In Sarah Cummins, Bridget Jankowski and Patricia Shaw, eds.,
All the Things You Are: A Festschrift in Honour of Jack Chambers. Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics 27, Special Issue, 43-58.
Abstract (html)
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Compton, Richard and B. Elan Dresher. 2008. Palatalization and 'Strong' /i/ across Inuit Dialects. In Susie Jones, ed., Proceedings of the 2008 Annual Conference of the Canadian Linguistic Association, 12 pages.
Download pdf from the CLA website (272 KB).
Dresher, B. Elan. 2008. The Word in Tiberian Hebrew. In Kristin Hanson and Sharon Inkelas (eds.),
The Nature of the Word: Essays in Honor of Paul Kiparsky, 95-111. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Abstract (html)
Download pdf of pre-publication manuscript (312 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2008. The Logic of Contrast. In Robert Freidin, Carlos P. Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta, eds.,
Foundational Issues in Linguistic Theory: Essays in Honor of Jean-Roger Vergnaud, 359-380. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
Download pdf of pre-publication manuscript (200 KB)
Avery, Peter, B. Elan Dresher and Keren Rice, eds. 2008. Contrast in Phonology: Theory, Perception, Acquisition. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Avery, Peter, B. Elan Dresher and Keren Rice. 2008. Introduction. In Avery, Dresher and Rice, 1-8.
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Dresher, B. Elan. 2008. The Contrastive Hierarchy in Phonology. In Avery, Dresher and Rice, 11-33.
Download pdf of pre-publication proofs (264 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2007. Variability in Trubetzkoy's Classification of Phonological Oppositions. The LACUS Forum 33, 133-142.
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Fikkert, Paula, B. Elan Dresher and Aditi Lahiri. 2006. Prosodic Preferences: From Old English to Early Modern English. In Ans van Kemenade and Bettelou Los, eds., The Handbook of the History of English, 125-150. Oxford: Blackwell.
Dresher, B. Elan and Nila Friedberg, eds. 2006. Formal Approaches To Poetry: Recent Developments In Generative Metrics (Phonology and Phonetics 11). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Dresher, B. Elan and Nila Friedberg. 2006. Introduction. In Dresher and Friedberg, 1-4.
Dresher, B. Elan. 2006. Review of John T, Jensen, Principles of Generative Phonology: An Introduction. The University of Toronto Quarterly 75.1, Winter 2006, 183-184.
Download pdf of pre-publication manuscript (56 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan and Xi Zhang. 2005. Contrast and Phonological Activity in Manchu Vowel Systems. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 50, 45-82.
Download pdf of pre-publication proofs (1.2 MB)
Dresher, B. Elan 2005. Chomsky and Halle's Revolution in Phonology. In James McGilvray, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Chomsky, 102-122. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Download pdf of pre-publication manuscript (132 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan and Aditi Lahiri. 2005. Main Stress Left in Early Middle English. In Michael Fortescue, Eva Skafte Jensen, Jens Erik Mogensen and Lene Schøsler, eds., Historical Linguistics 2003. Selected Papers from the 16th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Copenhagen, 10-15 August 2003, John Benjamins, Amsterdam.
Abstract (html)
Download pdf of pre-publication manuscript (81K)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2004. On the Acquisition of Phonological Contrasts. In Jacqueline van Kampen and Sergio Baauw, eds., Proceedings of GALA 2003, Volume 1 (LOT Occasional Series 3),, 27-46. Utrecht: LOT.
Abstract (html)
Download pdf of pre-publication manuscript (108K)
Sara Mackenzie and B. Elan Dresher. 2004. Contrast and Phonological Activity in the Nez Perce Vowel System. In Pawel M. Nowak, Corey Yoquelet and David Mortensen, eds., Proceedings of the Twenty-ninth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, February 14-17, 2003, 283-294. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Linguistics Society.
Download pdf of pre-publication manuscript (212 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan and Xi Zhang. 2004. Phonological Contrast and Phonetics in Manchu Vowel Systems. In Pawel M. Nowak, Corey Yoquelet and David Mortensen, eds., Proceedings of the Twenty-ninth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, February 14-17, 2003, 103-114. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Linguistics Society.
Download pdf of pre-publication manuscript (47KB)
Dresher, B. Elan and Xi Zhang. 2004. Contrast in Manchu Vowel Systems. In Carsten Naher, ed., Proceedings of the First International Conference on Manchu-Tungus Studies (Bonn, August 28-September 1, 2000). Volume 2: Trends in Tungusic and Siberian Linguistics, 23-43. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Abstract (html)
Download pdf of pre-publication manuscript (96K)
Zhang, Xi and B. Elan Dresher. 2004. Tongue Root Harmony in Written Manchu. In Carsten Naher, ed., Proceedings of the First International Conference on Manchu-Tungus Studies (Bonn, August 28-September 1, 2000). Volume 2: Trends in Tungusic and Siberian Linguistics, 161-190. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Dresher, B. Elan. 2004. On the Acquisition of Phonological Representations. In William Sakas, ed., Proceedings of the First Workshop on Psycho-computational Models of Human Language Acquisition, 41-48. www.colag.cs.hunter.cuny.edu/psychocomp/PsychoCompProceedings.pdf.
Download pdf of Proceedings (4 MB)
"The Contrastive Hierarchy in Phonology," in Daniel Currie Hall, ed., Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics (Special Issue on Contrast in Phonology), 20, 2003.
"Meno's Paradox and the Acquisition of Grammar," in Stefan Ploch, ed., Living on the Edge: 28 Papers in Honour of Jonathan Kaye (Studies in Generative Grammar 62), Mouton De Gruyter, Berlin, 7-27, 2003.
Abstract (html)
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"Determining Contrastiveness: A Missing Chapter in the History of Phonology," in Sophie Burelle and Stanca Somesfalean, eds., Proceedings of the CLA 2002, 8293, 2003.
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"Contrast and asymmetries in inventories," in Anna-Maria di Sciullo, ed., Asymmetry in Grammar, Volume 2: Morphology, Phonology, Acquisition, John Benjamins, Amsterdam, 239-257, 2003.
Abstract (html)
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"Review of John Archibald, Second Language Phonology," in "Letters in Canada 1999," The University of Toronto Quarterly 70:1, 305-306, 2000/2001.
"Analogical Levelling of Vowel Length in West Germanic," in Aditi Lahiri, ed., Analogy, Levelling, Markedness: Principles of Change in Phonology and Morphology (Trends in Linguistics; Studies and Monographs 127), Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, 47-70, 2000.
"Charting the Learning Path: Cues to Parameter Setting," Linguistic Inquiry 30, 27-67, 1999. View abstract
"Child Phonology, Learnability, and Phonological Theory," in Tej Bhatia and William C. Ritchie, eds., Handbook of Language Acquisition, Academic Press, N.Y., 299-346, 1999.
(with William J. Idsardi) "Prerequisites for a Theory of Diachronic Adaptation," Open peer commentary on Martin Haspelmath, "Optimality and Diachronic Adaptation," Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 18, 212-215, 1999.
(with Aditi Lahiri) "Open Syllable Lengthening in West Germanic," Language 75, 678-719, 1999.
Learnability and Phonological Theory," in J. Durand and B. Laks, eds., Current Trends in Phonology: Models and Methods, University of Salford Publications, CNRS, Paris- X and University of Salford, Vol. 1, 245-266, 1996.
"Introduction to Metrical and Prosodic Phonology," in James L. Morgan & Katherine Demuth, eds., Signal to Syntax: Bootstrapping From Speech to Grammar in Early Acquisition, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, 41-54, 1996.
(with Alana Johns) "Rigolet and Phonological Change in Labrador," Etudes/Inuit/Studies 20, 113-121, 1996.
(with Xi Zhang) "Labial Harmony in Written Manchu," Saksaha: A Review of Manchu Studies 1, 13-24, 1996.
(with Harry van der Hulst) "Global Determinacy and Learnability in Phonology," in John Archibald, ed., Phonological Acquisition and Phonological Theory, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, 1-21, 1995.
(with Alana Johns) "The Law of Double Consonants in Inuktitut," Linguistica Atlantica 17, 79 95, 1995.
(with Harry van der Hulst) "Head-Dependent Asymmetries in Phonology," in H. van der Hulst and J. van de Weijer, eds., Leiden in Last: HIL Phonology Papers I, Holland Academic Graphics, The Hague, 401-431, 1995.
"Charting the Learning Path: Cues to Parameter Setting," in P. Koskinen, ed., Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics 14,1, 1-19, 1995.
(with Xi Zhang) "Labial Harmony in Written Manchu," in Proceedings of the 1995 Annual Conference of the Canadian Linguistic Association, 661-677, 1995.
"The Prosodic Basis of the Tiberian Hebrew System of Accents," Language 70, 1-52, 1994.
"Acquiring Stress Systems," in Eric Sven Ristad, ed., Language Computations (DIMACS Series in Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, v. 17), AMS, Providence, RI, 71-92, 1994.
(with Glyne Piggott & Keren Rice) "Contrast in Phonology: Overview," in C. Dyck, ed., Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics 13,1, iii-xvii, 1994.
"The Chronology and Status of Anglian Smoothing," in Sharon Hargus and Ellen Kaisse, eds., Studies in Lexical Phonology (Phonetics and Phonology, Volume 4), Academic Press, New York, 325-341, 1993.
"Review: Richard M. Hogg, A Grammar of Old English. Volume 1: Phonology," Phonology10, 146-157, 1993.
(with Keren Rice) "Preface: Complexity in Phonological Representations," in C. Dyck, ed., Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics 12,2, i-vi, 1993.
(with Harry van der Hulst) "Head-Dependent Asymmetries in Phonology," in C. Dyck, ed., Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics 12,2, 1-17, 1993.
"Cues and Parameters in Phonology," in L. M. Dobrin, L. Nichols and R. M. Rodriguez, eds., CLS 27: Papers from the 27th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 1991, Chicago Linguistic Society, Chicago, IL, 119-140, 1993.
"A Learning Model for a Parametric Theory in Phonology," in Robert Levine, ed., Formal Grammar: Theory and Implementation, Oxford University Press, New York, 290-317, 1992.
(with Aditi Lahiri) "The Germanic Foot: Metrical Coherence in Old English," Linguistic Inquiry 22, 251-286, 1991.
"YOUPIE: A Parameter-Based Learning Model for Metrical Phonology," in Ian Lancashire, ed., Research in Humanities Computing I: Selected Papers from the ALLC/ACH Conference, Toronto, June 1989, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 149-162, 1991.
(with Jonathan D. Kaye) "A Computational Learning Model for Metrical Phonology," Cognition 34, 137-195, 1990.
"On the Unity of the Mercian Second Fronting," in Sylvia Adamson et al. (eds.) Papers from the 5th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 65), John Benjamins, Amsterdam, 141-164, 1990.
"Review Article: Morris Halle and Jean-Roger Vergnaud, An Essay on Stress," Phonology 7, 171-188, 1990.
(with Norbert Hornstein) "Language and the Deep Unconscious Mind: Aspectualities of the Theory of Syntax," commentary on J. R. Searle, "Consciousness, Explanatory Inversion, and Cognitive Science," Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13, 602-603, 1990.
"The Prosodic Hierarchy in Tiberian Hebrew," in B. Brunson, S. Burton, and T. Wilson, eds., Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics 10, 33-50, 1989.
"In Defence of UG," in P. Avery, ed., Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics 8, 60-79, 1987.
Old English and the Theory of Phonology, in the series Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics, Garland Publishing, New York, 1985.
"Constraints on Empty Positions in Tiered Phonology," in D. Mullen and J. van Voorst, eds., Cahiers linguistique d'Ottawa No. 14, 1-51, November 1985.
"Abstractness, Underspecification, and Empty Skeletal Positions," in S. Berman, J.-W. Choe and J. McDonough, eds., Proceedings of NELS 15, GLSA, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 105-117, 1985.
"Second Fronting in the Old English Dialect of the Omont Leaf," in J. T. Jensen et al, eds., Cahiers linguistique d'Ottawa No. 12, 39-48, February 1984.
(with Aditi Lahiri) "Diachronic and Synchronic Implications of Declension Shifts," The Linguistic Review 3, 141-163, 1983-84.
"Postlexical Phonology in Tiberian Hebrew," in M. Barlow, D. P. Flickinger and M. T. Wescoat, eds., Proceedings of the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, Vol. 2, Stanford Linguistics Association, Stanford University, Stanford, 1983.
"Accentuation and Metrical Structure in Tiberian Hebrew," in J. Pustejovsky and P. Sells, eds., Proceedings of NELS 12, GLSA, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 75-85, 1982.
"On the Learnability of Abstract Phonology," in C. L. Baker and John J. McCarthy, eds., The Logical Problem of Language Acquisition, MIT Press, Cambridge, 188-210, 1981.
"Abstractness and Explanation in Phonology" in Norbert Hornstein and David Lightfoot, eds., Explanation in Linguistics, Longman, London, 76-115, 1981.
"Accentuation and Metrical Structure in Tiberian Hebrew," in H. Borer and Y. Aoun, eds., MIT Working Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 3, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT, Cambridge, 180-208, 1981.
"Metrical Structure and Secondary Stress in Tiberian Hebrew," in C. Chapin, ed., Brown University Working Papers in Linguistics, Vol. IV, Brown University, 1980-1981.
"The Mercian Second Fronting: A Case of Rule Loss in Old English," Linguistic Inquiry 11, 47 73, 1980.
(with Norbert Hornstein) "Trace Theory and NP Movement Rules," Linguistic Inquiry 10, 65 82, 1979.
"Review of R. Lass and J. M. Anderson, Old English Phonology," Language 54, 432-445, 1978.
"`Abstractness' in Phonology: Evidence from Change," in M. J. Stein, ed., Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Meeting of the North Eastern Linguistic Society, GLSA, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1978.
(with Norbert Hornstein) "Reply to Winograd," Cognition 5, 379-392, 1977.
(with Norbert Hornstein) "Reply to Schank and Wilensky," Cognition 5, 147-149, 1977.
"Logical Representations and Linguistic Theory," Linguistic Inquiry 8, 351-378, 1977.
(with Norbert Hornstein) "On Some Supposed Contributions of Artificial Intelligence to the Scientific Study of Language," Cognition 4, 321-398, 1976.
"Two Cases of Diachronic Rule Reanalysis in the Mercian Dialect of Old
English," in J. Stillings, ed., UMass Occasional Papers in Linguistics,
Vol. II, GLSA, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1976.
Dresher, B. Elan. 2024. "A learning theory for abstract underlying phonemes," [MOTh] 2024 Phonology/Phonetics Workshop, McGill University, April 2024.
Download pdf of the slides (277 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan and Alana Johns. 2024. "Phonetic shortening in Labrador Inuttut," 100th annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, New York City, January 2024.
Download pdf of the slides (1.1 MB)
Dresher, B. Elan, Daniel Currie Hall, William J. Idsardi, and Eric Raimy. 2024. "Uyghur disharmony without diacritics (or, phonological representations are phonological)," poster, 100th annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, New York City, January 2024.
Get pdf of the poster (2.7 MB) and/or the handout (106 KB) (1.1 MB)
Dresher, B. Elan and Daniel Currie Hall. 2023. "Emergent features and contrastive hierarchies: What condition Halle's (1959) conditions are in," poster, MorrisHalle@100, MIT, Cambridge, MA, September 2023.
Download pdf of the poster (1.9 MB)
Download handout that elaborates on the poster with references (4 pages). (55 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2023. "The new Oxford History of Phonology: What is interesting about the history of phonology?" SCR Luncheon Talk, University College, University of Toronto, March 2023.
Dresher, B. Elan. 2022. "Diachronic phonology with Contrastive Hierarchy Theory," Twenty-Fifth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, (ICHL 25), University of Oxford, August, 2022 [invited plenary talk].
Download the Powerpoint slides (1.4 MB)
Download pdf of the slides (5 MB)
Dresher, B. Elan, Daniel Currie Hall, and Sara Mackenzie. 2021. "The status of phoneme inventories: The role of contrastive feature hierarchies," 12th International Conference of Nordic and General Linguistics, Workshop 1: Establishing phoneme inventories: argumentation and cross-linguistic comparability. Virtual conference hosted by the University of Oslo, June 2021.
Download pdf of the slides (3.8 MB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2020. "Foundations of Contrastive Hierarchy Theory," hosted by Abralin ao Vivo - Linguists Online, the Brazilian Linguistic Association (Abralin), October 2020. https://aovivo.abralin.org/en/lives/b-elan-dresher-2/
Download the Powerpoint slides (4.4 MB)
Download pdf of the slides (4 MB)
Dresher, B. Elan, Daniel Currie Hall, and Sara Mackenzie. 2020. "The status of phoneme inventories: The role of contrastive feature hierarchies," poster, virtual annual meeting of the Canadian Linguistic Association, May–June 2020.
Download pdf of the poster (slides) (4.1 MB)
Dresher, B. Elan and Alana Johns. 2020. "Morpheme structure change in Labrador Inuttut," poster, virtual annual meeting of the Canadian Linguistic Association, May–June 2020.
Download pdf of the poster (slides) (228 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2019. "Foundations of Contrastive Hierarchy Theory," Centro de Estudios Lingüísticos y Literarios (CELL), El Colegio de México, Mexico City, October 2019.
Download pdf of the talk slides (10.3 MB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2019. "Contributions of N. S. Trubetzkoy to Phonological Theory," 80 Años de los Grundzüge der Phonologie, N. S. Trubetzkoy: Presentación de la Nueva traducción y versión crítica, El Colegio de México, Mexico City, October 2019 [invited talk].
Download pdf of the talk slides (10.2 MB)
Dresher, B. Elan and Iryna Osadcha. 2019. "Mobile Lexical Parentheses in Metrical Grids," poster, 27th Manchester Phonology Meeting (mfm), University of Manchester, May 2019.
Download pdf of the Manchester poster handout (280 KB)
See also the CLA 2019 Proceedings in the next entry.
Dresher, B. Elan and Iryna Osadcha. 2019. "Mobile Lexical Parentheses in Metrical Grids," talk, annual meeting of the Canadian Linguistic Association, Vancouver, June 2019.
Download pdf of the CLA talk slides (291 KB)
Download pdf from the CLA 2019 meeting Proceedings (304 KB).
DeCaen, Vincent and B. Elan Dresher. 2018. "Pausal forms and prosodic structure in Tiberian Hebrew," Masoretic Studies Section session on Vocalization and Accentuation, part of the 2018 annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Denver, November 2018.
Download pdf of February 2019 paper that is an expanded version of this talk.(361 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan and Daniel Currie Hall. 2018. "Morris Halle's The Sound Pattern of Russian: The road not taken," Department of Linguistics, Memorial University of Newfoundland, October 2018.
Download pdf of the talk slides (17.7 MB)
Dresher, B. Elan and Aditi Lahiri. 2018. "The foot in the history of English: Challenges to metrical coherence," Twentieth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL XX), Workshop on the Foot in the History of English, University of Edinburgh, August 2018.
Download pdf of the talk text (271 KB)
DeCaen, Vincent and B. Elan Dresher. 2018. "Prosodic dependency in Tiberian Hebrew," The Second Workshop on Biblical Hebrew Linguistics and Philology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, June 2018.
Download pdf of August 2019 paper based on this talk (224 KB)
Download pdf of the talk slides (3.2 MB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2018. "Contrastive hierarchies and phonological primes," Elements: State of the Art and Perspectives, Nantes, June 2018.
Download pdf of the talk slides (4.3 MB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2018. "A brief history of English stress," SCR Luncheon Talk, University College, University of Toronto, January 2018.
Download pdf of the talk slides (9.9 MB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2017. "Contrastive hierarchies and the nature of phonological features," The Phonological Society of Japan (PhSJ) Phonology Forum 2017, Tokyo Metropolitan University (Minami-Osawa Campus), Tokyo, August 2017 [invited keynote lecture].
Download pdf of the talk slides (2.7 MB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2017. "Contrastive feature hierarchies in phonology: Variation and universality," Georgetown University Round Table (GURT2017): Variable Properties: Their Nature And Acquisition, March 2017.
Download pdf of the talk slides (4.4 MB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2016. "Contrastive feature hierarchies and Germanic phonology: Jørgen Rischel's analysis of the Scandinavian Runic Reform," the 43rd annual LACUS Forum, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, August 2016.
Download pdf of the talk (1.3 MB)
Dresher, B. Elan. 2016. "Contrastive features and the phonologization of i-Umlaut in West Germanic," Berkeley Germanic Linguistics Roundtable, University of California, Berkeley, April 2016.
Download pdf of the talk (1.8 MB)
Dresher, B. Elan and Aditi Lahiri. 2015. "Romance loanwords and stress shift in English: A quantitative approach," the Second Edinburgh Symposium on Historical Phonology, University of Edinburgh, December 2015.
Download pdf of the talk (252 KB)
Hall, Daniel Currie and B. Elan Dresher. "Trade-offs in the contrastive hierarchy: Voicing versus continuancy in Slavic," NELS 46, Concordia University, Montreal, October 2015.
Download pdf of the slides (6.4 MB)
Now in the Proceedings (2016).
"Contrastive Hierarchy Theory: An Overview," the combined slides presented at talks in the Linguistics Colloquium Series, University of Connecticut, February 2015, and the Department of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, September 2015.
Download pdf of the slides:
Part 1 (1.8 MB)
Part 2 (3.4 MB)
"Contrastive Feature Hierarchies in Diachronic Phonology," Annual General Meeting of the Philological Society, Jesus College, University of Cambridge, June 2015.
Download pdf of the slides (2.1 MB)
B. Elan Dresher and Keren Rice. "Phonological typology with contrastive hierarchies," MOLT Phonology Atelier, University of Toronto, March 2015.
Download pdf of the slides (12.3 MB)
B. Elan Dresher and Andrew Nevins."Undergoers are Harmony Sources: Maintaining Iterative Harmony in Oroqen Dialects," 12th Old World Conference in Phonology (OCP 12), Barcelona, January 2015.
Download pdf of the slides (9.7 MB)
"Contrastive Hierarchies in Element Theory," Conference on Theoretical Issues in Contemporary Phonology: Reading Tobias Scheer, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris, February 2014. Access the paper
B. Elan Dresher and Aditi Lahiri. "The Ormulum and the Chronology of the Middle English Quantity Changes," Symposium on Historical Phonology, University of Edinburgh, January 2014.
"The Arch not the Stones: Universal Feature Theory without Universal Features," Conference on Features in Phonology, Morphology, Syntax and Semantics: What are they? CASTL, University of Tromsø, October-November 2013.
Download pdf of the slides (15.8 MB). See the published version in Nordlyd 2014.
"Phonologization of Predictable Allophones in West Germanic," the Annual Meeting of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain (LAGB). Themed session: The Representational Consequences of Marginal Contrasts, SOAS, August 2013.
Download pdf of the slides (9.4 MB)
"Contrastive Feature Hierarchies as a New Lens on Typology," Workshop on Phonological Typology, Somerville College, University of Oxford, August 2013.
Download pdf of the slides (3.3 MB)
"Contrastive Vowel Features in West Germanic and Old English," The 21st International Conference on Historical Linguistics, University of Oslo, August 2013.
Download pdf of the slides (813 KB)
B. Elan Dresher, Christopher Harvey, and Will Oxford. "Feature Hierarchies and Phonological Change," poster, annual meeting of the Canadian Linguistic Association, Victoria, June 2013.
Download pdf of the handout (995 KB)
"Contrastive Vowel Features in West Germanic," annual meeting of the Canadian Linguistic Association, Victoria, June 2013. See the Proceedings
"Phonological Change in Middle and Early Modern English: Syllable Quantity and Stress," Friends of Linguistics at the University of Toronto (flʌut) lecture, Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto, March 2013.
Download pdf of the slides (627 KB)
"Morris Halle, Nick Clements, and the Role of Feature Hierarchies in Phonology," CUNY Phonology Forum Conference on the Feature, CUNY Graduate Center, January 2013 [invited talk].
Download pdf of the slides (2.2 MB)
"Covert Representations and the Acquisition of Lexical Accent," UD Conference on Stress and Accent, University of Delaware, November-December, 2012.
Download pdf of the slides (517 KB)
B. Elan Dresher, Christopher Harvey, and Will Oxford, "Contrast Shift as a Type of Diachronic Change," NELS 43, CUNY Graduate Center, October 2012.
Download pdf of the handout (677 KB). See the Proceedings
"Issues in the Theory of Contrast," MOT Phonology Atelier, University of Toronto, March 2012 [invited talk].
Download pdf of the slides (10.8 MB)
"On the Role and Evaluation of Contrast in Phonology," School of Linguistics and Language Studies Speaker Series, Carleton University, March 30, 2012.
Download pdf of the slides (1.6 MB)
"Contrast and Locality in Vowel Harmony," Debate with Andrew Nevins, Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL), February 20, 2012.
View it here.
"Synchronic Principles in Diachronic Change," Faculty of Linguistics, Philology & Phonetics, Oxford University, May 23, 2011.
Download pdf of the slides (610 KB)
"On the Role and Evaluation of Contrast in Phonology," the Nineteenth Manchester Phonology Meeting (mfm19), Hulme Hall, Manchester, May 19-21, 2011 [Special Session on Contrast in Phonology, invited talk].
Download pdf of the slides (2.38 MB)
"Is harmony limited to contrastive features?" Phonology in the
21st Century: In Honour of Glyne Piggott, McGill University, May 2011
[invited talk].
Download pdf of the slides (3.55 MB)
"Feature Hierarchies: Halle (1959) to Clements (2009)," 8e Rencontres Internationales du Réseau Français de Phonologie. En Hommage à Nick Clements, University of Orléans, July 2010 [invited plenary talk].
Download pdf of the slides (1.5 MB)
"Dating the Hebrew Bible: Can Linguistics Help?" Friends of Linguistics At the University of Toronto (FLAUT) and Spring Reunion 2010, University of Toronto, May 2010. Revised version of "Methodological Issues in the Dating of Linguistic Forms: Considerations from the Perspective of Contemporary Linguistic Theory," National Association of Professors of Hebrew session on Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew, part of the 2009 annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, New Orleans, November 2009 [invited talk].
Download pdf text of the talk (2 MB)
"The Abstractness of Minimal Contrast," University of Maryland Linguistics Colloquium, April 2010.
Download pdf of the slides (672 KB)
"Underlying Contrasts and the East Slavic Post-velar Fronting," poster, annual meeting of the Canadian Linguistic Association, Ottawa, May 2009.
Download pdf of the poster (131 KB)
Download handout (193 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan and Sara Mackenzie. To appear. Vowel harmony in the light of contrastive feature theories. In Nancy A. Ritter and Harry van der Hulst, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Vowel Harmony. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Download pdf of the submitted ms. (478 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan. To appear. Diachronic phonology with Contrastive Hierarchy Theory. In Holly Kennard, Emily Lindsay-Smith, Aditi Lahiri, and Martin Maiden (eds.), Historical Linguistics 2022. Selected papers from the 25th ICHL, Oxford, 1-5 August 2022. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Download pdf of the submitted ms. (221 KB)
Dresher, B. Elan. In preparation. The phoneme. To appear in Kuniya Nasukawa, Bridget Samuels, Geoffrey Schwartz, and Miklós Törkenczy (eds.), The Wiley Blackwell companion to phonology, second edition. Malden, MA & Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
[Revision and updating of The phoneme (2011)]
Dresher, B. Elan. In preparation. Features and Contrast. Submitted to Adam Jardine and Paul de Lacy (eds.), The Cambridge handbook of phonology, second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Download pdf of the submitted ms. (376 KB)
Contrastive feature hierarchies and Germanic phonology: Jørgen Rischel's analysis of the Scandinavian runic reform. Submitted to NOWELE.
Download pdf of the submitted ms. (289 KB)
The complete set of columns plus one bonus column has been reprinted as Waters, Cathleen (ed.). 2010. B. Elan Dresher's Collected Columns from Glot International. Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics 32.
"There's No Reality Like Psychological Reality," Glot International 1, 1, January 23, 1995, p. 7.
"On the Trail of the Tiger," Glot International 1, 3, March 27, 1995, p. 7.
"The Columnist and the Keyser," Glot International 1, 5, July 28, 1995, p. 8.
"Functional Categories in DNA," Glot International 1, 7, September 1995, p. 8.
"The Ladder and the Arch," Glot International 1, 9/10, November/December 1995, p. 9.
"The Rise of Optimality Theory in First Century Palestine,"Glot International 2, 1/2, January/February 1996, p. 8.
"The Untouchables," Glot International 2, 4, April 1996, p. 11.
"The Olde Yankee Grammarian," Glot International 2, 7, September 1996 [1997], p. 7-8.
"The Geese Rethink Innateness," Glot International 2, 9/10, December 1996 [1997], p. 8-9.
"Noch Einmal Comparative Germanic: A Tale of Two Journals," Glot International 3, 2, February 1998, p. 11-12.
"Communicating Modality," Glot International 3, 4, April 1998, p. 9.
"Hidden Codes in the Hebrew Bible?" Glot International 3, 8, October 1998, p. 10.
"The Formalist in the Field," Glot International 3, 9/10, December 1998, p. 8.
"Invasion of the Language Viruses," Glot International 4, 2, February 1999, p. 12. download pdf 99KB
"Ferdinand, We Hardly Knew You," Glot International 4, 6, August 1999, p. 9.
"The Pyramid of Popularization," Glot International 4, 8, October 1999, p. 8.
"The Tower of Babel," Glot International 5, 2, February 2001, p. 58-60.
"Only Connect," Glot International 5, 4, April 2001, p. 134-136.
"The End of Linguistics?" Glot International 5, 6, June 2001, p. 208-210.
"A Look Back at the Gastronomy Wars," Glot International 5, 8, October 2001, 272-274.
"Invisible Laboratories," Glot International 6, 1, January 2002, 12-14.
"Laboratory Phonology: Community or Cult?" bonus column, never published, replaced by "Invisible Laboratories."
"Crouching Philosopher, Hidden Linguist," Glot International 6, 5, May 2002, 125-127.
"Messages from the Linguistics Room," Glot International 6, 7, September 2002.
"A Moment in Western Culture: World Music, Postmodernism, and Syllable Structure," Glot International 7, 1/2, January/February 2003.
"A Generative Linguist in Connecticut," Glot International 7, 5, 12-14, May 2003.
Dresher, B. Elan. 2017. Intricacies of Yiddish. Narayever News May/June/July/August 2017, 25.
Download pdf (23 KB).
Dresher, B. Elan. 2016. Mother tongues: The metrical pattern of Adon Olam.
Narayever News July/August 2016, 19.
Download pdf (151 KB).
Dresher, B. Elan. 2015. Alan's attitude to limitations of time and space. In Eric Baković (compiler), Short 'schrift for Alan Prince (on the occasion of his retirement, May/June 2015).
Dresher, B. Elan. 1999. Language in the time of Babel. Forward, 16, October 15, 1999.
Dresher, B. Elan. 1978. New works in linguistics: Press catalog for Winter 1974. In J. Ernst and E. Smith (eds.), Lingua Pranca, June 1978. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Linguistics Club. Reproduced on SpecGram.
Dresher, B. Elan and Norbert Hornstein. 1978. Current issues in gastronomy. In J. Ernst and E. Smith (eds.), Lingua Pranca, June 1978. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Linguistics Club. Reproduced on SpecGram.
A Montrealer seder:
Revised version:
Dresher, Elan, Norbert Hornstein, and J. Lipa Roth. 1981. A Montrealer seder. In William Novak and Moshe Waldoks (eds.), The Big Book of Jewish Humor, 114–116. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1981. 25th anniversary edition, New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2006.
Download this version (2.2 MB)
Combined versions:
Download the two versions in parallel columns (38 KB)
Last updated April 23, 2024
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