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Welcome to Mary's site

Great Celebrations!

There were great celebrations as the Kera New Testament was dedicated. See the special dedication page for more.

Congratulations Mary!

Mary Pearce has just been awarded first prize in the Life Sciences Faculty section of the UCL poster competition, for her poster on labio-dental flaps in the Chadic language Kera. Getting into a flap poster

About Mary

Until July 2002 Mary was working for SIL in Chad among the Kera people. She was involved in a team translating the New Testament.

Mary is a keen musician and the cartoon shows her with her keyboard.

At present she is doing a PhD in Phonology at University College London. Mary is enjoying her studies in the Phonetics and Linguistics department at UCL. She thoroughly recommends the MA in Phonology course that she did last year to anyone interested in that subject. Phonology is the study of the sound systems of languages. Understanding the phonology of a language is useful for producing a good written form of that language. After this she is hoping to return to Chad for a future role of teaching and mentoring in linguistics.

Mary's CV

Research

2002-2006 Phonology of the Chadic language Kera, with particular reference to tone, vowel harmony and foot structure. The research is based on an extensive collection of data with detailed acoustic measurements mostly recorded in two field trips to Chad in 2004 and 2006. Perception and production experiments have yielded interesting results which are analysed with reference to current theoretical issues in phonology in an Optimality Theory framework.

Publications

Papers:

2006 (in press) The Interaction between metrical structure and tone in Kera. Phonology. 23.2 CUP. 259-286
Published Online: 23-NOV-06 abstract

2006 (in press) Evidence against voicing spread in Kera. In (eds.) M Pearce and R. Breheny, UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 18. Department of Phonetics and Linguistics, UCL

2005 Iambicity without stress in Kera, Proceedings of CamLing conference, 2005.

2005 Kera Tone and Voicing. In (eds.) M Pearce and N Topintzi, UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 17. Department of Phonetics and Linguistics, UCL

2002 Chad. In John Shepherd, David Horn and Dave Laing (eds.), Continuum encyclopedia of popular music of the world. 19-23. London/New York: Continuum

1998/1999. Consonants and tone in Kera (Chadic). Journal of West African Languages 27(1): 33-70.

1994 An introductory study of music among the Kera. Notes on Anthropology and Intercultural Community Work 14: 26-46. SIL

Reviews:

2005-2006 Three anonymous reviews for journals

Presentations

Conferences:

2006 Enhancement between VOT and F0: evidence from Kera voicing perception. Invited speaker, JASA, Providence, Rhode Island.

2006 Iambicity in a tone language: the case of Kera. ACAL, Eugene, Oregon.

2006 Evidence against voicing spread in Kera. Manchester Phonology Meeting.

2006 Tone and voicing interaction in Kera. WOCAL, Ethiopia.

2006 F0 and VOT in production and perception of voicing: a comparison of English and Kera. TIE2, Berlin

2006 Kera, a language in change: fluctuations in voicing and tonal contrast. CALL, Leiden, Netherlands.

2005 Iambicity without stress in Kera. CAMLING, Cambridge.

Plus various presentations to the London Phonology Seminar and PhD day at UCL and earlier presentations to CALL, Leiden in 2005, 2004, 2003, 1995.

2004 What loan words can teach us about Kera phonology. CALL, Leiden, Netherlands.

2003 Vowel harmony in Kera (Chadic). CALL, Leiden, Netherlands.

1995 Consonants and Tone in Kera (Chadic). CALL, Leiden, Netherlands.

Posters:

2006 Entrant in Centre for Human Communication poster competition.

2005 Iambicity without stress in Kera. Manchester Phonology Meeting.

2005 Getting into a flap. Winner of Life Sciences section of UCL poster competition.

2002 "Life" in Chad

2002 Sunset in Chad

2002 "Life" in Chad 2

Contact details

Address: Department of Phonetics and Linguistics, University College London (UCL), Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom.
e-mail: mary_pearce@sil.org

Note

This is a personal site and not an official SIL site. Copyright and disclaimer

Stylesheets

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