Selected Writings

A selection of my academic work is given below. I have given each work listed here a subjective rating of how relevant it might be to the sort of language learner who finds themselves reading linguistics papers. The rating scale is as follows:

  • 😴 Marginal indicates that the work focuses on a language other than myaamiaataweenki or is very technical.
    • This could be relevant to something you're interested in, but it might be in an indirect way or as background information.
  • 🦧 Low indicates the work might be about multiple Algonquian languages or be focused on questions that aren't very relevant to most people.
    • It will be easier to get some value out of reading this, if you're only interested in myaamiaataweenki, but it might not be the most useful.
  • 🎯 High indicates the work is primarily about myaamiaataweenki or otherwise has a lot of examples that could be useful to ordinary people.
    • These I hope readers can get use out of without knowing or caring about any of the linguistics.

Bringing myaamia kiilhswaakana ‘Lunar Calendars’ into the Digital Age (2024)

(with Kristina Fox)

  • Short summary Presentation on the journey the myaamia lunar calendar has made, where it's going. This talk also covers some ethnoastronomical questions about leap months and cyclical time.
  • Relevance to myaamiaataweenki learners 🎯 High
    • Target language myaamiaataweenki
    • Useful examples Numerous
  • Availability After conference, I will post slides and handout here!

Temperature expressions in the Miami-Illinois corpus (to appear)

  • Short summary Paper investigating the expression of temperature in myaamiaataweenki. When I was first learning an Algonquian language, temperature expressions helped me understand how words worked, so it's a topic I revisit regularly or when learning a new language.
  • Relevance to myaamiaataweenki learners 🎯 High
    • Target language myaamiaataweenki
    • Useful examples Numerous
  • Availability Prepublication version

Applicatives across Algonquian (2024)

(with Monica Macaulay)

  • Short summary Paper surveying how applicatives work in Algonquian languages, which is linguistics jargon for a way of adding extra arguments to a verb. This is a chapter from an volume on applicatives edited by European typologists whose defintion of applicative slightly differs from what you might learn in an American linguistics class.
  • Relevance to myaamiaataweenki learners 😴 Marginal
    • Target language Algonquian family
    • Useful examples Few
  • Availability

Notes on measurement and mathematics in Miami-Illinois (2023)

  • Short summary Presentation investigating the grammatical tools people used in myaamiaataweenki to measure things and do math. I spend a lot of time in this piece discussing the methodological challenges of interpreting obsolete measurement terms in the record (like "toise" and "cubit").
  • Relevance to myaamiaataweenki learners 🎯 High
    • Target language myaamiaataweenki
    • Useful examples Numerous
  • Availability Slides

Strategies for lexical expansion in Algonquian languages (2023)

(with Rachel Fedorchak, Vade Kamenitsa-Hale, and Monica Macaulay)

  • Short summary Paper comparing word formation patterns across the Algonquian family, based on a survey of over 150 words. Metonymy, part-for whole relationship, ends up being the most common strategy; new words arise from speakers naming what is most salient, most noticeable, most important.
  • Relevance to myaamiaataweenki learners 🦧 Low
    • Target language Algonquian family
    • Useful examples Several
  • Availability Open Access via Language Documentation & Conservation

Survey of content questions in Miami-Illinois (2023)

  • Short summary Paper investigating "content questions", which are the type of questions that are looking for information. In English, these are also called "wh-questions" because they start with words like "what" or "where".
  • Relevance to myaamiaataweenki learners 🎯 High
    • Target language myaamiaataweenki
    • Useful examples Numerous
  • Availability Prepublication version

Relative Roots: Form and Function (2023)

(with Monica Macaulay and Vivian Nash)

  • Short summary Presentation surveying relative roots, Algonquianist jargon for a part of word that connects the meaning of the verb to some other part of the sentence.
  • Relevance to myaamiaataweenki learners 🦧 Low
    • Target language Algonquian family
    • Useful examples Few
  • Availability
    • Currently unavailable. More on relative roots can be found in some of the other papers (e.g. the Applicatives paper, also comes up in the Measurement and Content Questions papers)
    • ...I will happily write more specifically about relative roots in myaamiaataweenki if there's interest!

Nominal TAM and the Preterit in Potawatomi (2018)

  • Short summary Paper detailing the usage of the preterit ending in Potawatomi and argues against the existence of so-called "nominal tense". The preterit is used differently than in myaamiaataweenki, but may still be useful if you're exploring the archival records.
  • Relevance to myaamiaataweenki learners 😴 Marginal
    • Target language Potawatomi
    • Useful examples None
  • Availability Prepublication version