UNI LEIPZIG'S IT SYSTEMS ARE CURRENTLY OFFLINE. E-MAILS TO MY UNI MAIL ADDRESS CANNOT BE RECEIVED. Please contact me via my personal e-mail address katie.mag.mc [at] gmail [dot] com
I am Katie McCann ['kej.ti mə.'kæn], currently employed as a post-doctoral research fellow in the research program 'cyclic optimization' in the project `phonological and structural correlates of affix orders' at Leipzig University.
You can find my CV here (last updated May 2026).
My main focus lies within phonology and morphology and the architecture of the phonology-morphology interface.
Contact: katie.mag.mc [at] gmail [dot] com
(e-mails to my uni mail address (katie.mc_cann [at] uni-leipzig [dot] de) cannot currently be received)
Photo: Universität Leipzig / Anke Steinberg
NEWS
I recently presented a poster at NELS57 titled "Stem minimality explains the phonological dual status of Kipsigis’ ventive suffix" [poster]
INTERESTS
My main research interest lies in affix ordering and its interactions with phonology. I am generally intersted in all things relevant to the morphology-phonology interface.
I recently defended my dissertation titled "Flexible Phonological Coherence in Affixes - A Stratal Approach" (please send me an e-mail if you are interested in reading the submitted version of the dissertation). In the dissertation I investigate the cross-linguistic occurences of chameleon affixes (= affixes that are phonologically cohering and non-cohering, i.e. flexibly cohering, depending on their morphosyntactic environment) and propose an analysis of morphological optimisation that captures the attested behaviour of chameleon affixes couched in a stratal framework.
Other research interests include but are not limited to: cyclicity, gradient symbolic representations in phonology and morphology, autosegmental phonology, compound phonology.
Flexible Phonological Coherence in Affixes - A Stratal Approach. Universität Leipzig. (e-mail my for the submitted version)
[submitted] Chameleon Affixes in Sekani Produce Strictly Ordered Stratal Domains. submitted to WCCFL 43 Proceedings. [article]
2026. An illusory violation of the Affix Ordering Generalisation in Tigrinya. In Adelaide Banafo, Ai Chen, Katharina Hartmann, Anke Himmelreich, Jana-Elina Jordan, Farbod Khouzani, Viktor Köhlich, Johannes Mursell, Kwaku Sasu and Golshan Shakeebaee (eds.) Vol. 47 (2026): Proceedings of GLOW 47. [https://doi.org/10.11576/glow-1259]
2025. No additional stratal, no loop! A re-analysis of Malayalam compound morphophonology. [with Jochen Trommer] Online Early: Linguistic Inquiry. [article] [https://doi.org/10.1162/LING.a.545]
2025. Encoding affix predictability in Harmonic Serialism in Morphology derives the order of affixes in Urarina. In: Gereon Müller (ed.) Morphology by serial optimization. Amsterdam: John Benjamins [article] [https://doi.org/10.1075/la.289.07mcc]
[under review] Phonological underspecification gives rise to morphotactic and phonological exceptionalities in Mandan. Manuscript available in Radical: A Journal of Phonology. [article]
[draft] 2025. Unifying compound specific phonological effects in Malayalam - a case for moraic affixation. [with Jochen Trommer] [article]
2026 / 10 Stem minimality explains the phonological dual status of Kipsigis’ ventive suffix. Poster at: NELS57 at CUNY. [poster]
2026 / 09 First suffix come, first suffix served. Tone spreading and polarity in Anal. Talk at: Mirco-Workshop on Dymanic Domains at the Universität Leipzig. [with Galina Sim] [slides]
2025 / 12 Solving an ordering paradox in the morpho-phonology of Tigrinya. Invited talk at: Linguistic Lounge at the Universität Duisburg Essen.
2025 / 04 Chameleon affixes in Sekani produce strictly layered stratal domains. Talk at: WCCFL 43 at the University of Washington, Seattle. [slides]
2025 / 03 An illusory violation of the affix ordering generalisation in Tigrinya. Talk at: 47. GLOW Conference in Frankfurt am Main. [slides]
2025 / 03 Chameleon affixes require cyclic phonology yet parallel morphology. Talk at: 47. Tagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaften in Mainz. [slides]
2024 / 10 Blending into your environment. Introducing chameleon affixes. Talk at: Workshop: Nonuniformity in morphophonology across frameworks at the University of Trier. [slides]
2024 / 02 Gemination in Malayalam compounds is morphological and bounded by prosodic structure. Talk at: OCP21 in Leipzig. [with Jochen Trommer] [slides]
2023 / 05 Phonological exceptions are morphotactic exceptions given phonological underspecification. Talk at: 30th mfm in Manchester. [slides]
2023 / 04. Phonological exceptions are morphotactic exceptions given phonological underspecification. Talk at: GLOW46 in Austria.
2022 / 09. Verbal number suppletion in nominalizations. Talk at: LAGB 2022 Annual Meeting in Belfast [with Leonie Barabas-Weil, Nadja Fiebig, Armel Jolin, Maria Kouneli, Robin Ortlepp and Helene Streffer] [PDF]
2022 / 05. Verbal number suppletion in nominalizations. Talk at: GGS 2022: 46th GGS Conference in Stuttgart. [with Leonie Barabas-Weil, Nadja Fiebig, Armel Jolin, Maria Kouneli, Robin Ortlepp and Helene Streffer]
2022. Database on exceptional hiatus resolution as part of my M.A. thesis. [database in google tables]
2022. A Typology of exceptional hiatus resolution. M.A. thesis. [PDF]