Research

Research Interests

I work in the field of linguistics, specializing in phonology, semantics and language revitalization. My focus is on how descriptive and analytic aspects of linguistic research can serve to further the field of linguistics while contributing to the pedagogical interests of Indigenous language revitalization and maintenance efforts. 

My current dissertation work focuses on reduplicative morphology of the O’odham language. Using a corpus I collected of reduplicative forms, I analyze their phonological and semantic value with the intent of providing generalizations of form and meaning. My choice to study both the phonology and the semantics simultaneously is motived by the ways in which these subparts of the grammar inform reduplicative outputs. Arguing against previous approaches that suggest ambiguity in reduplicative affixation, I show that reduplicative forms can be reliably derived through a theory of infixation and its effect on the phonological structure of base forms. I also argue against previous accounts asserting the existence of multiple reduplicants per semantic value. I show that the reduplicant in O’odham is able to be re-applied through what I term as the “Reduplicative Pathway”. In this pathway, phonological form is re-shaped by further application of constraints in the grammar motivated by derivation of the intended semantic meaning. Semantic value in the pathway is also contingent on the meaning of the base form when re-reduplication is applied and shows that while phonological form is unaffected by syntactic category, semantic output is driven by the syntactic classification of the morpheme. These analyses are then framed within the notion of what I refer to as “Community Linguistics”, a re-structuring of the Speech Community and Academic Linguistics interface which argues for an interstitial space between the two wherein linguistic research is informed by an endangered language’s pedagogical needs in revitalization which appeals to theoretic aspects of language research. Community Linguistics’ goals are thus bidirectional and assist in both the revitalization of endangered languages while providing additional theoretically based research to further the linguistic field. 

My research is motivated primarily by revitalization pedagogy concerns, and as such I have worked in tandem with both my own community as well as other O’odham communities to develop a variety of pedagogical materials. Within my own community I supervised a language documentation project over the course of two years which culminated in a 2,000-word dictionary and lesson book including 130 lessons aimed at heritage language learners. Working as a linguistic consultant, I designed, developed and administered the first language certification exam leading to Arizona state teacher certification for O’odham language teachers in my community. I have designed and developed virtual language courses for the Tohono O’odham Community college that range from Elementary to Advanced levels, equal to the first four semesters of university level language instruction and transferrable as language credits to the three major state universities in Arizona. I am currently involved in the development of Tohono O’odham Community College’s first four-year bachelor’s program in Tohono O’odham Studies which will include an optional O’odham language focus. I have also presented my work on language documentation, reduplicative morphology and linguistic research in the realm of language revitalization at the Symposium on American Indian Languages (SAIL), the Newberry Consortium in American Indian and Indigenous Studies (NCAIS), the Workshop on (In)definiteness & genericity across languages and the Semantics and Linguistics Theory (SALT) Equity and Diversity Panel. 

As my research is situated at the crossroads of various subfields, there are many future directions that this work can take. One such direction of interest is into the field of experimental linguistics. I have worked as an O’odham language teacher since 2017 for the Tohono O’odham Community College in Sells, AZ. Over the course of my time with Tohono O’odham Community College, I have had the opportunity to teach several endangered language learners from traditionally O’odham speaking areas. These learners have exhibited a range of generalizations in their acquisition of O’odham reduplication ranging from overapplication of generalized prefixation rules to non-application of reduplicative morphology, opting instead for singular forms used in grammatically plural structures. Because these learners are those who are expected to learn and revitalize the language for future generations, their acquisition patterns have an immense influence on grammatical change over time. Experimental study of learner acquisition patterns can show both the degree of efficacy in the transferal of linguistic research to pedagogical spaces, as well as predictions in language change juxtaposed with issues of language attrition, diglossia, L1 speaker synchronic grammar and pedagogical development. 

The central themes in my research – linguistic inquiry and language revitalization – are also of use to the broader linguistics community as well as endangered language communities beyond my own. In theoretic linguistic terms, my approach in the analysis of the phonology/semantics of reduplicative morphology suggest not only infixation as a default strategy, as opposed to morpheme edge alignment, it also argues that phonological form and semantic content are subsequently built upon one another through the re-application of a single reduplicative process. Furthermore, my approach to recharacterize the relationship between Speech Community and Linguistics as one in which the Speech Community are involved as linguistic researchers driven by their own pedagogical needs which then feed back into the linguistic arena is also relevant to speech communities and the linguistics that they work with. As linguistics is becoming more and more aware of and response to its history of unilaterally beneficial extractive processes in linguistic research of minoritized and endangered languages, it is becoming more common to work within a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship between researcher and speaker where both benefit from collaborative language work which can be informed by my theory of Community Linguistics.