Conférencière : Anja Arnhold, professeure agrégée à l'Université d'Alberta (https://sites.ualberta.ca/~arnhold/) 

Titre : Stress is not universal. The case from Inuit languages

Résumé : 

Many linguists assume, implicitly or explicitly, that stress patterns can be identified in every language. However, several scholars have rejected this assumption. This talk will defend the latter position and argue that the notion of stress or accent is not necessary or useful when describing languages of Inuit. While early accounts described stress patterns for several varieties, starting in the later decades of the 20th century, linguists working on these languages have agreed that they do not have stress. I will illustrate the case against stress, reviewing both acoustic and phonological evidence and focusing in particular on my own (joint) work on two varieties, Kalaallisut and South Baffin Inuktitut. At the same time, I will present an overview of the intonation of these languages and discuss their classification from the point of view of prosodic typology.