CV
Past Projects
Mixing and Matching Gender: The Interaction of Gender Assignment Rules in Spanish-English Bilingual Speech (2022) (Undergraduate Honors Thesis)
This research project investigates how codeswitching (CS) functions for Spanish-English bilingual speakers in utterances that feature noun phrase (NP) ellipsis and one-substitution, with particular focus on how the gender assignment rules of each language apply with regards to the elided and substituted material. Previous research has shown that when a switch occurs within an ellipsis site, the language of the elided material can be inferred from case markers on the remnants, and that further research on how gender markers function similarly is necessary (González-Vilbazo & Ramos, 2018). In addition to NP ellipsis, this paper investigates how gender markers can reveal information about the substituted material when a switch occurs within a one-substitution construction.
This study employs an acceptability judgment survey which was designed to test bilingual speakers’ judgments of switched constructions involving NP ellipsis and one-substitution. The results suggest a syntactic analysis in which the remnant adjective plays an important role in assigning gender. In this analysis, the language of the elided referent is initially assumed to be the language of the antecedent. The remnant adjective signals whether the NP is marked for gender, which is represented with the privative feature [GEN]. A [GEN] marker requires that the elided NP, or referent, be marked [±FEM]; if it is not, a language switch is forced at the site, and the remnants will agree with the gender of the referent. Lack of a [GEN] marker means that the referent is not required to bear gender markers, and a language switch at the site is optional. If the elided referent is not marked [±FEM], the remnants will default to masculine markers. This analysis draws on previous investigations into CS and gender assignment, including research conducted by Merchant (2015), Valdés Kroff (2016), and Cruz (2021). The result is a set of proposed gender assignment rules which govern the syntactic structure at sites of codeswitched NP ellipsis and one-substitution.
This research project served as my Senior Honors Thesis at NYU in 2022 and received High Honors. The full text is available here.
Possession in Southern Uto-Aztecan varieties: A possible reanalysis of affixes as clitics (2021) (Undergraduate research paper)
This paper compares the use of possessive affixes in the Southern Uto-Aztecan languages Huichol and Cora, and proposes an argument suggesting that some of these affixes might be better understood as possessive clitics. This argument is strongest for Cora, and is based on patterns observed between the verbal reflexive prefixes and the possessive reflexive and non-reflexive prefixes of each language. The presence of certain shared forms in Cora indicates that some of the possessive reflexive prefixes might be better understood as clitics than as affixes, and that these possessive reflexive clitics would originate low in a nominal structure, then raise up to the verb phrase to be pronounced. This paper is available here.
Variation in the use of (h)ain’t in Appalachian English (2021) (Undergraduate research paper)
This paper investigates the use of ain’t and hain’t in Appalachian English using data gathered from the Audio-Aligned and Parsed Corpus of Appalachian English, and compares the use of (h)ain’t in Appalachian English to the use of ain’t in African American English as described by Fisher (2018). A statistical analysis of the data revealed that (h)ain’t is used in Appalachian English in only two grammatical contexts, replacing forms of present BE or present HAVE, and that the use of this form has been decreasing since the 1970s. This differs from the six grammatical contexts in which ain’t is used in African American English that Fisher (2018) described, which were: present progressive, periphrastic future, and copula BE; present perfect HAVE; and present and past DO. Interestingly, the use of (h)ain’t is much more limited in Appalachian English, as the data shows that the grammatical contexts are limited to present tense. This paper is available here.