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Academic Background:
1989, B.A. in German, French and English, Tübingen University, Germany
1992, M.A. in Linguistics, University of Calgary
2003, Ph.D. in Linguistics, University of Calgary
2004–2005: Killam post-doctoral fellow, University of Alberta
2006–present: SSHRC post-doctoral fellow, University of Victoria
Research interests:
My primary research interest is semantic and syntactic typology. I am a theoretical linguist with
a passion for underdocumented/endangered languages, linguistic fieldwork, and documentation. Until quite recently the primarily descriptive work of field linguists has had little impact on formal syntactic and semantic theory, and vice versa. The bridging of the gap between language description and theory to me is one of the most exciting developments in linguistics/typology.
My approach to this kind of typological research has been the in-depth study and comparison of a small number of languages, involving the collection/ documentation of new data. In my M.A. thesis, I examined noun incorporation in two Canadian Athapaskan languages, Dëne Sųłiné (Chipewyan) and Slave. During my dissertation, I focused on Dëne Sųłiné and German, and currently, Dëne Sųłiné is my primary research language.
I have worked from a descriptive and a formal perspective on noun incorporation, lexicalization vs. grammaticalization, aspect and Aktionsarten, number, and the syntax and semantics of bare nouns. In my current researach, I am examining the expression of plurality, quantity, and countability in Dëne Sųłiné and related languages. Future plans include the study of bare nouns in other languages (e.g., Mon-Khmer, Benue-Congo languages), and the study of sociolinguistic factors in the maintenance of endangered and minority/immigrant languages.
Recent Works (PDF):
(2008) With Leslie Saxon. The 'possessed noun suffix' and "possession" in two Northern Athabaskan languages. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA), Chicago, IL, January 3–6, 2008.
(2007) With Leslie Saxon. The syntax of numerals in two Dene languages. Presentation given at WSCLA 12 (The 12th Workshop on Structure and Constituency in Languages of the Americas). University of Lethbridge, March 31, 2007
Telicity and durativity: a study of aspect in Dëne Sųłiné (Chipewyan) and German. “Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics” Series. New York: Routledge (formerly Garland). Download abstract here.
Order book here
(2006) Count and mass nouns in Dëne Sųłiné. Proceedings of WCCFL 25 (The 25th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
(2006) Count, mass, and part structure in Dëne Sųłiné nouns. Proceedings of WSCLA 11 (The 11th Workshop on Structure and Constituency in Languages of the Americas). Vancouver: University of British Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics.
(2003) Quasi-Telic Perfective Aspect in Dëne Sųłiné (Chipewyan). Proceedings of SALT (Semantics and Linguistic Theory) 13, 310–327. Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications.