I study language from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience. Specifically, I explore the nature of phonological competence and its interaction with the sensorimotor system involved in speech. I teach courses related to linguistics, phonetics, and cognitive science.
Books
Phonology and Phonetics
2024 (forthcoming).
The book outlines a program for the study of phonology as a branch of cognitive science. Building on the legacy of classical generative phonology and biolinguistics, it provides a theoretical framework that strictly differentiates phonological competence from aspects of articulation, acoustics and perception. Its main argument is that phonological competence is to be characterized as a formal—that is, explicit, logically precise, and substance-free—manipulation of abstract symbols. It proposes that a productive way to execute this program is to adopt a model called Logical Phonology, where phonological competence is described and explained by a system that maps between phonological data structures like strings via rules constructed from basic set-theoretic operations. The book shows the merits of this model by applying it to Turkish, Hungarian, English and Croatian data. The remote and complex relationship between phonological competence and speech is elucidated by Cognitive Phonetics, which proposes that the outputs of phonology are transduced via two algorithms into temporally distributed neuromuscular activities. Taken together, Logical Phonology and Cognitive Phonetics aim to explain the nature of what is loosely referred to in the literature as ‘the externalization of language’ and to delineate its components.
Generative Phonology
2020. Ibis grafika.
The book presents the main principles of various phonological theories such as classical rule-based phonology, Lexical Phonology and Optimality Theory, and applies them in the description of Croatian.
Papers
Votic Vowel Harmony in Substance Free Logical Phonology
2023
In The Handbook of the History of Phonology. Dresher, Elan & Harry van der Hulst (eds.). §34. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Children’s Learning of Standard Croatian Accent
2022
Jezik (Language) 69/4: 31–59.
Conquer Primal Fear: Phonological Features are Innate and Substance-Free
2022
Canadian Journal of Linguistics (Special Issue: Melodic Primes in Phonology) 67/4: 1–30
Phonology and Phonetics of L2 Telugu English
2021
Studies in Linguistics and Literature 5/1: 46–69.
Naturalism, Internalism, and Nativism:
<What> The Legacy of The Sound Pattern of English <Should Be>
2021
In Blackwell Companion to Chomsky. Rey, Georges et al. (eds.). 96–108. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Formal Generative Phonology
2020
Radical: A Journal of Phonology 2/1: 1–148.
Croatian Place Assimilation of Sibilant Fricatives
2019
Proceedings of the 7th Annual Meeting on Phonology.
Continuancy in Nasal Place Assimilation: An Electropalatographic Study
2019
Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Science.
The Intervocalic Palatal Glide in Cognitive Phonetics
2018
Proceedings of the 49th Annual Meeting of the North American Linguistic Society.
Nasal Place Assimilation in Substance Free Logical Phonology
2018
Loquens 3/1.
Cognitive Phonetics: The Transduction of Distinctive Features at the Phonology-Phonetics Interface
2017
Biolinguistics 11: 251–294.
Optimality Theory in Phonology, Part 2
2016
Croatica et Slavica Iadertina 12/2: 447–478.
Optimality Theory in Phonology, Part 1
2015
Croatica et Slavica Iadertina 11/2: 333–360.
A Short History of Neurolinguistics
2015
Journal of the Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics 41/2: 377–391.
Coarticulation
2015
In Phonetics - Fundamentals, Potential Applications, and Role in Communicative Disorders. 47–86. Davis, Jasmine (ed.). New York: Nova Science Publishers.
Croatian Voicing Assimilation in Optimality Theory
2015
Jezik (Language) 62/5: 178–192.
Sociolinguistic Research of Croatian Orthography
2015
Jezikoslovlje (Linguistics) 16/1: 69–102.
Acoustic Analysis of the Intervocalic [ j ] in Croatian Speech
2013
Govor (Speech) 30/2: 117–151.
Presentations
Two logical operations underlie all major types of segmental alternations
May 2023
The 30th Manchester Phonology Meeting (MFM). University of Manchester.
Principles and Applications of Cognitive Phonetics
October 2022
Invited speaker. The English and Foreign Languages University of Hyderabad, India.
The Logical Structure of Phonological Theory
August 2022
Five invited lectures. Eastern Generative Grammar (EGG). The Masaryk University. Brno, Czech Republic.
Formal Rule-Based Phonology
July 2022
Five invited lectures. Eastern Generative Grammar (EGG). The Masaryk University of Brno.
Place and Voicing Assimilation of Croatian Sibilant Fricatives in Substance Free Logical Phonology
June 2022
Invited speaker. Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics (FASL31). McMaster University.
Contemporary Phonological Theory
May 2022
Four invited lectures. University of Zagreb, Department of Phonetics.
Cognitive Phonetics – A Theory of Phonetic Implementation
December 2021
Vienna Linguistic Circle. Invited speaker. University of Vienna.
Externalization of Substance-free Phonological Primes
June 2021
Workshop in Theoretical Phonology (WTPh). Invited speaker. Concordia University.
The Role of Generative Phonological Theory in Experimental Phonetic Research
June 2021
Invited speaker. University of Zagreb, Department of Phonetics.
Phonology and Phonetics of L2 Telugu English
May 2021
The 28th Manchester Phonology Meeting (MFM). University of Manchester.
Generative Phonology
April 2021
Series of four lectures delivered at the Department of Phonetics, University of Zagreb.
Phonological Features as Neural Symbols
October 2020
PhonolEEGy: Workshop on Electrophysiological Research and Phonological Theory. University of Côte d'Azur.
The Externalization of Language
February 2020
Meeting of the Linguistics Student Association. Invited speaker. Concordia University.
Amodal Complements, Natural Classes, and the Poverty of the Stimulus
October 2019
The 7th Annual Meeting on Phonology (AMP). Stony Brook University.
Croatian Place Assimilation in Logical Phonology
October 2019
The 7th Annual Meeting on Phonology (AMP). Stony Brook University.
Continuancy in Nasal Place Assimilation: An Electropalatographic Study
August 2019
The 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS). University of Melbourne.
Place Assimilation of Sibilant Fricatives in Logical Phonology
May 2019
The 27th Manchester Phonology Meeting (MFM). University of Manchester.
Logical Formalisms in Teaching Phonology
May 2019
Teaching Phonology: The State of the Art (MFM27 Fringe). University of Manchester.
The Phonology-Phonetics Interface
May 2019
Workshop in Theoretical Phonology (WTPh). Invited speaker. Concordia University.
Cognitive Phonetics: From Linguistic Competence to Linguistic Performance
December 2018
Zagreb Linguistic Circle. Invited speaker. University of Zagreb.
The Intervocalic Palatal Glide in Cognitive Phonetics
October 2018
The 49th Annual Meeting of the North American Linguistic Society (NELS). Cornell University.
Continuancy in Nasal Place Assimilation
May 2018
The 26th Manchester Phonology Meeting (MFM). University of Manchester.
Cognitive Phonetics: The Phonology-Phonetics Interface
May 2018
The 10th North American Phonology Conference (NAPhC). Invited speaker. Concordia University.
Recognizing Intrasegmental Coarticulation
May 2017
Représentations Cognitives, Journée Montréalaise des Sciences Cognitives. UQAM.
Croatian Regressive Voicing Assimilation in Optimality Theory
January 2016
Zagreb Linguistic Circle. University of Zagreb.
Some Controversial Aspects of Optimality Theory
June 2015
Budapest Linguistics Conference (BLINC). Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Sociolinguistic Research of Croatian Orthography
June 2015
Croatian Applied Linguistics Society.
University of Zadar.
Acoustic Analysis of the Intervocalic [ j ]Â in Croatian Speech
December 2013
Speech Research (SR). University of Zagreb.
Teaching
Linguistics Program – Department of Classics, Modern Languages and Linguistics
Concordia University (Montreal, Canada)
LING 200
Introduction to Linguistic Science
This course provides an introduction to the principles of general linguistics. There is an emphasis on synchronic linguistic analysis, with a brief examination of historical and comparative linguistics.
LING 372
Phonetics
The course covers four areas that are traditionally taken to constitute phonetics — the scientific study of speech: speech production, phonetic transcription, acoustics of speech, and speech perception. In each of these areas the course particularly focuses on those aspects of phonetics that can serve as tools in the study of the human language faculty.
LING 373
Phonology
The course provides an introduction to contemporary phonology, the study of abstract sound patterns of language. It covers the fundamental phonological concepts and notational techniques, and provides students with extensive training in data analysis and rule writing. Attention is also given to the logic behind phonological reasoning and to some current issues in cognitive science.
LING 380
Morphology
This course consists of a survey of linguistic morphology, the study of word structure, and the tools used to perform morphological analysis. It also provides an overview of contemporary morphological theory.
LING 421
Non-Indo-European Structures
The course is intended to give the student an in-depth acquaintance with the structure of a language that differs markedly from that of familiar Indo-European languages. The course involves working with a native speaker and/or from textual material. The main goals of this course are to (1) introduce students to linguistic fieldwork, focusing on elicitation of data from native speakers; (2) introduce students to the structure of a non-Indo-European language; (3) learn to connect elicited and analyzed data to linguistic theory.
LING 472
Advanced Phonetics
This advanced course in phonetics treats topics in speech perception, neural representation and control of speech, and speech-language pathology.
LING 473
Advanced Phonology
This course treats current issues in phonological theory. It explores the basics of major phonological
theories such as Autosegmental Phonology, Metrical Phonology, Lexical Phonology, Government
Phonology, and Optimality Theory.
LING 475
History of Linguistics
The course surveys the study of language from the earliest beginnings in Ancient Greece and India to the present day.
LING 490
Neurobiological Foundations of Language and Speech
The course is an advanced seminar in neurolinguistics and neurophonetics. It consists of a survey of (1) the anatomy and physiology of the human nervous system, focusing on brain areas implicated in language and speech; (2) research methods in cognitive neuroscience; (3) theoretical issues in neurobiology of language and speech. The course gives special consideration to brain-based disorders of language and speech.
Contact
1250 Guy Street (FB1000.08)
Montreal, QC H3G 1M8
Canada