Update: MFM 28 is cancelled in 2020 and will be held in May 2021 with the same workshop on Second Language Phonology and Phonological Theory.

MFM 28 will be held in Manchester, England Thursday 28th – Saturday 30th May 2020. It is organised through a collaboration of phonologists at the University of Edinburgh, the University of Manchester and elsewhere.

Conference homepage: http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/mfm/28mfm.html

A special themed session is being organised for Friday 29th May by members of the organising committee and the advisory board. This will feature invited speakers, as listed below, and will allow for open discussion when contributions from the audience will be very welcome.

Second Language Phonology and Phonological Theory
How do two (or more than two) phonologies interact if they exist in the same mind? Or don’t they interact – is each language’s phonology kept separate in the grammar? Is there a fundamental difference in these issues if a speaker acquires a second language as a child or as an adult? Can two phonologies ever have equal dominance for a speaker? In what ways, precisely, can an L1 influence an L2? And what happens in language attrition, when an L2 influences an L1? How can the answers to questions like these inform our theories of phonology in general? These are some of the questions that we hope our invited speakers will address in this special session.

Invited speakers

Ellen Broselow (Stony Brook University)
Charles Chang (Boston University)
Ellen Simon (Ghent University)

There will also be a separately-organised Fringe Workshop on Wednesday 27th May entitled Moraic vs. X-Slot Syllabification: The Debate organised by Björn Köhnlein and Shanti Ulfsbjorninn.

Call for papers

There is no obligatory conference theme for the 28mfm – abstracts can be submitted on anything phonological.

• Abstracts should be uploaded to the 28mfm’s page on the the Linguist List’s EasyAbstracts site by or on 9th January 2020. The precise deadline, as implemented by EasyAbstracts, is as follows: 11.59pm US Eastern Standard Time on 9th January.
• The website for uploading abstracts is here: http://linguistlist.org/easyabs/28mfm.
• Please submit your abstract in pdf format, with fonts embedded (if necessary, we can accept Word or txt files, but please send pdf if possible).
• Abstracts should be no longer than one side of A4 (or ‘American letter’), with 2.5cm or one inch margins, single-spaced, with a font size no smaller than 12, and with normal character spacing. All examples and references in the abstract should be included on the one single page, but it is enough, when referring to previous work, to cite “Author (Date)” in the body of the abstract – you do not need to give the full reference at the end of the abstract. Please DO NOT submit an abstract if it goes over one page for any reason – it will be rejected. Remember also that, if you abstract is accepted, you will need to submit a version with your name and email address, and this will still need to only take up one page – please bear this in mind and leave space for this when finalising your abstract.
• Your abstract should be anonymous. You will be asked to submit a version with your name and affiliation on it if your abstract is selected for presentation. Please make sure that you do not use your name in the filename for your abstract, and please erase any details which might identify you in the file that you submit.
• If you need to use a phonetic font in your abstract, please either embed it in a pdf file, or use the Doulos SIL font, which can be downloaded for free from this site: http://software.sil.org/doulos/.
• You may opt to present your work either as a talk or a poster or as a poster only. These are the only two categories available. The category ‘either talk or poster’ is the default, and if you opt for this we will assume that you would rather present your work as a talk – we will award a talk slot to the abstracts in this category which we judge likely to offer the best programme. The poster sessions have always been a great success at mfms and we give them a high profile. Some work is best presented as a poster, so you may specify that you would only like to be considered for a poster.
• No-one may submit more than one single-authored abstract, as this allows more people to take part in the conference. You may submit one single-authored abstract and one jointly-authored abstract (or two jointly-authored abstracts), but it is unlikely that anyone will be offered two opportunities to speak.
• If you need any unusual technical equipment for a talk, you will need to let the organisers know if your abstract is selected for presentation. We will do our best to provide it, but this cannot be guaranteed. We expect to provide data projection facilities (but there will be no technical support for this).
• All abstracts will be reviewed anonymously by four members of the organising committee and advisory board. You can read about the abstract selection process here. If you cannot send your abstract in the way set out above, for whatever reason, please email patrick.honeybone@ed.ac.uk and we’ll arrange another way of abstract submission.