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John Ohala

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John Ohala
BornJuly 19, 1941
DiedAugust 23, 2020(2020-08-23) (aged 79)
SpouseManjari Agrawal (m. 1969)
Academic background
Alma materUniversity of California, Los Angeles (PhD)
ThesisAspects of the control and production of speech (1969)
Doctoral advisorPeter Ladefoged
Academic work
Disciplinelinguistics
Sub-disciplinephonology
InstitutionsUniversity of California, Berkeley
Doctoral studentsJohn Kingston

John Jerome Ohala (July 19, 1941[1] – August 22, 2020[2]) was a linguist specializing in phonetics and phonology. He was a Professor Emeritus in linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Career

He received his PhD in linguistics in 1969 from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); his graduate advisor was Peter Ladefoged. He is best known for his insistence that many aspects of languages' phonologies (a.k.a. "sound patterns") derive from physical and physiological constraints which are independent of language and thus have no place in the "grammar" of a language, i.e. what speakers have to learn inductively from exposure to the speech community into which they are born.[3]

He also proposed that ethological principles influence certain aspects of languages' prosodic patterns, sound symbolism, and facial expressions, such as lip and brow movements.

References

  1. ^ "John Ohala, Emeritus Lab Director". University of California, Berkeley. Archived from the original on June 27, 2020. Retrieved August 23, 2020.
  2. ^ Ashby, Michael (August 24, 2020). "Professor John Ohala, 1941–2020". International Phonetic Association. Archived from the original on September 22, 2020. Retrieved August 24, 2020.
  3. ^ Ohala, John J. (1990). "There is no interface between phonology and phonetics: a personal view". Journal of Phonetics. 18: 153–171.

Further reading