Research:
Computational evolutionary phonology, for lack of a better term. I'm interested in modelling the emergence of phonological patterns in both individuals and populations, in particular assimilatory patterns like vowel harmony and voicing assimilation. Mirroring the distinction between individuals and populations, my work involves both synchronic and diachronic components.
On the synchronic side, I'm looking at how Bayesian agents ("ideal observers") do in the presence of noisily transmitted data, i.e. what's the best we can expect language learners to do, given the inherent noisiness (in both perception and production) of real-life instances of language acquisition. On the diachronic side, I'm following in the footsteps of people like Andy Wedel and Bart de Boer, who have been looking at how stable phonological patterns (e.g. categoricity and shapes of vowel inventories) can emerge via self-organization in populations of speakers over several generations of transmission and acquisition, in something like Simon Kirby's iterated learning model. Again, the domain of interest is assimilation, now viewed as the phonologization of coarticulation (i.e. I want to look at whether an Ohala/Blevins type of story actually cashes out in a model).
My CV
Teaching:
FYSM 1607B
Publications:
Refereed articles:
- Mailhot, F. and C. Reiss (2007). Computing long-distance dependencies in vowel harmony. Biolinguistics,1:28-48.
www.biolinguistics.eu
Conference presentations:
- Mailhot, F. (2008). An iterated learning model of the emergence of vowel harmony. Poster presented at CogSci2008. Washington D.C. July 2008.
- Mailhot, F. (2008). Modeling the emergence of vowel harmony in an iterated learning framework. Symposium on Phonologization. University of Chicago. April 2008.
- Mailhot, F. (2008). Vowel harmony as phonologized coarticulation: an iterated learning model. MOT 2008. McGill University. March 2008
- Mailhot, F. and C. Reiss (2004). "Qu'est-ce qu'une règle possible en phonologie?" ACFAS 2004. UQAM, April 2004.
- Mailhot, F. and C. Reiss (2004). "On the form and interpretation of phonological rules." 2004
Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto Phonology Workshop. University of Ottawa, February 2004.
- Mailhot, F. and C. Riess (2003). "Precedence and locality in vowel harmony." Approaching Asymmetry at the
Interfaces. UQAM, October 2003.
Non-refereed posters:
- Mailhot, F. (2007). A Procedural Model of Phonological Assimilation. Poster at 2007 Spring Cognitive Science
Colloquium. Carleton University, April 2007.
- Carroll, F. (2006). Music, Memory and Affect. Poster at 2006 Spring Cognitive Science Colloquium. Carleton
University, April 2006.
- Mailhot, F. and A. Morin (2005). "The Symbol Level in Linguistics." ZenCon conference in honour of the 20th
anniversary of the publication of Computation and Cognition. Guelph University, May 2005.
Invited talks:
- Mailhot, F. (2005). "There are no linguistic Attract Closest conditions." Presented to the
Concordia Linguistics Students' Association. April 2005.
- Mailhot, F. (2003). "Precedence and locality in vowel harmony." Presented to the Concordia Linguistics
Students' Association. September 2003.
This isn't quite the way I see things, but it's fairly close, and it's a rare occasion when webcomics talk about things that are of academic interest to me!