Faculty

I specialize in the documentation, description, and history of the Eskimo-Aleut languages, especially in the areas of morphosyntax, discourse, typology, and prehistoric language contact.  I have worked with communities in Russia, Alaska, Eastern Canada, and Greenland, although my focus has been on Unangam Tunuu. As it is Unangam Tunuu is currently highly endangered, my work has included being actively engaged in language maintenance and revitalization activities, and on the long-term archival preservation of the results of documentation.  

Key specialties:  Documentation and description, Eskimo-Aleut, language contact in prehistory, morphosyntax and typology, language maintenance and revitalization, language archiving.

I teach classes in the following subjects at both undergraduate and graduate levels:  Morphology, Semantics, Field Methods, Community Language Documentation Language Contact, Language Contact in Prehistory (focusing on the North Pacific Coast), Eskimo-Aleut Linguistics, Unangax̂ Language and Culture, and Documentation and Archives

Language Contact in Prehistory along the North Pacific Coast

My current focus is in understanding the nature of the historical development of Unangam Tunuu, its divergence from the Eskimoan branch of the family, and the factors that encouraged this divergence.  This work is highly multidisciplinary, and involves results from the fields of linguistics, archaeology, genetics, paleo-environmental studies, and ethnohistory, and the geographical area that includes the current homelands of the Unangan, Sugpiat, Dena’ina, Eyak, and Tlingit. 

Articles

Subsistence Terms in Unangam Tunuu (Aleut), Language Dispersal Beyond Farming

Coordination in Pribilof Islands Unangam Tunuu, Linguistic Discovery

Hans Egede Oqaluppalaarutaa:  Hans Egede’s Story, Proceedings of the 14th Inuit Studies Conference 

Insubordination in Aleut. Dynamics of Insubordination

Divine Inspiration.  Revue Amerindia

Polysynthesis in Aleut (Unangam Tunuu).  Linguistic Typology of the North 3

Object Reduction in Aleut.  Asian and African Languages and Linguistics 7: Transitivity and Its Related Phenomena

Coordination in Pribilof Islands Unangam Tunuu. Linguistic Discovery.

Adequacy in Documentation.  Language Documentation:  Practice and Values

Unexpected Non-Anaphoric Marking in Aleut.  Rara & Rarissima: Documenting the fringes of linguistic diversity

Re-evaluating the Linguistic Reconstruction of Proto-Eskimo-Aleut.  Journal of Historical Linguistics

Reexamining the Linguistic Prehistory of Aleut (Unangam Tunuu). Digging For Words: Archaeolinguistic Case Studies from the XV Nordic TAG Conference Held at the University of Copenhagen

Subsistence Terms in Unangam Tunuu (Aleut).  Language Dispersal Beyond Farming

Origins of Linguistic Diversity in the Aleutian Islands.  Human Biology

 

 

 

Publications

How the Atkans Talk (Niigugis Mataliin Tununxtazangis)

Pribilof Anĝaĝigan Tuningin / The Way We Talk in the Pribilofs

Topic and discourse structure in West Greenlandic agreement constructions