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Michael Cahill (SIL International) Session 23The phonetics & phonology of labial velars in DagbaniDagbani has the unusual [tp, df] as allophones of /kp, gb/ before front vowels (e.g. kpání ‘spear’, but tpíní ‘guinea fowl’). Words liketpíní (more narrowly, [cp íní] also show significant friction in the release, due to palatal tongue blade position. As asymmetrical twoplacedfeature geometry is necessary to explain this categorical but partial place change, with [labial] place being primary for /kp/ and[dorsal] being secondary. The [coronal] of the front vowel spreads leftward, displacing the [dorsal] V-place feature of /kp/. Result:[labial] under C-place remains, but V-place now has [coronal], shared with the vowel, that is, tpi, not *kpi.Catherine A. Callaghan (Ohio State University) Session 101Costanoan reclassificationA reanalysis of the data argues for the following reclassification of Costanoan languages:I. KarkinII. Northern CostanoanA. SF Bay. This was a single language, united by trade across the San Francisco Bay, with Ramaytush, Chochenyo, and Tamyenas the chief dialects.B. Chalon (Soledad)III. Southern Costanoan.A. South Central1. Awaswas (Santa Cruz)2. MutsunB. RumsenRichard Cameron (University of Illinois, Chicago) Session 49Gender segregation & sociolinguistic variation in two Chicago elementary schoolsChildren's social orders show relative gender segregation. Emerging around age 3, segregation peaks in middle childhood and thendecreases. If children separate along gender lines, their cross-gender interactions will not be as frequent as interactions within theirsame gender groups. If less frequent, in keeping with Bloomfield's (1933:46) ‘density of communication’ principle, one may predictstatistical differences to emerge progressively among girls and boys. This prediction is investigated in the English spoken by childrenfrom two public schools in the Chicago metropolitan area. Focusing on two stable sociolinguistic variables, (dh) and (ing), we findsupport for the prediction.Kathryn Campbell-Kibler (University of Michigan) Session 19Integrating social information into sociolinguistic comprehensionI explored how background social information shapes the contribution of the variable (ing). Open-ended interviews and a web-basedexperiment used four recordings of spontaneous speech, presented as talk show excerpts. Speakers were described as professionals,academics, or political candidates and were rated on seven six-point scales. Background information influenced (ing) on pairs ofresponses, such that when speakers were presented as professionals (but not academics or politicians), ratings of trustworthiness andintelligence increased with perceived political left-leaning for -in guises, and with right-leaning for -ing. The social meaning of avariable is thus influenced by external social information.Rebeka Campos-Astorkiza (University of Southern California) Session 2Representation of minimal contrast: Evidence from phonetic processesI focus on the role of minimal contrast. Minimally contrastive segments are pairs of segments that differ just along one dimension ofcontrast. I present experimental evidence from Lithuanian showing the influence of minimal length contrast on a phonetic process thatmodifies duration, i.e., the voicing effect of obstruents on preceding vowels. Based on these results, I argue that the phonologicalrepresentation must include information about minimal contrast, which the phonetic component can access. I formalize minimalcontrast with a contrast-coindexing mechanism, framed within optimality theory. Contrast-coindexing applies to minimallycontrastive segments capable of distinguishing pairs of words.109