Noah Elkins
Linguist
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Welcome to my website!
I am a Visiting Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Haverford College, having completed my Ph.D. at UCLA in 2023.
The empirical focus of my work is Mam, a Mayan language of Guatemala. I'm interested in answering questions about Mam's syntax and phonology, and how the two interrelate.
Recent News
My WCCFL 42 proceedings paper with Justin Royer and Tessa Scott, "Super-extended ergativity in Mam", is now out! [pdf] [link]
My new paper "Fixed-VSO word order Mayan is a syntactic, not prosodic, innovation" has been published in Linguistic Variation! [link]
I will be presenting my poster "When absolutive agreement fails: insights from Mam" at WCCFL 44 this May.
Research
Research
In recent years, my main research areas have been clause and argument structure, case and agreement, Ā-extraction asymmetries, and the syntax-prosody interface, with a primary focus on Mam. Check out my recent work on these topics below, and feel free to reach out for more materials.
Clause and argument structure
Clause and argument structure
Severing verbs from their arguments: directionals and argument structure in Mam. Ms., with Justin Royer and Tessa Scott. Resubmitted. [draft on LingBuzz]
Elkins, Noah & Colin Brown (to appear). Free relative clauses in Mam. Proceedings of WSCLA 26. [with Colin Brown]. [pdf]
Elkins, Noah (2025). Fixed-VSO word order in Mayan is a syntactic, not prosodic, innovation. Linguistic Variation. [link]
Ā-extraction asymmetries
Ā-extraction asymmetries
Wh-movement paths and oblique extraction in Mam (Mayan). Ms., with Harold Torrence and Colin Brown. Submitted. [draft on Lingbuzz]
Prosody and its interface with (morpho-)syntax
Prosody and its interface with (morpho-)syntax
Elkins, Noah (accepted). A prosodic typology of VSO word order. New Perspectives on Phonological Domains.
Elkins, Noah (2023). Displacing the PStem. The Linguistic Review 40(4), 527-560. [link]
Elkins, Noah & Jennifer Kuo (2022). A prominence account of the Northern Mam weight hierarchy. Proceedings of AMP 2022. [pdf]
Elkins, Noah & Jacob Aziz (2021). Malagasy /nr/-strengthening within and across prosodic boundaries. Proceedings of AFLA 28. [pdf]
Teaching
Teaching
My current teaching at Haverford includes Introduction to Linguistics (LING 101), Phonetics & Phonology (LING 115), and The Structure of a Non-Indo-European Language: Mam (LING 216). In previous years, have also taught Senior Thesis Seminar (LING 339). Check out the recent profile of my LING 115 course in Haverblog's "Cool Classes"!
I also have experience as a TA and/or primary instructor for the following classes. At UCLA: Phonology II (LING 165A), Applied Phonetics (LING 102), Applied Phonology (119), Introduction to General Phonetics (LING 103), Introduction to Linguistic Analysis (LING 20), Introduction to the Study of Language (LING 1). At Macalester: The Sounds of Language (LING 120), Linguistic Analysis (LING 301).
I would be happy to share any relevant teaching materials with other instructors via email.
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