Research

Under review

Severing verbs from their arguments: directionals and argument structure in Mam. Ms., with Justin Royer and Tessa Scott. In revision. [draft on LingBuzz]

A novel progressive construction in Todos Santos Mam (Mayan). Ms. In revision.

Publications

Accepted. Fixed-VSO word order Mayan is a syntactic, not prosodic, innovation. Linguistic Variation.

To appear. Super-extended ergativity in Mam. Proceedings of WCCFL 42. [with Justin Royer and Tessa Scott]. [pdf]

To appear. Free relative clauses in Mam. Proceedings of WSCLA 26. [with Colin Brown]. [pdf]

2023. Displacing the PStem. The Linguistic Review 40(4), 527-560. [link]

2023. A prominence account of the Northern Mam weight hierarchy. Proceedings of AMP 2022. With Jennifer Kuo. [pdf]

2022. Antipossession and nominalization in Mam. Proceedings of WAIL 24. [pdf]

2021. Malagasy /nr/-strengthening within and across prosodic boundaries. Proceedings of AFLA 28. With Jacob Aziz. [pdf]

In Prep

• A prosodic typology of VSO word order. Ms.

• The movement of obliques in Mayan: evidence from Mam. Ms., with Colin Brown and Harold Torrence.

• The interplay of syntax and prosody in Mam. Monograph proposal accepted at Estudios de Lingüística Amerindia (ELA).

Theses

2023. The interplay of syntax and prosody in Mam. Ph.D. dissertation, UCLA. [link]

2020. Prefix independence: typology and theory. MA thesis, UCLA. [pdf]

Presentations

2025

• A prosodic typology of VSO languages. Presented at Exploring Boundaries: Phonological Domains in the Languages of the World. UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø. March 13-14 2025. [slides]

• The 17th century Mam project: Toward a translation and commentary of Reynoso's (1644) Arte y vocabulario en lengua mame. Presented at the 2025 Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA). Virtual. January 24-26 2025. [handout]

2024

• Severing the internal argument from its verb: the case of Mam [with Justin Royer and Tessa Scott]. Presented at the 11th TripleA Workshop, June 11-12. [handout]

• Directionals and argument structure in Mam [with Justin Royer and Tessa Scott]. Presented at the 2024 Workshop on the Structure and Constituency of Languages of the Americas (WSCLA), April 26-28. [handout]

• Super-extended ergativity in Mam [with Justin Royer and Tessa Scott]. Presented at the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL) 42, April 12-14. [handout]

• Pied-piping with inversion: a parallel to syntactic ergativity in Mam. Presented at Form and Analysis in Mayan Linguistics (FAMLi) VII, February 22-24. [poster]

• Movement of obliques in San Juan Ostuncalco Mam. [with Colin Brown and Harold Torrence]. Presented at the 2024 Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA), January 4-7. [handout]

2023

• Headless relative clauses in Todos Santos Mam. [with Colin Brown] 2023 Workshop on the Structure and Constituency in Languages of the Americas (WSCLA). Montréal, Quebec, Canada. April 28-30. [handout]

• The lu-progressive in Todos Santos Mam. 2023 Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA). Virtual. January 20-22. [handout]

2022

• A prominence analysis of the Northern Mam weight hierarchy. [with Jennifer Kuo]. 2022 Annual Meeting on Phonology (AMP). Los Angles. October 21-23. [poster]

• Prominence over boundary in prefix stress resistance. 19th French Phonology Network (RFP). Porto, Portugal. June 7-9.

• Some empirical challenges to the PStem. 29th Manchester Phonology Meeting (MFM). Manchester, England, UK. May 25-27.

• Realization of vowel length and glottalization in Todos Santos Mam. [with Jennifer Kuo]. 182nd Acoustical Society of America (ASA). Denver, CO, USA. May 23-27. [slides]

• Emergent antipossessives in Todos Santos Mam. 24th Workshop on American Indigenous Languages (WAIL). Santa Barbara, CA, USA. April 8-9.

• Polysemy of antipossessives and nominalizers: the view from Mam. 28th Illinois Language and Linguistics Society (ILLS). February 25-26.

• The morphosyntax of Mam antipossessives. 2022 Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA). January 21-23.

2021

• Malagasy /nr/-strengthening within and across prosodic boundaries. [with Jacob Aziz]. 28th Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association. May 25-27.

• Prefix independence as root-initial percept maximization. 43rd Deutsches Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft (DGfS). February 24-26.

Teaching

Current teaching (Spring 2024, Haverford College)

• LING 101: Introduction to Linguistics

• LING 115: Phonetics and Phonology

• LING 216: The Structure of Mam

Past teaching experience

At Haverford College

• Introduction to Linguistics (LING 101)

• Phonetics and Phonology (LING 115)

• The Structure of Mam (LING 216)

• Senior Thesis Seminar (LING 399)

At UCLA (* = primary instructor)

• Phonology II (LING 165A)

• Applied Phonetics (LING 102)

• Applied Phonology (LING 119)

• Introduction to General Phonetics (LING 103)

• Introduction to Linguistic Analysis (LING 20)*

• Introduction to the Study of Language (LING 1)

• Fundamentals of Translation and Interpreting (LING 144)

At Macalester College

• The Sounds of Language (LING 120)

• Linguistic Analysis (LING 301)