Gabriela Caballero
Gabriela Caballero
Professor, Director of Graduate Studies
Professor, Director of Graduate Studies
My research program has two main goals: i) to make original and lasting contributions to the description and documentation of Indigenous languages of the Americas; and ii) to further our collective understanding of the nature of crosslinguistic and intralinguistic variation in phonology and morphology. My interest in crosslinguistic variation stems from my deep commitment to careful study of particular languages and the desire to bring data from lesser-studied languages to bear on topics in formal phonology and morphology, topics that tend to be addressed with data from an unrepresentative handful of better-known languages. My research interests in phonology and morphology extend to the psycholinguistic investigation of phonological and morphological processing in order to better understand patterns of morphophonological variation in morphologically complex languages.
Much of my research is based on data from Choguita Rarámuri (Tarahumara), a Uto-Aztecan language spoken in Northern Mexico. I have been carrying out language work on this language since 2003. Together with students, I have also worked with speakers of Ixpantepec Nieves Mixtec (Tu'un Savi; Oto-Manguean) and Ja'a Kumiai (Yuman) in San Diego/Baja California. More recently, and in collaboration with Claudia Juárez Chávez, Michelle Yuan (UCLA) and students, I am investigating the tonal and morphosyntactic properties of San Juan Piñas Mixtec. I am especially interested in linguistic description and collaborative language documentation projects whose products serve both academic linguists and Indigenous communities.
I am a member of the Linguistics Field Research Lab and the phonetics & phonology research community in San Diego (PhonCo).
From January 2021 to January 2023, I served as President Elect of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA). Since 2019 I am a panel member for the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (ELDP).
More details of my current research projects can be found here.
CV (pdf) (last update: May 2022)
Spring 2025
LING 120: Morphology, MWF 10-10:50am, FAH 1450
LIGN 220: Graduate Morphology, W-F 12-1:50pm, AP&M 4218
Office hours: Mondays 12-1pm and Thursdays 1-2pm, or meeting by appointment
Recent/upcoming talks, presentations and invited courses:
November 8-9, 2024: Sound Systems of Latin America (SSLA) 4, University of Washington, invited talk.
June 26-28, 2024: Réseau Français de Phonologie – Amiens 2024, Université de Picardie, invited talk.
Contrast preservation in lexical-grammatical tone interactions in San Juan Piñas Mixtec.
May 27, 2024: Seminario Permanente de Análisis de Textos, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, invited talk.
May 2-3, 2024: Aridolingua 2024 - Perspectivas lingüísticas sobre el noroeste de México y el suroeste de Estados Unidos, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, invited talk.
Archivos documentales de lenguas del Norte de México y Sur de California: acceso, mobilización y derechos lingüísticos
April 26, 2024: SUNY Buffalo Department of Linguistics colloquium.
April 23, 2024: La Familia de UC San Diego invited presentation.
June 19 - July 14, 2023: Introduction to Language Documentation, Linguistic Society of America’s 2023 Summer Institute, University of Massachussets at Amherst [w/Nadine Grimm] (invited course)
Affiliated Faculty member:
Research groups/labs:
Last updated: March 25, 2025