I'm in my final year of the PhD program in the
Department of Linguistics at Yale University. I'm interested in language variations and universalities, and my approach is based on formal semantics, pragmatics and syntactic theories combined with fieldwork methodologies.
Research
Publications
Definiteness
My research and dissertation (on-going) expands the existing understanding of nominal systems in languages across the world, specifically with regards to kind reference and definiteness expressions. I empirically focus on three indigenous and understudied languages spoken in the North East Region of India - Khasi, Mizo, and Mongsen Ao, collecting data through semantic fieldwork: both on site and virtual. These languages exhibit unique properties that update typologies of the mapping between morphosyntax and semantics of bare nouns (kinds vs predicates), and definite and demonstrative expressions. Broadly, these claims inform our perspectives on universalities in grammar.
I have conducted on-site fieldwork in Meghalaya and Mizoram for my dissertation in the past year, and continuing on-line correspondence with my primary language consultant of respective languages.
My current committee members are: Veneeta Dayal (chair), Zoltán Gendler Szabó, Jim Wood, and Ayesha Kidwai (external).
My previous work on this topic includes a collaborative project with Ka-Fai Yip and Margaret Chui Yi Lee on the typology of definiteness in Cantonese and Bangla. We motivate the integration of (quasi-)names (such as English mum) to the existing typology, arguing that unique bare nominals in bare classifier languages are in fact (quasi-)names rather than regular definite descriptions.
Counting and classifiers
As an extension of my second qualifying paper, I have been working on counting strategies in various languages of the world, which has so far included Khasi, Mandarin, Dënesųłinë́ and Yoruba, among others. Recently, I have presented work that proposes that (at least numeral) classifiers exist universally in languages drawing primary data from Khasi, which exhibits obligatory co-occurrence of classifiers and plural markers. While classifiers exist universally, their forms are determined by parametric variation of bare noun denotation and morphosyntactic rules such as Fusion. This remains to be an on-going project as I bring more languages and other types of classifiers into the picture. My immediate attention is on languages with optional classifiers, such as Turkish or Hungarian.
