About myself

I'm an Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Dene Language Studies at the Department of Indian Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics of the First Nations University of Canada.

I specialize in Athab/pasc/kan languages (please pick a spelling), in particular Denaʼina and Upper Tanana, both spoken in Alaska, and Dane-za/Beaver , spoken in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada. My research interests include, but certainly are not limited to, discourse analysis, morphosyntax, phonetics, and ethnolinguistics, and language documentation.

My interest in ethnolinguistics stems from language documentation. I find the study of language in context (linguistic or cultural!) much more rewarding than the study of isolated words or sentences. My own fieldwork on Denaʼina (Alaska), Dane-za (Alberta) and Upper Tanana (Alaska) focuses on language in its natural setting. I'm especially interested in topical vocabulary relating to the natural world: fauna (especially birds!) , flora, and geography (place names).

Almost all of the data I use comes from spontaneous narration. This sometimes makes the analysis more difficult, since I may have to sort out what is an interesting pattern as opposed to a speech error, but I hope that it saves me from too-outrageous claims about the languages.