Noah Elkins
Linguist
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Welcome to my website!
I am a linguist specializing in syntax and phonology. The empirical focus of my work is Mam, a Mayan language spoken in Guatemala and Mexico.
I received my PhD in Linguistics from UCLA in 2023. I am currently based in the UK, where I am an affiliated lecturer at the University of Cambridge.
Recent News
My co-authored paper with Justin Royer and Tessa Scott "Severing verbs from their arguments: directionals and argument structure in Mam" has been accepted at Semantics of Natural Languages!
My chapter for the forthcoming book New Perspectives on Phonological Domains titled "A typology of VSO syntax-prosody" has been accepted.
My paper "Fixed-VSO word order Mayan is a syntactic, not prosodic, innovation" has been published in Linguistic Variation! [link]
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. Accepted at Semantics of Natural Languages. [draft on LingBuzz]
Elkins, Noah (2025). Fixed-VSO word order in Mayan is a syntactic, not prosodic, innovation. Linguistic Variation. [link]
Elkins, Noah & Colin Brown (2023). Free relative clauses in Mam. Proceedings of WSCLA 26. [pdf]
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 typology of VSO syntax-prosody. New Perspectives on Phonological Domains. Language Science Press.
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
At Cambridge, I currently lecture for the paper SPB2 (Translation from Spanish). I also supervise the following papers: Li4 (Linguistic Varitation and Change) and Li17 (Language Typology and Cognition). I am happy to share teaching materials upon request.
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