Noah Elkins
Linguist
Noah Elkins
Linguist
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 manuscript "Fixed-VSO word order Mayan is a syntactic, not prosodic, innovation" has been accepted for publication at Linguistic Variation.
I just presented "A prosodic typology of VSO languages" at the Exploring Boundaries workshop at UiT.
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.
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)