D. Eric Holt
Scholarly interests and activities
RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS
CONFERENCE
PRESENTATIONS
Optimality Theory and sound change, particularly of Latin to
Hispano-Romance, and historical and contemporary dialects of northwestern Spain. And, more generally, Hispanic linguistics, phonological theory,
historical linguistics, dialectology, language variation and change, Hispanic
sociolinguistics.
Recently my interests have branched out (as well as aligned
with the practical side of my teaching) into the acquisition of phonology, particularly of Spanish pronunciation by English-speaking
learners in a variety of contexts.
My research interests lie in phonological theory,
especially as a tool for understanding aspects of the sound structure of
Spanish, both modern synchronic and historical diachronic, including dialect
variation past and present. A common theme to be found in my work is the
application and development of issues in general linguistic theory to Spanish
and dialectal data, thus providing me the opportunity to offer refinements both
to previous analyses of the data and to the theory more broadly. Other work
of mine has treated aspects of dialectal and historical variation, including
‘sporadic sound changes’ like metathesis and intrusive stop formation. Beginning
in 2008, I began conducting and presenting research on the acquisition of connected
speech phenomena in Spanish by English–speaking learners.
RESEARCH
PUBLICATIONS
Book (ed.): Optimality Theory and Language Change. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. (Studies
in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 56, 459 Pp. 2003.) Google Books listing.
Dissertation: The
Role of the Listener in the Historical Phonology of Spanish and Portuguese: An
Optimality-Theoretic Account. [Rutgers Optimality Archive, ROA-278.]
Articles and book chapters:
“When Small Words Collide: Morphological
Reduction and Phonological Compensation in Old Leonese Contractions.”
Little Words: Their history, phonology,
syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and acquisition. Ronald Leow,
Héctor Campos, and Donna Lardiere,
eds. Georgetown University Press, 2009. 21-33. (With Minta M. Elsman.)
PDF. (Prefinal
version.)
“Optimality Theory and language change in
Spanish.” Optimality-Theoretic Advances in Spanish Phonology. Fernando Martínez-Gil
and Sonia Colina, eds. Benjamins,
2007. 378-396. Includes appendix “Bibliography on Optimality Theory and language variation
and change in Spanish.” 396-398. PDF.
“Optimization of
syllable contact in Old Spanish via the sporadic sound change metathesis.” Probus: International Journal of Latin and Romance
Linguistics 16 (2004). 43-61. (Special issue on historical phonology of
Romance, Jean-Pierre Montreuil, ed.) PDF. PDF.
“Sobre los cambios
fónicos esporádicos que optimizan el contacto silábico en el español antiguo: El caso de la metátesis” Proceedings of the XIII Congreso de la Asociación de Lingüística y Filología de América
Latina (ALFAL), Universidad de Costa Rica, February 18-23,
2002. Published
on CD-ROM in February, 2004.
PDF.
“Remarks on Optimality
Theory and Language Change.”
In Optimality Theory and Language Change. (D.
Eric Holt, ed.)
1-30. 2003. PDF.
“The emergence of
palatal sonorants and alternating diphthongs in
Hispano-Romance.” In Optimality Theory and Language Change. (D.
Eric Holt, ed.) 285-305. 2003. PDF.
“The
articulator group and liquid geometry: Implications for Spanish phonology
present and past.” In Caroline Wiltshire and Joaquim Camps, eds., Romance Phonology and Variation.
Philadelphia and Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 85-99. 2002. PDF.
“Comparative Optimality-Theoretic
Dialectology: Singular/plural nasal alternations in Galician, Mirandese (Leonese) and Spanish.”
In Héctor Campos, Elena Herburger,
Alfonso Morales-Front, and Thomas J. Walsh, eds., Hispanic Linguistics at
the Turn of the Millennium: Papers from the Third Hispanic Linguistics
Symposium. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla
Press. 125-143. 2000. PDF.
“The moraic
status of consonants from Latin to Hispano-Romance: The case of obstruents.” In Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach
and Fernando Martínez-Gil, eds., Advances in
Hispanic Linguistics: Papers from the Second Hispanic Linguistics
Symposium. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla
Press. 166-181. 1999. PDF.
“The role of comprehension, reinterpretation
and the Uniformity Condition in historical change: The case of the development
of Cl clusters from Latin to Hispano-Romance.”
In Vida Samiian, ed., Proceedings
of the Twenty-sixth Western Conference on Linguistics (WECOL) 1996. Department of Linguistics, California
State University,
Fresno. 133-148. 1998. PDF.
“On the interplay of
morphology, prosody and faithfulness in Portuguese pluralization.” In Fernando Martínez-Gil and Alfonso Morales-Front, eds., Issues in
the Phonology and Morphology of the Major Iberian Languages. Washington, DC: Georgetown
University Press. 393-437. 1997. Alfonso Morales-Front, co-author. PDF.
“From Latin to Hispano-Romance: A
constraint-based approach to vowel nasalization, sonorant simplification and
the Late Spoken Latin open mid vowels.” In Lise M. Dobrin, Kora Singer and Lisa
McNair, eds., CLS
32: The Main Session (1996), 111-123. Significantly revised version of paper presented
at the Second Annual Graduate Romanic Association Colloquium. University of Pennsylvania. March 30, 1996. PDF.
“Anti-hiatic insertion and spreading processes in
Hispano-Romance.” Aleph 8 (1993), 84-92.
Comparative software review article of the CD-ROMs Phonetics: An
Interactive Introduction (Nicholas Reid, The University of New England,
Australia, 1999) and The Mouton Interactive Introduction to Phonetics and
Phonology (Jürgen Handke,
Mouton de Gruyter, 2001). Language Learning &
Technology 6.3 (September 2002). 37-45. Available from http://llt.msu.edu/vol6num3/review4/.
A History of the Spanish Language Through Texts. By Christopher J. Pountain. Routledge.
2001. LINGUIST List, 24 August 2001. http://linguistlist.org/issues/12/12-2100.html.
Linguistic Structure and Linguistic Change: Explanation from
Language Processing. By Thomas Berg.
Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press. 1998. Language
77.1 (2000). 207-208.
Language Behavior: Acquisition and Evolutionary
History. (Language and Development, 6.)
By R. Narasimhan. New Delhi,
Thousand Oaks, CA
& London:
Sage Publications. 1998. Language 76.4 (1999). 853-854.
Using
Spanish: A Guide to Contemporary Usage. By C.J. Pountain and R.E. Batchelor. The Georgetown Journal of
Linguistics 3 (1995). 286-289.
Norma G. Catalán, co-author.
“On the context of acquisition of connected speech in L2 Spanish.” Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and
Linguistics, March 13-15, 2009. PDF.
“On the acquisition of synalepha and resyllabification
in Spanish by English-speaking advanced learners.” Current Approaches to Spanish and
Portuguese Second Language Phonology.
University of Minnesota, February 22-23, 2008. MS Word.
Invited panelist: A research agenda for L2 phonology in Spanish and
Portuguese. Current Approaches to Spanish and
Portuguese Second Language Phonology. University of Minnesota, February 22-23,
2008.
“Intersecting Paradigms: Preposition
+ Article Contraction and Leveling in Medieval Castile”, 52nd Annual Conference of the International Linguistic
Association, New York City, March 30-April 1, 2007. (With Minta M. Elsman.) PDF. Map and charts.
“Insights
from phonological theory for historical variation and change, and vice versa.” California State
University, Long Beach, Department of Linguistics, March
12, 2007. (Invited lecture.)
“An OT Analysis of Preposition +
Article Contraction (and Leveling) in Medieval Castile”, Georgetown University
Round Table on Languages and Linguistics (GURT): Small words: Their history,
phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and acquisition. Washington, DC,
March 8-11, 2007. (With Minta M. Elsman.) (Note: See entry for ILA 2007 for updated version
of handout.)
“Overview of
dialectal phenomena and historical changes in Spanish.” California State
University, Fullerton, Department of Modern Languages and
Literatures, December 11, 2006. (Invited class lecture.)
“What linguistic theory can help us
understand about the development of Spanish.” California State
University, San Bernardino, Department of World
Languages, February 27, 2006. (Invited lecture.)
“An optimality-theoretic approach to
syllable contact in Old Spanish: Taming the sporadic sound change.” University of Texas
at Austin,
Department of Spanish and Portuguese, February 5, 2004. (Invited lecture.)
“Sobre los cambios fónicos
esporádicos que optimizan el contacto silábico en el español antiguo.” Presented at the XIII Congreso
de la Asociación de
Lingüística y Filología de América Latina (ALFAL), Universidad de Costa Rica, February
18-23, 2002.
“Paths of dialect formation in
Galician.” University
of Georgia, Linguistics
Program, March 16, 2001. (Invited lecture.)
“On the
divergent phonological development of the dialects of northwestern Spain.” Pennsylvania State University,
Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, December 11, 2000. (Invited lecture.)
“Comparing approaches to the
underlying specification of Spanish vowels.” The 29th
meeting of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest (LASSO 29), Benemérita
Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP), Mexico, October
13-15, 2000. PDF.
“The articulator group, liquid geometry and Spanish phonology.” The 30th
Linguistic Symposium on Romance Linguistics (LSRL 30), University
of Florida, Gainesville, February 24-29, 2000.
“Comparative OT dialectology:
Singular/plural nasal alternations in Galician, Mirandese
(Leonese) and Spanish.” Third Hispanic Linguistics
Symposium, Georgetown
University, October 8-10,
1999.
“Underspecification,
constriction-based vowel geometry and scalar raising
in Asturiano.” The 73rd Annual Meeting of
the Linguistic Society of America,
Los Angeles,
January 7-10, 1999. PDF.
“An
explanation of how Hispano-Romance ch and ll both derive from Latin cl, pl, fl.” Alternate paper for the Annual
Meeting of the Modern Language Association, San Francisco, December 27-30, 1998.
“Vowel harmony in Asturiano, a dialect spoken
in Spain.” USC Program in Linguistics Colloquium. November 20,
1998. (45 minute lecture)
“The moraic status of consonants from Latin to Hispano-Romance:
The case of obstruents.” The Second
Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, The Ohio State
University, October 9-11,
1998.
“What
Happened to Consonant Length from Latin to Hispano-Romance?” USC Historical
Linguistics Research Group (HLRG) Meeting, October 2, 1998. (45 minute
lecture)
“The sonority
hierarchy and NoLongVowel:
Theoretical implications.” The 72nd Annual Meeting of the Linguistic
Society of America, New York City, January
8-11, 1998. PDF.
“The role of
comprehension, reinterpretation and the Uniformity Condition in historical
change: The case of the development of Cl
clusters from Latin to Hispano-Romance.” The Twenty-sixth
Western Conference on Linguistics (WECOL) 1996, University
of California at Santa Cruz, October, 1996.
“From Latin
to Hispano-Romance: A constraint-based approach to vowel nasalization, sonorant
simplification and the Vulgar Latin open mid vowels.” The Second Annual
Graduate Romanic Association Colloquium, University of Pennsylvania,
March 30, 1996.
“Constraint interaction and the case of Portuguese plurals.” The 48th Kentucky
Foreign Language Conference. University
of Kentucky, Lexington, April 20-22, 1995.
“The sonority cycle, the demisyllable and Old
Spanish metathesis.” The 24th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages,
USC & UCLA, March 10-13, 1994.
“Spreading
processes in Ibero-Romance triggered by the loss of
intervocalic -d-.” The Fourth
Annual Graduate Student Conference, Pennsylvania
State University,
University Park.
April 3, 1993.
“Autosegmental spreading processes triggered by
consonantal loss in Early Ibero-Romance.” Presession on Portuguese Linguistics, Georgetown
University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics, Washington, DC, March
10, 1993.
“El espanglish:
entre dos lenguas -- lenguas en contacto, cambio de código y más.” Invited
lecture for Prof. Nina Moreno’s SPAN 515 Introduction to Spanish linguistics,
November 18, 2008. PDF.
“Why do they say that in Spanish?” Students’ questions and their real answers South Carolina Foreign Language Teachers’ Association, Columbia, South Carolina,
February 21, 2004.
(50 minute workshop) MS Word.
“‘Reflexive’ verbs, ‘no-fault se’ and other myths about the
pronoun se in Spanish.” South Carolina
Foreign Language Teachers’ Association, Columbia, South Carolina,
March 17, 2000. (50 minute workshop) PDF.
“What you
need to know to improve pronunciation of Spanish.” South
Carolina Foreign Language Teachers’ Association, Columbia, South
Carolina, February 27, 1999. (50 minute workshop) PDF.