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I am affiliated with the CrISP research group and the Phonetics/Phonology lab at UC Santa Cruz.


Some past and current projects:

Accent in Uspanteko (with Robert Henderson) [ accepted at NLLT; posted on LingBuzz ]
This paper analyzes the interplay of lexical pitch accent and stress in the endangered Mayan language Uspanteko (Guatemala; ~2000 speakers). Based partially on our own fieldwork, it is the first comprehensive analysis of prosodic structure in this language. The paper discusses the morphological and lexical roles played by pitch accent, and analyzes the effects that tone has on stress shift, vowel length, vowel quality, and two deletion processes. Some core findings of this paper are (i) that Uspanteko phonology is sensitive to foot structure, even though stress is not obviously foot-based, and (ii) Uspanteko content words are divided into lexical strata with respect to interactions between prosody and segmental structure.


Foot structure and cognitive bias [ Short handout and long handout ]
Many languages lacking foot-based stress nonetheless show evidence for foot structure in other phonological or morphological domains. One explanation for the existence of such languages is that speakers are subject to a cognitive bias that predisposes them to refer to metrical structure when accounting for the phonological regularities they encounter during acquisition. To explore this hypothesis, I conducted an artificial grammar experiment that asked whether subjects might learn a novel stress-based phonotactic in terms of foot structure rather than stress per se. The experiment was conducted with both English and Japanese speakers, and the results provide preliminary support for a foot-based parsing bias in phonotactic learning.

    [Presented at the annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA), Portland, January 2012]


Contrast and laryngeal states in Tz'utujil [ Paper ]
Aspirated stops in Tz'utujil (Mayan; Guatemala) only occur before consonants and word boundaries, contrary to Steriade's (1999) observation that languages often limit aspiration to pre-sonorant position. After presenting a quantitative analysis of the phonetics of Tz'utujil stops (based on archival recordings from Oxlajuuj Keej Maya' Ajtz'iib'), I argue that allophonic aspiration is functionally motivated by the need to preserve place and glottal state contrasts in perceptually weak positions (following e.g. Steriade 2001). This analysis is then formalized in Dispersion Theory (Flemming 1995; Padgett 2001; etc.).

    [Published in:
    The UCSC Linguistics Research Center 2010 Laboratory Report, ed. Grant McGuire, pp.93-120. Santa Cruz, CA: LRC Publications.]


Wh-reciprocals, quantifier raising, and Binding Theory [ Handout and appendices]
Though English reciprocals are generally prohibited from appearing as subjects in finite clauses (e.g. *The men wondered if [each other] left.), subject reciprocals are in fact permitted a systematic set of finite wh-clauses (e.g. The men knew where [each other] lived). While such constructions have been noticed in previous literature, they have often been set aside as marginal. On the basis of survey data, I argue that this characterization is mistaken, and that so-called wh-reciprocals are well-formed for many speakers.
    I further claim that wh-reciprocals are licensed by covert quantifier raising, which allows embedded subject each other to move closer to its antecedent than its surface position would suggest. This claim is supported by some (limited) parallels between wh-reciprocals and the distribution of wide-scope each NP in embedded clauses.

    [Presented at North East Linguistic Society 40 (NELS 40), MIT, November 2009]


Irish plural allomorphy and output optimization [ Handout ]
I argue that a sub-pattern of Irish plural allomorphy, involving the plural suffixes -(e)anna and -(e)acha, emerges naturally from independent prosodic properties of Irish. In particular, I claim that this case of plural allomorphy is output optimizing, in the sense that allomorph selection minimizes the metrical markedness of output forms. I further argue that subcategorization-based approaches to allomorphy cannot account for Irish plural morphology without sacrificing significant phonological and morphological generalizations.

The paper is a work in progress, and I would be grateful for any and all comments.

    [Presented at:
    The Sixth Celtic Linguistics Conference (CLC 6), University College Dublin, September 2010
    West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics 28 (WCCFL 28), USC, February 2010
    Linguistics at Santa Cruz (LASC), March 2009]


Irish prosody at the interfaces: first steps [ Handout ]
An exploratory look at prosodic phrasing in Donegal Irish. This work is primarily aimed at identifying phonetic cues to prosodic boundaries in Irish. Also briefly discussed are some consequences that Irish prosody may have for theories of syntax-prosody mapping, especially relating to DPs and small clauses.

    [Presented at UC Santa Cruz Prosody Interest Group (PRIG), October 2008]


English resumptive pronouns: a corpus study [ Handout ]
An examination of resumptive pronouns in relative clauses in the Switchboard corpus of spoken English. Though English lacks grammaticalized resumption strategies, this study investigates whether the distribution of English resumptive pronouns might reflect locality conditions found in languages with productive resumption, e.g. the highest subject restriction (HSR) of Irish (McCloskey 1990).
    Most resumptive pronouns in the Switchboard corpus are found in subject position of the highest relative clause, suggesting that English is insensitive to the HSR. These results argue against processing-based accounts of English resumptive pronouns, since subject resumptives are often found close to their binders in [SPEC, CP]. As gaps are permitted in the subject position of relative clauses, these findings are also inconsistent with 'last-resort' accounts of English resumptive pronouns. Parallel to the results of Prince (1990), most resumptive pronouns in the Switchboard corpus occur in relative clauses with indefinite NP heads, pointing toward a discourse-pragmatic account of resumption in English.

    [Presented at the Trilateral Linguistics Weekend (TREND), UC Santa Cruz, March 2008]