Congratulations to S. Blake Lehman who was just awarded the Harry and Yvonne Lenart Graduate Travel Fellowship. The fellowship is highly competitive and provides funds for travel and living expenses to UCLA Humanities grad students to conduct research in foreign countries.
Blake will be traveling to Amedzofe, Ghana to gather data on the Ghana-Togo Mountain language Avatime. He’ll be analyzing generational differences in ATR contrasts in high vowels, and how those differences affect the status ATR harmony in the language, particularly among younger speakers. Moreover, he will be determining the implications of a set of tonal alternations changing over time, compared to an earlier description of the language, on the phonology of Avatime. He will be working with speakers on transcribing and translating songs or traditional narratives that were collected during a trip to Amedzofe last summer.