In the past two weeks I have gotten fairly little done:
– This morning I finally had a first meeting with the dialect tutor, and I forgot to bring some key materials. It was a good session though. She seems to have pretty good language sense, and knows the dialect pretty well for someone of her generation and education level. It sounds like the citation tone neutralization reported for the older generation is still true of the current generation. It also sounds to me like the voicing contrast in sibilants may be lost. It might be my bad ears, but she said she thought the sounds were the same too.
– I did meet with the friend about the Bidirectional OT paper. He tried to help me get a couple books that I have been unable to find, but the book that the library does have is checked out for the summer. I may need to order a photocopied version.
– I did some cut-and-paste work on the discourse paper, but that’s it. I’ve only spent about an hour on it in these last two weeks.
– I have scanned the dictionary preface and most of the book 南部吴语语音研究 (Southern Wu Phonology Research) to make it easier to read words I don’t recognize.

In the coming two weeks, I will be traveling, first to Hong Kong to get keep my visa valid, and then to the northeast. I will have some time on trains to read, but I won’t be able to do much computer work.
– I will finish the scanning before I leave.
– I will take 南部吴语 and the scripts from 二十分可乐, to read while traveling.