Research

I practice syntax, currently focusing on coordination and related topics like Right Node Raising and idioms. I have a growing interest in experimental syntax, esp. judgments and transposition. I also enjoy building computational grammars in HPSG/LFG; so far I've worked on Rusyn and Burmese. I'm most interested in Uralic and Slavic languages, having studied Russian for several years and, newly, Finnish.

One of my missions is to bring the work of linguists more into public awareness. To that end, I once gave a TEDx talk on language technology. I'm also the only person who has worked at both the Linguist List and the Linguistic Society of America. I received a PhD in Linguistics at UW in Seattle, in Spring of 2019.

Document: Full CV.pdf

ORCID: 0000-0001-8708-0469

Research interests: Syntax (coordination, coordinate ellipsis phenomena), idioms, Slavic languages, experimental methods.

Papers

2019. PhD Dissertation: "&0: The syntax and semantics of 'Slash' and 'And/or'"
2017. Innovation in functional categories: Slash, a new coordinator in English. English Language and Linguistics. Cambridge.
2017. Effable Slash: an emerging intersective coordinator in English and its behavior slash properties. In Mike Olsen (ed) Proceedings of the Third Linguistics Conference at University of Georgia 2: 1--14.
2017. The union of conjunction and disjunction: the case of and/or. In Patrick Farrell (ed) Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 2, 37:1--9. https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v2i0.4093
(ms) Breaking idioms with right node raising
2011. Letters from Sergei Rachmaninoff: Substantiating a Context for His Depression in 1897-1900. In Roman Koropeckyj ed. The UC Undergraduate Journal of Slavic and East/Central European Studies 3. UCLA.

Conference activity

Items (in parens) are accepted but have not occurred yet.

2018. Emily Atkinson, Ian Rigby, Naomi Shapiro, ___, and Akira Omaki. Syntactic adaptation effects do not transfer across tasks.
CUNY 2018. UC Davis.
2018. Kirby Conrod and ___. Hydras: Split Heads and Light Heads.
LSA 92, Salt Lake City, Utah (LSA 2018) [Poster]
2018. Linguistics beyond bars: Giving lectures on linguistics to prisoners, in Organized Session on Collaboration in Linguistics
LSA 92, Salt Lake City, Utah (LSA 2018) [Talk and Poster]
2017. We'll burn that bridge when we get to it: thematic coherence in identifying idiom blends.
UC Davis Symposium on Language Research 2017. [Slides]
2017. Coordinating conjunctions in Uralic.
Northwest Linguistics Conference 33. (NWLC 33). University of British Columbia [Poster, 7MB]
2017. The union of conjunction and disjunction: the case of and/or.
Linguistic Society of America 91st Annual Meeting, Austin, Texas. (LSA) [poster]
2016. Slash: A new coordinator in English and its behavior slash structure.
Linguistics Conference at UGA 3: The Lexicon (LCUGA 3). [Best Student Abstract award, UGA Travel award]
[Slides, handout]
2015. Breaking idioms with right node raising.
Brussels Conference on Generative Linguistics 8: The Grammar of Idioms (BCGL 8). [Handout]
2013. Zero Copula in Russian.
Eastern Michigan University Graduate Research Fair 2013. [EMU Distinguished Graduate Student in Linguistics].
2012. Cyrillic Graphization of Dungan.
Eastern Michigan University Graduate Research Fair 2012.
2012. LL-MAP: Three interns' journey with language and technology. [poster]
Linguistic Society of America 86th Annual Meeting, Portland OR (LSA 86)

Projects

Tutorials

Mechanical Turk recruiting for linguistic experiments (UW SynTable, 11/17/17)
- Potentially useful sites: What languages do MT Workers speak?, JJW Site
The shortest possible introduction to HPSG (DRAFT)
Intro to XFST : morphology using Finite State Automata
Intro to Festival Speech Synthesis (aka, make your computer talk)

Teaching experience

Sample syllabi are available as the links after course titles.

LING 462 : Syntax II : Advanced Undergraduate X-bar syntax (Instructor: Spr18, Sum16, Sum15)
LING 461 : Syntax I : Intro Undergraduate X-bar syntax (Instructor: Sum17)
LING 400 : Survey of Linguistic Method and Theory (Instructor: Aut16)
LING 233 : Introduction to Language and Society (TA: Spr16)
LING 200 : Introduction to Linguistic Thought (TA: Aut17, Spr17, Win17)
LING 100 : Fundamentals of Grammar (TA: Win18, Au15, Win16)
Grader: LING 461 Syntax I, LING462 Syntax II

Documents on pedagogy

Handling Cheating and Plagiarism. (2016 Sep)

Public activities

A selection of recent activities bringing linguistics to the public.

2016. September-August. "Languages of the World". University Beyond Bars-sponsored Public Lecture series to inmates at a prison in Northwest Washington State, Medium and Minimum Security Units.
2016. May. "Seeing the hidden structure of Language". Paws on Science: Husky Weekend. Booth with activities for schoolchildren to discover linguistics through iPad apps (live spectrogram) and felt syntactic trees. Seattle, WA.
2014. "If you teach a robot to talk". Scholar's Studio. Lightning talks from graduate students across the university to share research. Seattle, WA.
2013. "Say a Command". TEDx talk at Eastern Michigan University on the problems of human-computer language interaction. Ypsilanti, MI.