research
My research program is built on a theoretical approach to phonological analysis which generates experimentally testable questions concerning phonological knowledge.
My approach to phonological inquiry is internalist: what is the nature of phonological knowledge as it is instantiated in the minds and brains of human beings? I am interested in phonological theory as a means of developing a systematic classification of the abstract structures and processes which constitute this knowledge. My work focuses on two broad aspects of phonological knowledge. The first aspect is representational: what are the basic representational units of phonology, and how do they interact to build higher-order structure? The second is the computational processes that operate over those representations: what are possible phonological processes, and what makes a stateable phonological process impossible?
This theoretical backdrop serves as the starting point for experimental work on a related empirical question in cognitive neuroscience: how are these representations and computations instantiated in the brain? My goal is to test theoretical predictions against empirical data collected using neurolinguistic techniques that are sensitive to phonology. I characterize my work as an interdisciplinary exchange between cognitive science, linguistics, and experimental neurolinguistics.
PUBLICATIONS
JOURNAL ARTICLES
To appear Positional strength effects in Campidanese Sardinian as substance-free phonology. Phonology.
2022 On substance and substance-free phonology: Where we are at and where we are going. The Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 67(4), 429-443
2019 What’s wrong with being a rhotic? Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, 4(1),38.
BOOK CHAPTERS
To appear What phonology is and why it should be. In Gabe Dupre, Ryan Nefdt & Kate Stanton (eds.), The Oxford Handbook on the Philosophy of Linguistics. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
2013 L’accent tonique en français du Midi : Traces du substrat provençal. In Gudrun Ledgen, (ed.), La variation du français dans les espaces créolophones et francophones, 97-110. Paris: L’Harmattan.
PhD DISSERTATION
Successfully defended on December 17, 2021, at the Université Côte d'Azur in Nice, France
Jury: Joaquim Brandão de Carvalho, Silke Hamann, David Odden
MA Thesis
Suprasegmental Structure in Meridional French and its Provençal Substrate
The University of Virginia, May, 2008