Research

Chinese Dialects

Nonconcatenative Morphology and Rime Change

One of my main research areas focuses on rime change ("变韵" bianyun) in Chinese dialects. Rime change refers to morphophonological alternations involving syllable modification, including vowel quality changes, lengthening, or segment deletion.

My work investigates the phonological and morphological structure of these patterns, including diminutive subtraction in Huozhou Chinese as a case of floating mora affixation.

Fieldwork Morphophonology Rime Change Diminutives

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Diagram showing subtraction as mora affixation in Huozhou Chinese — Subtraction as mora affixation in Huozhou Chinese.

Correspondence

Correspondence and Reduplicative Identity

A central issue in the study of reduplication is whether reduplicative identity requires a formal mechanism like correspondence. My work supports correspondence-based approaches to identity effects in reduplication.

This line of inquiry treats Agreement-by-Correspondence not only as a theory of consonant harmony, but also as a more general mechanism for modeling identity effects among related forms.

Surface Correspondence Reduplication Identity Phonological Theory

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Diagram of Surface Correspondence in reduplication — Surface Correspondence in reduplication.

Temporal Coordination

Syllable Structure and Temporal Coordination

I investigate syllable structure using acoustic measurements that reveal temporal coordination patterns. This approach helps test claims about syllable organization in both Chinese dialects and other languages.

Recent work examines prenuclear glides in Hefei Mandarin and sibilant-stop clusters in Moenat Ladin, with attention to how phonetic timing informs phonological structure.

Acoustics Timing Syllable Structure Mandarin

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Acoustic landmarks of Chinese CGV syllables — Acoustic landmarks and measurements for Chinese CGV syllables.

Measurements of Chinese CGV syllables — Acoustic landmarks and measurements for Chinese CGV syllables.

Ladin

Ladin Phonetics and Phonology

Another major area of my research focuses on the phonetics and phonology of Ladin, an endangered Romance language spoken in northeastern Italy.

Drawing on fieldwork data collected in 2018 and 2019, this work examines the sound system of Val di Fassa varieties, consonant phonotactics, sibilants, and temporal coordination in word-initial clusters.

Fieldwork Romance Consonant Clusters Phonetics

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Map showing the location of Ladin-speaking communities — Location of the Ladin community and Moena in the Fassa Valley.

Moena, a Ladin-speaking village in the Fassa Valley — Location of the Ladin community and Moena in the Fassa Valley.