Research

An important contribution of my dissertation is its focus on a syntactic analysis of other/altro. The project examines its word orders within the DP and on how numerals interact with it; two questions that still lack a unified answer (Cinque 2016, Lechner 2010, Thomas 2011). I claim that disanaphor morphemes like other/altro are located in two positions, one below the numeral projection but above the adjectival projection, and one above the numeral projection but below determiners and Q-adjectives. I demonstrate that each position in English is associated with a specific reading, depending on what the disanaphor morpheme other modifies. I also propose that the raising of other from its original position to the higher position is obligatory in some languages, as for example in Teramano, Abruzzese Italian and in other varieties of Italian. Moreover, I propose that the additive reading is not part of the meaning of other but that it can be triggered by the context, thus making other different from more. I then claim that the morpheme ga in SSM is a disanaphor morpheme when occurring DP-internally, and I demonstrate that the characteristics and distribution I proposed for disanaphor morphemes in Italian and English still hold for Mixtec ga.

I offer a detailed description of the three comparative constructions in SSM: particle comparatives, locative comparatives and conjoined comparatives. I set this description within the typological claims made by Stassen (1985) and the more recent theoretical literature on comparatives; in so doing, I offer the argument that conjoined comparatives can co-occur with gradable predicates and that we need to expand both our typology as well as our analysis. In more recent work I am focusing specifically on conjoined comparatives in two varieties of Mixtec and I offer a possible analysis.

Félix Cortés, Jeremy Steffman and I offer a detailed phonetic description of SSM: consonants, vowels, tones, nasalization, laryngealization, and of course a translation of "The North Wind and the Sun".

Brice Roberts and I offer a description and a DM analysis of classifiers in SSM. In Mixtec, nominal classifiers can occur both in compound-like constructions and in one-replacement constructions with adjectives. We claim that in both cases the classifier is the head of the noun phrase. However, while in constructions with nominalized adjectives the classifier is anaphoric (similar to those of English one), in the compound-like construction it is not anaphoric. With anaphoric we refer to the ability of a nominal element to refer back to some element previously introduced in the discourse or in the context.

My work on Teramano focuses on demonstratives, looking at their two functions as reinforcers and as introducers of light-headed relative clauses. I propose that demonstratives in Teramano are internally morphologically complex and that they are capable of functioning as reinforcers as well, but that their distribution (and derivation) is distinct from the distribution of the adverbial reinforcers (e.g. ‘here’ and ‘there’). I conclude that this distinction is due to the generation of the adverb and of the demonstrative in two distinct locations on the DP spine.

Octavio León Vázquez and I created a set of recommendations on teaching and learning tones in Mixtec languages, which we presented at the Language Documentation & Conservation conference, and implemented in two summer workshops we organized with the youths of the towns of Yucuquimi de Ocampo and of San Sebastián del Monte.

My pedagogical work is focused on creating teaching techniques that make our linguistics courses more practical and relatable to our students, in particular, first-generation students. My main focus is on engaging and retaining a diverse pool of students, thus enriching the field of linguistics with their perspectives. I propose that we can achieve this goal by balancing teaching practices across cultural frameworks (Chavez et al. 2016). Students can apply some of their natural strengths from the way they learn in their community and family into college. We need to balance the individuated framework we use (originated in Northern-European cultures) with an integrated framework, which values wisdom, bettering other people’s lives and relationships, locating learning in their lives, and self-reflection, among other things.