Research

Journal Articles:

Dees, J. (under review). D is for Dholuo: An N-to-D movmenet analysis of a bare nominal language. Glossa. 

Dees, J. & Katie VanDyne. (under review). On the *ABA patterns of Polish inchoative deadjectival change-of-state verbs. Journal of Slavic Linguistics.

Edited Volumes:

Dees, J. (2023). Proceedings of the 14th Annual Meeting of the Illinois Language and Linguistics Society In Studies In the Linguistic Sciences: Illinois Working Papers.

Proceedings:

Dees, J. (to appear). On the (in)definiteness of bare nouns In Dholuo. Proceedings of the 43rd West Coast Conference on Formal Lingusitics.

Beristain, A., Shannon Bryant, Jennifer Cox, Joshua Dees, Luis Gaytan, Iyad Ghanim, Alexandra Johnston, Miranda McCarvel, Michelle Perdomo, Emily Silvano, & Tran Truong. (to appear). Advocating & navigating in the (non)academic landscape. Proceedings of the 2025 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America.

Dees, J. (to appear). The grammaticalization of Turkic comitative(s): Mismatches in harmony and stress. Proceedings of the 2024 Annual Meeting on Phonology. 

Dees, J, Katie Vandyne, and Anna Romaniuk. (2024). The CΔG and Polish causative/anticausative deadjectival verbs. Proceedings of the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. 

Bowie, D., Joshua Dees, Luis Gaytan, Iara Mantenuto, Miranda McCarvel, and Tran Truong (2024). Identifying, understanding, and supporting first generation and under-represented minorities in linguistics. Proceedings of the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. 

Dees, J. (2024). Kannada through the lens of the NP/DP parameter. Proceedings of the 13th formal Approaches to South Asian Languages, 37-55.

Dees, J. (2024). Phase head exception in phonological spell-out: A deeper look at Kazakh and Turkic. Proceedings of the 57th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 75-86.

Dees, J. (2023). Non-uniformity in phonologizing phase heads: Evidence from Kazakh. Proceedings of the 8th Workshop on Turkic and Languages in Contact with Turkic, 74-88.

Upcoming

The 2026 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. "Teaching for and by first-gen scholars." January 8-11, 2026. (Organized Session w/ Shannon Bryant, Miranda McCarvel, Victoria Thomas, and Tran Truong).

2025

The 43rd Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics. "On the *ABA patterns of Polish inchoative deadjectival change-of-state verbs." May 16-18, 2025. (talk with Katie VanDyne)

The 61st Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. "Pseudo-ABA patterns In Polish deadjectival change-of-state verbs." May 9-11, 2025. (poster with Katie VanDyne)

The 43rd West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics. "On the (in)definiteness of bare nouns In Dholuo." April 25-27, 2025. (handout)

The 49th Penn Linguistics Conference. "How bare are Dholuo 'bare nouns'?" April 5-6, 2025. (handout)

The 47th Annual Meeting of Generative Linguistics in the Old World. "Spanning, Portmanteau, and Spell-Out: The CΔG and pseudo-ABA patterns." March 25-27, 2025. (poster with Katie VanDyne)

The 2025 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. "Construct state construction in Dholuo: Evidence of a D-layer in an article-less language." January 9-12, 2025. (paper)

The 2025 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. "Advocating & Navigating in the (Non-)Academic Landscape." January 9-12, 2025. (Organized Session w/ Shannon Bryant, Luis Gaytán, Iyad Ghanim, Alexandra Johnston, Miranda McCarvel, and Michelle Perdomo). (slides)

2024

The 2024 Annual Meeting on Phonology. "The grammaticalization of the Turkic comitative(s): Mismatches in harmony and stress." November 1-3, 2024. (poster)

The 29th Mid-Continental Phonetics and Phonology Conference. "A CBP account of mismatches in stress assignment and palatal harmony across Turkic." October 4-5, 2024. (talk; slides)

The 55th Annual Conference on African Linguistics. "It’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday: A diachronic study of temporality in Dholuo." May 2-4, 2024. (poster; handout)

The 60th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. "Temporal remoteness and the Jesperssen Cyclce: A diachronic study of temporality In Dholuo." April 26-28. (paper)

The 2024 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. New York, NY. "Identifying, understanding, and supporting first generation and under-represented minorities in linguistics and higher education." (Workshop w/ David Bowie, Luis Gaytan, Iara Mantenuto, Miranda McCarvel, and Tran Truong). January 6, 2024. (slides)

The 2024 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. New York, NY. "The CΔG and Polish causative/anticausative deadjectival verbs." (paper with Katie VanDyne & Anna Romaniuk). January 6, 2024.

2023

The 2023 Annual Meeting of the Western Conference on Linguistics. California State University Fresno. "For better or for worse: An analysis of allomorphic variation in Polish deadjectival anticausatives." (paper with  Katie VanDyne & Anna Romaniuk).

The 16th conference on Syntax, Phonology and Language Analysis. Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University. "A structural analysis of Tense in Dholuo." (poster)

The 5th Intersection of Linguistics, Language, and Culture Conference. Malloy University, Long Island. "A morphological analysis of gender in Kannada." (poster presented by mentee Sid Bhushan) 

The SOAS 2023 Language Policy Forum: Decolonising Language Policy. London University. "Ukolonia or elite closure: A timeline of post-colonial language policies in Ghana." (paper)

The 59th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. The University of Chicago. "Phase head exception in phonological spell-out: An example from Kazakh." (poster)

The Purdue Linguistics Symposium 2023. Purdue University (online). "Phonological spell-out of K in Kazakh." (paper)

The 13th Annual Meeting on (formal) Approaches to South Asian Languages. The University of Michigan. "Kannada through the lens of the NP/DP parameter." (paper)

The 8th Annual Workshop on Turkic and Languages in Contact with Turkic. Harvard University. March 4-5, 2023. "Non-uniformity in phonologizing phase heads: Evidence from Kazakh." (poster)

The 22nd Meeting of the Texas Linguistics Society. University of Texas Austin. February 17-18, 2023. "To D or not to D: Kannada as an NP language." (poster)

2021

The 15th Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium. Nairobi (online). University of Edinburgh. August 4-6, 2021. "Making use of the D-layer in Luo." (paper)

The 95th Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting. San Francisco (online), CA, USA. January 7-10, 2021. "Dholuo: Evidence of negative raising and sequence of Tense in an article-less language." (poster)

2020

The 14th Annual Arizona Linguistics Circle. Arizona University (online). October 17, 2020. "What do negative-raising and sequence of Tense have to do with it?" (paper)

2015

Facing the Future: A Writing Center Conference. Southern Illinois University. "Academic writing for non-native writers of English." (panel)

2013

The 32nd Annual Mid-America Undergraduate Psychology Research Conference. Eastern Illinois University. April 13, 2013. "Humor is heard but not seen." (poster)

Upcoming

Pennsylvania State University (Morphology Circle). "A structural account of pseudo-ABA patterns in Polish deadjectival change-of-state verbs"

2025

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Workshop on Nominals and Nominalizations in Korean and Beyond. "On the (in)definiteness of bare nouns in Dholuo" (handout)

2024

University of Connecticut (LingLunch). "Baring it all: The semantics and functional structure of 'bare nouns' In Dholuo" (handout) 

Southern Illinois University Carbondale (Colloquia). "N-raising in Dholuo: Evidence of a D-layer in an article-less language"

2023

University of Chicago (MorphSyn). "Evidence of concord between (T)ense and temporal adverbs: A diachronic study of Dholuo" (handout)

University of Kentucky (Summer Speaker Series). "nyoro(yesterday), gonyo(today), gi kiny(and tomorrow): Temporality in Dholuo"

The 2023 Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute. The University of Massachusetts Amherst. "Navigating higher education as a first gen and tips for success. (Panel w/ David Bowie, Iara Mantenuto, Miranda McCarvel, and Tran Truong).

Upcoming

TBA

2025

The 2025 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. "Shaping the future: Leadership opportunities for Linguists at the LSA" (panel with Michael (mitcho) Erlewine, Daniel Ginsberg, Heidi Harley, Vy Le, & Sarah Phillips).

2023

League of Linguists. University of Illinoist at Urbana-Champaign. "Getting GOODer: An analysis of allomorphy in Polish deadjectival (anti)causatives" 

League of Linguists. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "What can K in Kazakh tell us about phonological spell-out?"

2021

League of Linguists. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "Field research and Dholuo."

Dholuo number morphology 

In collaboration with Chae Eun Lee (University of Illinois)

Polish deadjectival change-of-state verbs

In collaboration with Katie VanDyne (University of Illinois) and Anna Romaniuk (University of Illinois)

• All Fall 2023 - Spring 2024 work was done by Joshua Dees, Katie VanDyne, and Anna Romaniuk; All subsequent work was done by Joshua Dees and Katie VanDyne

A morphological analysis of gender in Kannada

Co-advising Sid Bhushan (formerly University of Illinois; currently University of Michigan) with Dr. Aida Talić (University of Illinois)

• See Sid's Western Conference on Linguistics (WECOL) proceedings paper here. Also presented at the 17th Annual Arizona Linguistics Circle Conference and The 5th Intersection of Linguistics, Language, and Culture Conference.

Copulas in Thanjavur Marathi and Tamil

Advising Vish Ganesan (University of Illinois)

DP projection in article-less Assamese

Advising Rishab Borah (formerly Univeristy of Illinois; currently Cornell University)

• See Rishab's Western Conference on Linguistics (WECOL) proceedings paper here. Also presented at the Asian Junior Linguistics Conference (AJL), the 17th Annual Meeting of the Illinois Language and Linguistics Society (ILLS), and the 15th Formal Approaches to South Asian Languages (FASAL)