Lab Members

Directors

Dr. Kate Lindsey is co-director of the SULa Lab. Her research has both theoretical and documentary applications and her theoretical work focuses on the analysis of underspecification and variation in phonological systems supported primarily by field data from underdocumented/understudied languages. Her dissertation utilized original data from eleven months of fieldwork with Ende speakers of Limol village, Papua New Guinea to explore the interaction of so-called ghost elements pervasive in Ende phonology. Current research projects include extended fieldwork in the South Fly area of PNG to support the first reference grammar of Ende, a typological study of the Pahoturi River language family, and theoretical analyses of vowel harmony and phonological reduplication.

Dr. Neil Myler is co-director of the SULa Lab. His research interests include morphology, (micro-)comparative syntax, argument structure, and the morphosyntax and semantics of possession cross-linguistically. Prof. Myler carries out linguistic fieldwork on Quechua languages (in Peru, Bolivia and Argentina) and on English dialects. For a full list of publications, see https://sites.google.com/site/neilmylerlinguist/.

Affiliated Faculty

Dr. Elizabeth Coppock’s research interests lie primarily in the area of semantics and pragmatics. Particular phenomena of interest include definiteness markers, exclusives, modified numerals, comparatives and superlatives, quantity words, egophors, and subjective attitude verbs. Methodologies include traditional fieldwork methods, experimental methods, corpus-based methods, and broad cross-linguistic investigations involving fieldwork on a targeted issue (targeted comparative fieldwork). Her work has appeared in journals including Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, Journal of Semantics, Natural Language Semantics, Linguistics and Philosophy, and Language.

Dr. Cathy O’Connor’s research centers on language description and documentation, including work on Northern Pomo, a dormant language of Northern California, and Medumba, a Grassfields language of Cameroon. Her BA (Stanford University) and Ph.D (U.C. Berkeley) are in linguistics.