Overview

Assistant Professor Purnell received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Delaware, writing his dissertation on the interaction of stress and tone. He has been at the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 1998, first as Visiting Assistant Faculty (1998 to 2000), and presently as Assistant Professor (Fall 2000). His research focuses generally on phonology, phonetics and sociophonetic language variation, and particularly on dialect identification, metrical theories, tone languages, intonation, and the perception and production of non-native speech. A present major interest is in the phonetics of Wisconsin English and the implications for phonology, the low vowels of the Northern Cities Shift, and the relative dating of the onset of the shift in Wisconsin.

Select Publications

Dissertation

1998. Principles and parameters of phonological rules: Evidence from tone languages.

Articles

Purnell, T. Under review. Vowel qualities and formant derivatives. Language & Speech.

Purnell, T. Under review. Acoustic Consequences of Spectral Power Adjustments in Two Dialects of American English. Phonetica.

Purnell, T., Salmons, J., Tepeli, D., & Mercer, J. 2005. Structured heterogeneity and change in laryngeal phonetics: Upper Midwestern final obstruents. Journal of English Linguistics 33.4:307-338.

Purnell, T., Salmons, J., & Tepeli, D. 2005. German substrate effects in Wisconsin English: Evidence for final fortition. American Speech 80.2:135-164.

Purnell, T., Idsardi, W., & Baugh, J. 1999. Perceptual and phonetic experiments on American English dialect identification. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 18.1:10-30.

Idsardi, W., & Purnell, T. 1997. Metrical tone and the elsewhere condition. Rivista di Linguistica 9: 129-156.

Book Chapters

Purnell, T. 2008. Phonetic Influence on Phonological Operations. In Contemporary Views on Architecture and Representations in Phonological Theory, E. Raimy & C. Cairns (eds.). Cambridge: MIT Press.

Purnell, T. To appear. AAE in urban Southeastern Wisconsin. In an unnamed Publication of the American Dialect Society volume, M. Dror & E. Thomas. Durham: Duke Univ Press (American Dialect Society)

Purnell, T. To appear. Phonetic detail in the perception of ethnic varieties of US English. In an unnamed sociophonetics reader, D. Preston & N. Niedzielski (eds.). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Purnell, T. To appear. Understanding the Interface between Auditory Discrimination and Racial Discrimination. In an unnamed volume on linguistic profiling, J. Baugh (ed.).

Purnell, T. 1999. Metrical utility: Extending the power of grids. In Proceedings of LP’98, O. Fujimura, B. Joseph & B. Palek (eds.), 733-768. Prague: Charles University Press (Karolinum).

Purnell, T., & Salmons. J. To appear. Coherence over time and space in sound change. In an unnamed volume for S. Starostin, V. Shevoroshkin & H. Sverdrup (eds.). Frankfurt: Peter Lang.

Salmons, J. & Purnell, T. To appear 2009. Contact and the development of American English. In Handbook of Language Contact, R. Hickey (ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.

Tepeli, D., Salmons, J., & Purnell, T. To appear 2007. Was bleibt bestehen? Der deutsche Einfluß auf das Amerikanische. In Die deutsche Präsenz in den USA / The German presence in the U.S.A., J. Raab & J. Wirrer (eds.), 595-613.

Salmons, J., Tepeli, D., & Purnell, T. 2006. Deutsche Spuren im amerikanischen Englischen? Auslautverhärtung in Wisconsin. In Sprachinselwelten—The World of Language Islands, N. Berend & E. Knipf-Komlósi (eds.), 205-225. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.

Idsardi, W. & Purnell, T. 1995. Sukuma accent. In Papers from the 31st Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, A. Dainora et al. (eds.), 217-230. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.

Working Papers

Purnell, T. 1993. A clarification of Asian tonal features. George Mason Working Papers in Linguistics 2:1-8.

Purnell, T. 1992. Practical theory: effects of postlexical rules on second language pronunciation. George Mason Working Papers in Linguistics 1:21-28.

Book Reviews

Purnell, T. 2006. Review of Minkova, D. (2003) Alliteration and sound change in early English. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 36.1: 104-106.

Purnell, T. 2003. Hulst, Harry van der. (1999) Word prosodic systems in the languages of Europe. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 14: 385-392.

Book Review Notes

Purnell, T. 2002. Heine, B. & D. Nurse. (2000) African languages: An introduction. Diachronica 18:194-195

Purnell, T. 2002. Hermans, B. & M. van Oostendorp. (1999) The derivational residue in phonological optimality theory. Diachronica 18: 195.

Purnell, T. 2002. Sihler, A. (2000) Language history: An introduction. Diachronica 18:201

Purnell, T. 2000. Collins, B. & I. Mees. (1999) The real Professor Higgins: The life and career of Daniel Jones. Diachronica 17:230-231.

Purnell, T. 2000. Mathangwane, J. (1999) Ikalanga phonetics and phonology: A synchronic and diachronic study. Diachronica 17: 477.

Purnell, T. 1999. Zubizarreta, M. (1998) Prosody, focus, and word Order. Diachronica 16:232.

Presentations

2008. Modeling dialect-related variability in American English plosives. Invited talk at the 155th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Paris, France, June 29-July 4, 2008.

2008. Expanding the set of acoustic features of the post-vocalic voicing contrast in English. 155th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Paris, France, June 29-July 4, 2008. (with Blake Rodgers and Joseph Salmons)

2008. AAE in Milwaukee: Contact at a vowel shift frontier. Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Chicago, January 3-6 2008

2008. Novel speech reversal effects based on window size and lexical status. Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Chicago, January 3-6 2008 (with Eric Raimy)

2006. A Method for Normalization of Pitch Variability of Intoxicated Speech. 151st meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Providence, RI, June 5-9, 2006 (with Ryan Hanke)

2006. ‘Oh, she was very articulate’: Understanding the Interface between Auditory Discrimination and Racial Discrimination. Invited presentation on the perception of ethnically affiliated dialects and discrimination at the conference on Linguistic Profiling, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, April 27-29, 2006.

2005. The secret life of vowels: Diphthongization, mergers and shifts. American Dialect Society, Midwest Region with the Midwest Modern Language Association, Milwaukee, WI, November 10-13, 2005.

2005. Final obstruent voicing in western Wisconsin. American Dialect Society, Midwest Region with the Midwest Modern Language Association, Milwaukee, WI, November 10-13, 2005. (with Jennifer Mercer, Dilara Tepeli, and Joseph Salmons)

2005. Phonetic detail in the perception of ethnic varieties of US English. AILA, the 14th World Congress of Applied Linguistics, Madison, WI, July 26, 2005.

2005. "Are you coming with?" German Influences on Wisconsin English. Max Kade Institute, Madison, WI, February 9, 2005 (with Dilara Tepeli, Joseph Salmons, and Jennifer Mercer)

2005. Intensity as Cue of Diphthong Identification and Language Variation. Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, San Francisco, January 8, 2005

2005. Upper Midwestern obstruent variation: There’[s] more of it than you might think. Annual Meeting of the American Dialect Society, San Francisco, January 8, 2005 (with Dilara Tepeli, Joseph Salmons, and Jennifer Mercer)

2004. Was bleibt bestehen? Der deutsche Einfluss auf das Amerikanische. Symposium for the German Presence in the U.S.A., at the Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre Forschung (ZiF), Universität Bielefeld, October 20-23 2004. (with Dilara Tepeli and Joseph Salmons)

2004. Regional variation in American English final obstruents: Cross-generational acoustics of ‘final devoicing.’ New Ways of Analyzing Variation 33, October 2, 2004. (with Dilara Tepeli, Joseph Salmons, and Jennifer Mercer)

2004. Articulation changes over time: An implication for vowel plots. New Ways of Analyzing Variation 33, October 1, 2004.

2004. Gestural stability in vowels. 147th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, New York, NY, May 24-28, 2004.

2004. German substrate effects in Wisconsin English: Evidence for ‘final devoicing.’ Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference 10, University of Michigan, May 8-10 2004. (with Dilara Tepeli and Joseph Salmons)

2004. Repair Operation Hierarchies in Bantu Tonology. Workshop In General Linguistics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, February 27, 2004.

2004. Response to Steriade. Symposium on Phonological Theory: Representations and Architecture, City University of New York, February 20-21, 2004.

2003. Perception of potential source-filter characteristics of American English Varieties. 145th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Nashville, May 2, 2003. (with Laura Kopplin)

2003. Voice recognition and testing for Fair Housing violations. Voice recognition and testing for Fair Housing violations. Quint-Regional FHIP/FHAP Conference (Housing and Urban Development training sponsored by John Marshall Law School), Atlanta, GA, May 1, 2003.

2003. Perceptual dialectology and dialect authenticity. International Linguistics Association meeting, New York, April 6, 2003.

2003. Perception of acoustic cues of race and class. Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, January 3, 2003.

2002. Reconsidering the stress-tone language continuum. 8th Mid-continental Workshop on Phonology, Indiana University, October 25, 2002.

2002. Effect of bandwidth noise and telephonic filtering on the perception of English consonants. 143th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Pittsburgh, 6 June, 2002. (with Laura Kopplin)

2000. Faithfulness, markedness, and the stress-accent-tone language continuum. University of Wisconsin-Madison, March 22, 2000.

1999. Representation of hierarchical prosody: Indeterminacy and the Prosodic Hierarchy. Phonology Roundtable, University of Wisconsin, Madison, November 12, 1999.

1999. The psychological reality of the phonology-phonetics interface: Beyond systematicity and implementation. University of Chicago, February 24, 1999.

1999. Distributed first language interference: Perception of English vowels produced by Arabic speakers. Oakland University, January 28, 1999.

1998. Metrical utility: Extending the power of grids. Fourth International Linguistics and Phonetics Conference, Ohio State University, September 16, 1998.

1997. Perceptual and phonetic experiments on American English dialect identification. Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, January 11, 1997. (with John Baugh and William Idsardi)

1996. Intonation discrimination in whispered speech. Swarthmore College Cognitive Science Colloquium, November 23, 1996.

1995. Sukuma Accent. 31st Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, April 21, 1995. (with William Idsardi)

Fieldwork and Field Methods Courses

2006. Field methods course on Isan, at UW-Madison.

2005. Field methods course on Gujurati, at UW-Madison.

2003. Field methods course on Tibetan, at UW-Madison.

1999. Field methods course on Hmong, at UW-Madison.

Fellowships and Grants

2007-2008. Co-recipient, DoIT/Engage Gaming and Simulations, Stage III, development and implementation of ‘Teaching the Speech Chain’ ($28,380.00).

2007-2008. Principal Investigator, Graduate School Fall Research Competition Award for ‘Identifying Gestural Change in African American English in the Upper Midwest’. ($7,991).

2007. Co-Principal Investigator (with J. Salmons), Wisconsin Humanities Council for ‘Wisconsin English’. ($10,000).

2007. Participant, DoIT/Engage Gaming and Simulations, Stage II, storyboarding with funding to begin at the conclusion of II (applied F2006; use Sp2007).

2006-2007. Recipient, DoIT/Engage Enhanced Podcasting Adaptation Award. ($800).

2006-2007. Principal Investigator, Graduate School Fall Research Competition Award for ‘Variation in the Articulatory-Acoustic Mapping of Low Vowels in Wisconsin English’. ($21,572).

2006. Participant, Wisconsin Humanities Council Mini Grant for ‘Wisconsin Englishes’ ($2,000).

2006. Recipient, DoIT/Engage Podcasting Adaptation Award. ($800).

2002-2003. Recipient, Instructor Network for Teaching in a Multimedia Environment (IN TIME), Learning Support Services, College of Letters and Science, University of Wisconsin, Madison, for development of web-based data storage and analysis for a field methods course. ($3,000).