In Progress:

Several languages of the Indo-Aryan (IA) language family exhibit aspect based split ergativity—most notably Hindi, Nepali, Gujarati, and Marathi. However, there is variation in exactly how the ergative alignment manifests among these languages. For this reason, a significant initial avenue of research on split ergativity in IA languages has been detailing the range of ergative patterns found in various IA languages. Konkani is one of these IA languages that exhibits aspect based split ergativity, but it has traditionally been overlooked in studies of IA ergativity. Konkani was for a long time considered a dialect of Marathi rather than its own language and although its language status is now widely agreed on, it remains relatively understudied and underrepresented in the literature on IA linguistics (Dhongde et al 2019). The goal of this work is to provide some of this much needed scholarship. In this work, I will use data collected from native speakers via written elicitation tasks to investigate how the ergative alignment manifests in Konkani as compared to other IA languages.

In Progress:

Many of the Indo-Aryan languages feature DOM. Most notably, DOM in Hindi-Urdu has been considerably documented (Butt 1993, De Hoop & Narasimhan 2005, Masica 1982, Montaut 2018) and shown to be sensitive to both animacy and specificity (Bhatt 2007). Konkani, a lesser studied Indo-Aryan language, also shows DOM. However, DOM in Konkani has only been documented by Almeida (1989: 124; 228) who states “an inanimate noun occurring in an accusative case does not show the accusative marker” and later describes how animals can be either animate or inanimate in Konkani depending on how much they are “treated as a thing”. But apart from this there is no other more elaborate account of DOM in Konkani. As found in Hindi (Bhatt 2007), the semantic properties relevant in DOM might first appear to be only one property such as animacy, but upon further investigation turn out to involve other common properties of DOM like specificity. The goal of this work is to provide some of this much needed scholarship for Konkani by investigating which semantic properties are associated with the accusative marking -k.

The purpose of this study is to identify and understand some of the most prominent factors that contribute towards the shift or maintenance of the Konkani heritage language amongst members of the Goan diaspora in America and what this particular community can tell us about Language Shift versus Language Maintenance (LSLM). The study consists of a quantitative analysis of surveys from 120 Goan-Americans paired with a qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with 5 Goan-American parents.

The depth of the interviews placed within the larger context of the surveys suggested that religious affiliation, domains of use, and language attitudes were among the strongest factors for LSLM. The Goan-American community provided a unique case of LSLM in a smaller community where language shift begins even prior to immigration. For Goans, the increased comfort with English and distancing from the HL prior to immigration was the result of prolonged European colonization, but with the spread of global English, introduction to the ML prior to immigration might become more common in other diasporic communities.

publishing - in progress

This thesis provides a holistic approach to get constructions in English by combining a Minimalist, generative approach with the attention to usage and function found in a usage-based approach. First, a structural analysis is proposed which will answer the questions of how to account for (1) the different types of get in an accurate and unified manner (2) the ambiguous thematic roles of the subject, and (3) the additional recipient argument position found in causative usages of get. Secondly, a grammaticalization account of the evolution of these different get constructions will be considered. A grammaticalization pathway will be established and then methods of formalizing this kind of grammaticalization process within a Minimalist framework will be investigated.

A Holistic Analysis of Get Constructions - PDF

People-First Language (PFL) is a form of inclusive language that attempts to prioritize people’s humanity over their disability by literally putting “people” first. For example, in accordance to PFL one would say “a person with autism” rather than “an autistic person”. However, there is a great deal of debate surrounding the effectiveness of People-First Language. In order to get at the question of effectiveness, I conducted a study in which participants judged the inclusivity of passages on a scale of 1-10. I chose passages related to disabilities and recreated a people-first (PF) version and a non-people-first (NPF) version of the same passages in order to determine whether the use of PFL made any difference on the inclusivity judgments of the participants. Findings suggest that without previous knowledge of PFL, it has no effect on perceived inclusivity.

A Study of the Effectiveness of People-First Language - PDF