We have a wide range of research interests in phonetics, phonology, morphology, and discourse. The unifying question is how language dynamics -- whether in processing, acquisition, or historical change -- relates to the structure of linguistic systems. We are particularly interested in the interaction of social and cognitive factors in language, with a primary focus on language sound structure. Our experiments explore statistical learning, socio-stylistic adaptation, and phonetic reflexes of information structure in discourse. These experiments are complemented by a program of computational simulation, which uses multi-agent modeling to explore how individual linguistic systems evolve in social networks through speech production and perception.
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Janet Pierrehumbert, Principal Investigator Research interests: Prosody and intonation, statistical phonology, population-level models of phonetics and phonology. |
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Andrea Sims, Mellon Post-doctoral Fellow Research interests: Slavic linguistics, morphology. |
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Robert Daland, Ph.D candidate Research interests: Phonological learning, Slavic phonology. |
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James German, Ph.D candidate Research interests: Focus, prosody, semantic theory. |
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Kenneth Konopka, Ph.D candidate Research interests: Sociophonetics, Mexican-American English |
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Carolyn Gottfurcht Zafra, Ph.D candidate Research interests: Morphology, lexical semantics |