The Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association (AFLA) is a learned society that hosts forums for collaborative research on Austronesian languages. Founded in 1994 at the University of Toronto,^[1] AFLA is now administered from the University of Western Ontario. Conferences are held annually at a multitude of institutes across the globe, including Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (AFLA 2016), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (AFLA 2000), and Academia Sinica (AFLA 2018) located in Taipei, Taiwan.^[2] The most recent 2019 conference was held in its home administration at the University of Western Ontario. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the AFLA 2020 conference was postponed and tentatively rescheduled for August 20 at the National University of Singapore.^[3]

Founders

Anna Maclachlan - author of "Optimality and three western Austronesian case systems"^[4] and 13 other research papers on Austronesian language

Diane Massam - professor in the department of Linguistics at the University of Toronto where she is involved in many research efforts^[5]

Richard McGinn - accomplished linguist who taught a numerous universities including Ohio University. McGinn died at the age of 78^[6]

Barry Miller - attended York University in Toronto an co-founded AFLA with Massam^[7]

Lisa Travis - currently a professor of Linguistics at McGill University^[8]

Timeline

• AFLA Conference I (1994): Held at the University of Toronto, with attendees being students and faculty.
• AFLA Conference II (1995): Held at McGill University
• AFLA Conference III (1996): Held at the University of California at Los Angeles
• AFLA Conference IV (1997): Held at the University of California at Los Angeles
• AFLA Conference V (1998): Held at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa
• AFLA Conference VI (1999): Held at the University of Toronto
• AFLA Conference VII (2000): Held at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
• AFLA Conference VIII (2001): Held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• AFLA Conference IX (2002): Held at Cornell University
• AFLA Conference X (2003): Held at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa
• AFLA Conference XI (2004): Held at Zentrum fur Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie und Universalienforschung
• AFLA Conference XII (2005): Held at the University of California at Los Angeles
• AFLA Conference XIII (2006): Held at the National Tsing Hua University and Academia Sinica
• AFLA Conference XIV (2007): Held at McGill University
• AFLA Conference XV (2008): Held at the University of Sydney
• AFLA Conference XVI (2009): Held at the University of California, Santa Cruz
• AFLA Conference XVII (2010): Held at Stony Brook University, New York
• AFLA Conference XVIII (2011): Held at Harvard University
• AFLA Conference XIX (2012): Held at the Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica & Linguistic Society of Taiwan
• AFLA Conference XX (2013): Held at the University of Texas at Arlington
• AFLA Conference XXI (2014): Held at the Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica & Linguistic Society of Taiwan
• AFLA Conference XXII (2015): Held at McGill University
• AFLA Conference XXIII (2016): Held at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
• AFLA Conference XXIV (2017): Held at the University of Washington
• AFLA Conference XXV (2018): Held at the Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan
• AFLA Conference XXVI (2019): Held at the Inter-faculty Program in Linguistics, University of Western Ontario
• AFLA Conference XXVII (2020): Held at the National University of Singapore
• AFLA Conference XXVIII (2021): Organised by the National University of Singapore and McGill University, Montréal
• AFLA Conference XXIX (2022): To be held at the University of Manchester (as TripleAFLA, in collaboration with the TripleA workshop series)

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