This page is retired. Please visit our new web site here.

FACULTY MEMBERS

Misha Becker

mbecker (at) email.unc.edu
Office: 301 Smith Building

Ph.D. 2000, University of California, Los Angeles

Misha Becker's main area of interest is psycholinguistics and first language acquisition, in particular the acquisition of syntax in children. Her research deals mainly with the development of functional structure (e.g. inflection and finiteness) in child grammar, and her current work focuses on the acquisition of raising verbs (e.g. 'seem') and raising constructions. Her other interests include cognitive development, learnability theory, and computational models of language acquisition.

Randall Hendrick

hendrick (at) email.unc.edu
Office: 105 Smith Building

Ph.D. 1979, University of California, Los Angeles

Randall Hendrick specializes in syntactic theory and the way that syntax coordinates with semantics on the one hand and morphology on the other. Currently he is working on classes of predicates and their relations to events. Syntactic reflexes of the semantic distinction between categorical and thetic judgments are part of this project, as is the syntactic domain of existential closure. This work stems from his fieldwork on Polynesian and Celtic languages. It relates as well to some psycholinguistic experimentation designed to distinguish properties of derivations from properties of representations.

David Mora-Marin

davidmm (at) unc.edu
Office: 307 Smith Building

Ph.D. 2001, State University of New York at Albany

David Mora-Marin, affiliated with both the Linguistics Department and the Duke-UNC Consortium for Latin American Studies, specializes in historical linguistics and the epigraphic study of ancient Mayan hieroglyphic inscriptions. Currently he is working on the linguistic structure (e.g. morphosyntax, pragmatics) and historical development of Mayan texts, such as the identification of the language that was used as the standard of Classic Lowland Mayan texts (A.D. 200-900) and the nature of Mayan orthographic conventions. He is very much interested in the origin of Mayan writing, its relationship to other Mesoamerican scripts (e.g. Zapotec, Epi-Olmec), and the sociocultural factors that served as the background for the development of writing. This year he is teaching Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Historical Linguistics, and Survey of Mesoamerican Languages.

Elliott Moreton

moreton (at) email.unc.edu
Office: 101 Smith Building

Ph.D. 2002, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Why are some phonological patterns much more frequent than others? Two main factors have been proposed as explanations: Either learners are more receptive to some patterns than others, or subtle phonetic asymmetries systematically skew the errors made in inter-generational transmission. Elliott Moreton's research focuses on these factors and their interaction in shaping phonological typology.

Katya Pertsova

pertsova (at) email.unc.edu
Office: 308 Smith Building

Ph.D. 2007, University of California, Los Angeles

Katya Pertsova's research lies at the intersection of theoretical linguistics, computational modeling and psycholinguistics. In particular, she is interested in questions related to computational models of learning morphology, complexity metrics of linguistic patterns, lexical storage and organization, and language evolution.

Paul Roberge

ptr (at) email.unc.edu
Office: Dey 441, (919) 962-0326 and Smith 109

Ph.D. 1980, University of Michigan

Paul Roberge's areas of specialization are pidgins and creoles, historical linguistics, and Germanic languages. His current research involves creole formation at the Cape of Good Hope, comparative Germanic grammar, and the evolution of human language.

Jennifer Smith

jlsmith (at) email.unc.edu
Office: 309 Smith Building

Ph.D. 2002, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Jennifer Smith specializes in phonological theory and the phonology of Japanese and other East Asian languages. Broadly speaking, she is interested in the nature and structure of phonological constraints. Specific projects include positional constraints, syllable structure and sonority, loanword phonology, phonological differences between words of different lexical categories, and intonational phonology in the Fukuoka dialect of Japanese.

J. Michael Terry

terryjm (at) email.unc.edu
Office: 303 Smith Building

Ph.D. 2003, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Michael Terry's principal area of interest is natural language semantics. His current research involves investigating the formal semantic properties of Tense and Aspect in African-American English. His other areas of interest include negation, and definiteness and specificity.

ADJUNCT FACULTY

Jennifer E. Renn

jrenn (at) email.unc.edu
Office: 309 Smith Building

Ph.D. 2010, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Jenn Renn is Institute of Education Sciences Postdoctoral Fellow at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute and adjunct assistant professor of linguistics. Her primary fields of expertise in linguistics are language acquisition, sociolinguistics, and quantitative methods.

EMERITUS

Craig Melchert

melchert (at) humnet.ucla.edu

Ph.D. 1977, Harvard University

FACULTY MEMBERS IN OTHER DEPARTMENTS ASSOCIATED WITH LINGUISTICS

Patrícia Amaral (Romance Languages and Literatures), Spanish and Portuguese Linguistics
Jennifer Arnold (Psychology), Psychology and Psycholinguistics
Dorit Bar-On (Philosophy), Philosophy of Language and Mind
Connie Eble (English and Comparative Literatures), English Linguistics
Bruno Estigarribia (Romance Languages and Literatures), Spanish Linguistics, Language Development and Cognition
Peter C. Gordon (Psychology), Psychology of Language
Larry D. King (Romance Languages and Literatures), Spanish and Portuguese Linguistics
William G. Lycan (Philosophy), Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Mind
Patrick O'Neill (English and Comparative Literature), Celtic Languages
Dean Pettit (Philosophy), Philosophy of Language and Mind
Mamarame Seck (African and Afro-American Studies), Wolof Language and Linguistics, African Language Pedagogy