Research areas

  • Sound change
  • Phonetics-phonology interface
  • Experimental phonetics

Current project

Modelling the actuation of sound change: a phonetic investigation into /s/ to /sh/ retraction (DFG, 2018-2025)

Career

  • Born 1978 in Hobart, Tasmania
  • 2000: Bachelor of Arts, Australian National University
  • 2001: Bachelor of Arts (Honours), University of Melbourne
  • 2007: Doctor of Philosophy, University of Melbourne
  • February 2010 - April 2012: Post-doctoral research fellow at the IPS, Munich (externally funded by the Alexander von Humboldt foundation)
  • Since May 2012: research fellow at the IPS

Publications

  • Stevens, M. (2023): Predicting sound change: acoustic evidence from a longitudinal study of /s/-retraction in English /str/, Proc. International Congress of the Phonetic Sciences. Prague, August 2023; pp. 2966-2970. (pdf (PDF, 572 KB))
  • Stevens, M. and Harrington, J. (2022) Individual variation and the coarticulatory path to sound change: agent-based modeling of /str/ in English and Italian, Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 7(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.8869
  • Harrington, J., Gubian, M., Stevens, M., and Schiel, F. (2019) Phonetic change in an Antarctic winter. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 146, 3327 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1121/1.5130709.(pdf (PDF, 488 KB))
    (Copyright (2019) Acoustical Society of America. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the Acoustical Society of America.)
  • Stevens, M. and Loakes, D. (2019) Individual differences and sound change actuation: evidence from imitation and perception of English /str/. Proc. International Congress of the Phonetic Sciences. Melbourne, August 2019; pp. 3200-3204. (pdf (PDF, 833 KB))
  • Harrington, J., Kleber, F., Reubold, U., Schiel, F., and Stevens, M. (2019) The phonetic basis of the origin and spread of sound change. In The Routledge Handbook of Phonetics, Ed. W. Katz & P. Assmann, pp. 401-426, ISBN: 978-1-138-64833-3.
  • Stevens, M., Harrington, J., and Schiel, F. (2019) Associating the origin and spread of sound change using agent-based modelling applied to /s/-retraction in English. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 4(1), 8. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.620
  • Harrington, J., Kleber, F., Reubold, U., Schiel, F., and Stevens, M. (2018) Linking cognitive and social aspects of sound change using agent-based modeling. Topics in Cognitive Science, 1-21. (pdf)
  • Stevens, M. and Harrington, J. (2016) The phonetic origins of /s/-retraction: Acoustic and perceptual evidence from Australian English Journal of Phonetics 58:118-134. (pdf (PDF, 609 KB))
  • Harrington, J., Kleber, F., Reubold, M., and Stevens, M. (2016) The relevance of context and experience for the operation of historical sound change. In A. Esposito & L. Jain (Eds.) Toward Robotic Socially Believable Behaving Systems - Volume II: Modeling Social Signals. Springer Verlag. (pdf (PDF, 301 KB))
  • Harrington, J., Kleber, F., and Stevens, M. (2016) The relationship between the (mis)-parsing of coarticulation in perception and sound change: evidence from dissimilation and language acquisition. In A. Esposito and M. Faundez-Zany (Eds.) Recent Advances in Nonlinear Speech Processing. Springer Verlag. (pdf (PDF, 287 KB))
  • Stevens, M., Bukmaier, V. & J. Harrington (2015). Pre-consonantal /s/-retraction. Proc. International Congress of the Phonetic Sciences. Glasgow, August 2015. (pdf (PDF, 1,179 KB))
  • Stevens, M. & Reubold, U. (2014). Pre-aspiration, quantity, and sound change. Laboratory Phonology 5, 4. 455-488 (pdf (PDF, 620 KB))
  • Stevens, M., & Harrington, J. (2014). The individual and the actuation of sound change. Loquens 1(1). http://dx.doi.org/10.3989/loquens.2014.003 (original publication)
  • Harrington, J. & Stevens, M. (2014). Editors' introduction: Cognitive processing as a bridge between phonetic and social models of sound change. Laboratory Phonology 5, 1. 1-8. (pdf (PDF, 227 KB))
  • Schiel, F., Stevens, M., Reichel, U. & F. Cutugno (2013). Machine Learning of Probabilistic Phonological Pronunciation Rules from the Italian CLIPS Corpus. Proc. Interspeech 2013, Lyon, France: 1414-1418. (pdf (PDF, 191 KB))
  • Stevens, M. (2012) A Phonetic Investigation into "Raddoppiamento sintattico" in Sienese Italian. Bern: Peter Lang (European University Studies - Italian Linguistics Series)
  • Stevens, M. (2011) Consonant Length in Italian: Gemination, Degemination and Preaspiration. In Scott M. Alvord (Ed.) Selected Proceedings of the 5th Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Romance Phonology. Somerville, MA, USA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. pp. 21-32. (pdf)
  • Woodward-Kron, R., M. Stevens & E. Flynn. (2011) The medical educator, the discourse analyst, and the phonetician: A collaborative feedback methodology for clinical communication. Academic Medicine 86, 5: 565-570.
  • Hajek, J. and M. Stevens. (2011) Vowel duration in stressed position in Central & Northern varieties of Standard Italian: A pilot study. In Wai-Sum Lee and Eric Zee (eds) Proceedings of ICPhS XVII. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong, pp. 803-806. (pdf (PDF, 221 KB))
  • Stevens, M. (2010) How widespread is preaspiration in Italy? A preliminary acoustic phonetic overview. Lund University Centre for Languages and Literature Phonetics Working Papers 54 (Proc. FONETIK 2010): 97-102. (pdf (PDF, 1,115 KB))
  • Stevens, M. & J. Hajek (2010) Post-aspiration in standard Italian: some first cross-regional acoustic evidence. Proceedings of Interspeech 2010. Makuhari, Japan, pp. 1557-1560. (pdf (PDF, 967 KB))
  • Stevens, M. and J. Hajek (2010) Preaspirated /pp tt kk/ in standard Italian: A sociophonetic v. phonetic analysis. In Tabain, M., J. Fletcher, D. Grayden, J. Hajek and A. Butcher (eds) Proceedings of the 13th Australasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology, Melbourne: ASSTA, pp. 1-4. (pdf (PDF, 330 KB))
  • Mairano, P., A. Romano, M. Stevens and J. Hajek (2009) La preaspirazione nelle lingue del nord europa e in italiano: dati di base per un confronto tra islandese e senese. In Luciano Romito, Vincenzo Galata' and Rosita Lio (eds) Atti del 4o convegno nazionale AISV 2007 "La Fonetica Sperimentale. Metodo e applicazioni". Cosenza, EDK Press, pp. 179-195.
  • Stevens, M. & J. Hajek (2008) Positional effects on the characterisation of ejectives in Waima'a. Proceedings of Interspeech 2008, Brisbane, pp. 1124-1127. (pdf (PDF, 825 KB))
  • Hajek, J. & M. Stevens (2008) Vowel duration, compression and lengthening in stressed syllables in Central and Southern varieties of standard Italian. Proceedings of Interspeech 2008, Brisbane, pp. 516-519. (pdf (PDF, 423 KB))
  • Stevens, M. & J. Hajek (2007) Towards a phonetic conspectus of preaspiration: acoustic evidence from Sienese Italian. Proceedings of ICPhS XVI, Saarbrücken, Germany, pp. 429-432. (pdf (PDF, 880 KB))
  • Hajek, J., Stevens, M. & G. Webster (2007) Vowel duration, compression and lengthening in stressed syllables in Italian. Proceedings of ICPhS XVI, Saarbrücken, Germany, pp. 1057-1060. (pdf (PDF, 478 KB))
  • Stevens, M. and J. Hajek (2007) L'inibizione dell'allungamento consonantico ai confini di parola nell'italiano senese: alcune prove uditive e acustiche. In Veronica Giordani, Valentina Briseghini and Piero Cosi (eds) Atti dell'AISV III Convegno nazionale "Scienze Vocali e del Linguaggio - Metodologie di Valutazione e Risorse Linguistiche", Povo di Trento, EDK Press, pp. 17-26.
  • Stevens, M. & J. Hajek (2006) Blocking of word-boundary consonant lengthening in Sienese Italian: some auditory and acoustic evidence. Proceedings of the 11th Australasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology, Auckland, New Zealand, ASSTA, pp. 196-181. (pdf (PDF, 530 KB))
  • Stevens, M., Kruspe, N. & J. Hajek (2006) Register in Mah Meri: a preliminary phonetic analysis. In R. Hoffmann & H. Mixdorff (Eds), Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2006, Dresden, Germany. pp. 269-272. (pdf (PDF, 557 KB))
  • Stevens, M. & J. Hajek (2005) Raddoppiamento sintattico and word-medial gemination in Italian: are they the same or are they different? The evidence from spontaneous speech. In R. S. Gess & E. J. Rubin (Eds.) Theoretical and Experimental Approaches to Romance Linguistics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins, pp. 257-272.
  • Stevens, M. & J. Hajek (2005) Spirantization of /p t k/ in Sienese Italian and so-called semi-fricatives. Proceedings of Interspeech 2005, Lisbon, pp. 2893-2897. (pdf (PDF, 285 KB))
  • Hajek, J. & M. Stevens (2005) On the acoustic characterization of ejective stops in Waima'a. Proceedings of Interspeech 2005, Lisbon, pp. 2889-2893. (pdf (PDF, 245 KB))
  • Hajek, J. & M. Stevens (2005) La preaspirazione delle occlusive sorde geminate nel Senese. In P. Cosi (Ed.) Atti del 1o Convegno Nazionale AISV 2004 "Misura dei parametri - aspetti tecnologici ed implicazioni nei modelli linguistici". Padua, EDK Press, pp. 89-100.
  • Stevens, M. (2004) Preaspiration in Sienese Italian: Some acoustic evidence. Melbourne Papers in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics 4, 1: 35-45.
  • Stevens, M. & J. Hajek (2004) Preaspiration in Sienese Italian and its interaction with stress in /VC:/ sequences. In B. Bel & I. Marlien (Eds) Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2004. Nara, Japan: SProSIG, pp. 57-60. (pdf (PDF, 269 KB))
  • Stevens, M. & J. Hajek (2004) How pervasive is preaspiration? Investigating sonorant devoicing in Sienese Italian. Proceedings of the 10th Australian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology, Macquarie University, Sydney, pp. 334-339. (pdf (PDF, 422 KB))
  • Stevens, M. & J. Hajek (2004). Comparing voiced and voiceless geminates in Sienese Italian: what role does preaspiration play? Proceedings of the 10th Australian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology, Macquarie University, Sydney, pp. 340-345. (pdf (PDF, 463 KB))
  • Stevens, M. & J. Hajek (2004) A preliminary investigation of some acoustic characteristics of ejectives in Waima'a: VOT and closure duration. Proceedings of the 10th Australian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology, Macquarie University, Sydney, pp. 277-282. (pdf (PDF, 309 KB))
  • Hajek, J. & M. Stevens (2004) Tonal Activity in Kara, an Austronesian language spoken in New Britain. Proceedings of the 10th Australian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology, Macquarie University, Sydney, pp. 295-300. (pdf (PDF, 366 KB))
  • Absalom, M., Hajek, J. & M. Stevens (2004) Il fenomeno del raddoppiamento sintattico nella realta' linguistica italiana. In F. A Leoni, F. Cutugno, M. Pettorino & R. Savy (Eds.) Il Parlato Italiano. Atti del Convegno nazionale. Naples 13-15 February 2003.
  • Absalom, M. Stevens, M. & J. Hajek (2002) A typology of spreading, insertion and deletion or What you weren't told about Raddoppiamento sintattico in Italian. Proceedings of the 2002 Conference of the Australian Linguistics Society (no page numbers). (pdf (PDF, 194 KB))
  • Stevens, M., Hajek, J. & M. Absalom (2002) Raddoppiamento sintattico and glottalization phenomena in Italian: a first phonetic excursus. Proceedings of the 9th Australian International Conference on Speech Science & Technology. The University of Melbourne, ASSTA, pp. 154-159. (pdf (PDF, 407 KB))

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