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Graduate Linguistics Association

Graduate students in the Department of Linguistics at the University at Buffalo are automatically members of the Graduate Linguistics Association. The GLA coordinates events and tries to better the department through constant dedication to helping fellow students.

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Meet Our Doctoral Alumni

Seong, Jihye
Visiting Professor, Vassar College
Dissertation: The Processing of L2 Internal Syllabic Constituents: Cross-Linguistic Difference and Input Frequency

Alshehri, Ali
Voice Building Engineer, Apple Inc.
Dissertation: Use and Understanding of Intrinsic Frames Cross-Linguistically

Beck, Hanno
Assistant Teaching Professor, University at Buffalo
Adjunct Professor, Rochester Institute of Technology
Dissertation: The Pragmatics of the Tough Construction

Hatcher Jr., Richard
Postdoctoral Fellow, Hanyang University
Dissertation: The Phonetics and Phonology of Cayuga Prosody

Zhang, Miao
Adjunct Lecturer, University of Rochester
Dissertation: Prosodic influences on the acoustics of vowel sequences

Benn, Joshua
Dissertation: The phonetics, phonology, and historical development of Guienagati Zapotec

Brown, Braden
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Missouri
Dissertation: Constructing the Verb: the morphological expression of temporal categories in lyasa

Evers, Stephanie
Research Analyst, Oregon Department of Education
Dissertation: To ‘the’ or not to ‘the’: Cross-Linguistic Correlations Between Existing Morphosyntax and the Emergence of Definite Articles

Fujinaga, Kiyono
Assistant Teaching Professor, Carnegie Mellon University
Dissertation: The Synchronic and Diachronic Development of Japanese Benefactive Constructions

Hong, Seungjn
Lecturer, Danook University
Dissertation: Computing Category Membership for Tall: An Error Minimization Approach

Jin, Yanwei
Assistant Professor, East China University
Dissertation: Negation on your mind: A cross-linguistic and psycholinguistic study of expletive negation

Lawson, Alexandra
Senior Researcher & Data Analyst, University at Buffalo
Dissertation: Marked Dependent Reference: When a Pronoun is Not Enough

Wang, Ran
Dissertation: Pragmatic Functions of Numeral Classifiers in Mandarin Chinese

Stallings, William Jay
Dissertation: The Inter-areality of Areal Features
Li, Yu
Dissertation: A Grammar of Zauzou
Hepburn-Gray, Robert
Instructor at University of Rochester
Dissertation: Niger-Congo Noun Classes: reconstruction, historical implications, and morphosyntactic theory
Hill, Montgomery
Assistant Professor of Indigenous Studies, Department of Indigenous Studies, University at Buffalo
Dissertation: Tuscarora Morphology & Language Revitalization
St. Pierre, Thomas
Postdoc, University of Toronto Mississauga
Dissertation: Adapting to Consistent Errors in Non-native Speech

2019

Park, Sang-Hee
Assistant Professor at Hanbat National University, Department of English Language & Literature.
Dissertation: Gapping: A Constraint-based Syntax-Semantics Interface
Kang, Hong-Mo
Assistant Professor, Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, Monterey, CA.
Dissertation: Effects of Plausibility and Predictability on Reading

2018

Donelson, Katharine
Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Nevada Reno.
Dissertation: On Space in Conversation: Coordinating Perspectives in Spatial Reference
Sarvestani, Karl
Visiting Assistant Professor, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester.
Dissertation: Aspects of Sgaw Karen phonology and phonetics
Moore, Randi
Visiting Assistant Professor position at the College of William and Mary.
Dissertation: Spatial Language and Cognition in Isthmus Zapotec
Sun, Hao
Artificial Intelligence Scientist, ASTOUND Service Management Reimagined, Menlo Park, CA
Dissertation: Association and Extension in Argument Strucutre Learning: A Computational Perspective

2017

Keily, Holly
Research Analyst with Toastmasters International, Denver, Colorado.
Dissertation: Referring to Actions and Objects in Co-speech Gesture Production

Lin, Yen-Ting
Assistant Professor, Department of Applied Foreign Languages, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, TaiwanDissertation: Spatial Language and Cognition in Bilingual Minds: Taiwan as a test case

Sun, Xiaole
Researcher and Instructor, Wayne State University, Dept. of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Detroit
Dissertation: Gradience in Contextual Tonal Variations in Nanjing Chinese

Tilbe, Timothy
Technical Writer at Frontier Science Foundation
Dissertation: Parts and Wholes in Mesoamerican Language and Cognition

Wilson, Jennifer
Dissertation: A Grammar of Yeri: A Torricelli Language of Papua New Guinea

2016

Yi, Eunkyung
Assistant Professor at Ewha Womans University, South Korea
Dissertation: Exploring the Cognitive Underpinnings of the Correspondence between Verb Meaning and Syntax
Yu, Hye Jeong
Dissertation: The Development of Obstruent Consonants in Bilingual Korean-English Children
Hatfield, Adam
Assistant Professor, Centralia Collage, Centralia WA
Disstertation: A grammar of Mehek
Jin, Dawei
Associate Professor, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
Dissertation: The Semantic-Pragmatics Interface and Island Constraints in Chinese

2015

Asao, Yoshihiko
Researcher, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Tokyo, Japan.
Dissertation:Left-Right Asymmetries in Words: A Processing-Based Account
Heider, Paul
Development Manager, SmartFocus, NY.
Dissertation: The Semantics of Optionality
Kalinowski, Cristin
Instructor, D’Youville College, Buffalo, NY
Dissertation: A Typology of Morphosyntactic Encoding of Focus in African Languages
Lee, Ji Won
Technical Writer, OSIsoft, San Leandro, CA
Dissertation: A Corpus-Based Study of Change and Variation in Much, Many, Far and Often as Negative Polarity Items
Mitchell, Alice
Junior Faculty University of Colognel
Dissertation: Linguistic Avoidance and Social Relations in Datooga
Sposato, Adam
Translator, Beijing Century Text Translation Ltd.
Dissertation: A Grammar of Xong
Wetta, Andrew
Senior Software Engineer, 3M Health Information Systems, Silver Spring, MD.
Dissertation: Construction-based approaches to flexible word order

2014

Brocher, Andreas
Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Cologne.
Dissertation: When non-commitment makes sense: an experimental approach to the retrieval and mental representation of irregular polysemes
Yik, Ting Fen
Language Engineer – Multilingual Systems, SmartFocus, NY.
Dissertation: A predictive modelling analysis of Vietnamese tonogenesis

2013

Boffemmyer, Justin
Foreign Instructor, Mie University, Faculty of Humanities
Dissertation: Attribution and Clausal Nominalization in Japanese
Uchihara, Hiroto
Postdoctoral Researcher, Georgetown University
Dissertation: Tone and accent in Oklahoma Cherokee

2012

Beach, Matthew
Dissertation: Studies in Inuktitut Grammar
Dery, Jeruen
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Zentrum fur Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Berlin, Germany
Dissertation: Scene-Salience-Driven Effects in Discourse Processing
Lovegren, Jesse
Environmental Permit Specialist, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
Dissertation: Mungbam grammar(7.6 MB)
Painter, Robert
Associate Professor, Linguistics Program, Northeastern University
Dissertation: Acoustic and Perceptual Explanations for Rhotacism in Latin and Germanic
Poornima, Shakthi
Product Manager at Alteryx, Inc., Boulder, CO
Dissertation: Hindi Complex Predicates at the Syntax-Semantics Interface(1.2 MB)
Sun, Kuo Chan
Faculty Lecturer, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Dissertation: The Role of Lexical Tone in L2 Mandarin

2011

Frank, Michael
LEAP Project Core/Sr. Training Specialist (German); General Dynamics Information Technology Navy/Air Force Solutions
Dissertation: Language Maintenance and Change among the Swiss Mennonites of the Waterloo Region, Ontario
Hasegawa, Akio
Lecturer of Japanese, East Tennessee State University
Dissertation: The Semantics and Pragmatics of Japanese Focus Particles(831 KB)
Kang, Sang-gu
Assistant Professor, Hansung University, Seoul
Dissertation: Inclusive Focus Particles in English and Korean
Kimura, Kazunori
Dissertation: Pragmatic Implicatures and Particles in Japanese
Mahonen, Kirsta
Dissertation: The Productivity of Finnish Vowel Harmony: an Analysis of Disharmonic Words
Petrova, Nyurguyana
Senior linguist at NTENT, San Francisco, CA
Dissertation: Lexical and Clause-Linkage Properties of the Converbal Constructions in Sakha (Yakut)

2010

Fried, Robert
Adjunct Faculty at the University of North Dakota
Dissertation: A Grammar of Bao-an Tu, A Mongolic Language of Northwest China
Lambert, Silke
Researcher, Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet Duesseldorf, Germany, Scientific Collaborator
Dissertation: Towards a Typology of Dative Uses
O’Meara, Carolyn
Associate Research Professor, Seminario de Lenguas Indígenas, Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Dissertation: Seri Landscape Classification and Spatial Reference

2009

Hsiao, Hui-Chen
Assistant Professor, Graduate Institute of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language, National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU)
Dissertation: Motion Event Descriptions and Manner-of-Motion Verbs in Mandarin
Paauw, Scott
Senior Lecturer, Department of Linguistics, University of Rochester
Dissertation: The Malay Contact Varieties of Eastern Indonesia: A Typological Comparison
Perez Baez, Gabriela
Curator, Department of Anthropology, Smitsonian National Museum of Natural History
Dissertation: Endangerment of a Transnational Language: The Case of San Lucas Quiavini Zapotec
Perkins, Marla
Black Bird Consulting / Adjunct Faculty, State University of New York College at Oswego
Dissertation: There and Back Again: Discourse and Pragmatic Strategies for Describing Spatial Locations in Narrative Fiction
Romero Mendez, Rodrigo
Associate Professor, Seminario de Lenguas Indígenas, Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Dissertation: A Descriptive Grammar of Ayutla Mixe (Tukyo’m Ayuujk)
Sheffer, Anne Colette
Dissertation: Facework in Coercive Encounters: Evidence from Police Field Interrogations

2008

Belloro, Valeria
Assistant Research Professor, Centro de Estudios Lingüísticos y Literarios, Facultad de Lenguas y Letras, Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro
Dissertation: Spanish Clitic Doubling. A Study of the Syntax-Pragmatics Interface.
Chief, Lianchen
Lecturer, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, UCLA
Dissertation: Induced Change of State Verbs in Mandarin Chinese.
Ishiyama, Osamu
Assistant Professor of Japanese Language and Culture, Soka University of America
Dissertation: Diachronic Perspectives on Personal Pronouns in Japanese
Kim, Taeho
Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Language and Information, Pusan National University, Korea
Dissertation: Subject and Object Markings in Conversational Korean
Miura, Hidematsu
Associate Professor, Mukogawa Women’s University
Dissertation: Grammatical Relations, Reflexives and Pseudo-Raising in Japanese
Sugiyama, Yukiko
Assistant Professor, Keio University, Japan
Dissertation: The Nature of Japanese Pitch Accent: An Experimental Study

2007

Abe, Sayaka
Assistant Professor, Middlebury College, VT
Dissertation: Space, Time, Subjectivity and Beyond: the Cognitive-Semantic Development of the Japanese marker –te-shimau
Cornish, Jennifer
Independent Research Consultant, Berkeley, CA
Dissertation: History of Germanic: Verner’s Law and Unstressed Vowel Reduction and Loss
Graves, Thomas
University of Central Oklahoma, Adjunct Professor
Dissertation: Grammar of Hile Sherpa
Hong, Sunyoung
Professor, Dean of International Services, Kyungnam University, Korea
Dissertation: The Phonetics of Daegu Korean Lexical Prosody
Kawachi, Kazuhiro
Associate Professor, National Defense Academy of Japan
Dissertation: A Grammar of Sidaama (Sidamo), a Cushitic Language of Ethiopia
Kim, Myoyoung
Educational Measurement Specialist in Test Analysis and Design, Defense Language
Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) in Monterey, CA
Dissertation: Monolingual and Bilingual Language Processing: A Study of Korean, English, and Korean-English Speech Errors

Kuriyama, Keiko
Assistant Professor of Japanese, Indiana University
Dissertation: The Status of the Mora in Japanese Speech Production Planning: A Developmental Study of the Mora
Lehnert-LeHouillier, Heike
Assistant Professor, Special Education & Communication Disorders, New Mexico State University
Dissertation: The Perception of Vowel Quantity: A Cross-Linguistic Investigation

2006

Abrams, Percy
Director of Museum Operations, Native American Museum of Art, 2293 Saunders Settlement Road, Sanborn, NY 14132
Dissertation: Onondaga Pronominal Prefixes
Amazaki, Osamu
Lecturer of Japanese, National University of Singapore
Dissertation: A Functional Analysis of Numeral Quantifier Constructions in Japanese
Awuku, Ameyo
Dissertation: Physio-Psychological Concept Expressions in Ewe: A Syntax-Semantics Lexicon
Nishiyama, Atsuko
Associate professor, Graduate School of Education, Faculty of Education, Wakayama University
Dissertation: The Semantics and Pragmatics of the Perfect in English and Japanese
Wu, Jing Lan Joy
Associate Professor, National Taiwan University
Dissertation: Verb Classification, Case Marking, and Grammatical Relations in Amis
Yamasaki, Yumi
Dissertation: Constituent Ordering Spoken Japanese

2005

Binns, Kathleen
Assistant Professor of English, Department of English, USAF Academy Colorado, 2354 Fairchild Hall, Suite 6D115, 80840
Dissertation: Content Questions in American Sign Language
Conklin, Kathryn
Lecturer, School of English Studies, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG72RD, United Kingdom
Dissertation: Bilingual Access to Interlingual Homographs: Examination of Effects of Sentential Context, Word Frequency, and Proficiency
Eschenberg, Ardis
Dean of Academic Affairs, Windward Community College, Kaneohe, HI
Dissertation: The Article System of UmoNhoN
Low, Mei-Han
Translation Dept., Lingnan University, Hong Kong
Dissertation: The Phenomenon of the Word THE in English
McDaniels, Todd
Assistant Professor, Comanche Nation College, Lawton, OK
Dissertation: Establishing perspective in Comanche Narrative
Guerrero-Valenzuela, Lilian Graciela
UNAM (Autonomous National University of Mexico) Mexico City
Dissertation: The syntax-semantic interface in Yaqui complex constructions, a Role and Reference Grammar Analysis

2004

Horner, Kristine
Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Luxembourg Studies, Department of Germanic Linguistics, The University of Sheffield, United Kingdom
Dissertation: Negotiating the Language-Identity Link: Media Discourse and Nation-Building in Luxembourg

2003

Bloomquist, Jennifer
Associate Professor and the Director of Africana Studies at Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, PA
Dissertation: Cross-cultural semantic acquisition: Evidence from over-extensions in child language
Imai, Shingo
Professor, Tsukuba University, Japan
Dissertation: Spatial Deixis.
Kodama, Tomiko
Associate Professor, Kyoko Pharmaceutical University, Japan
Dissertation: Japanese Aspectual Compound Verbs and the Verbal Affixes: An attempt at a Cognitive Semantic Analysis
McClive, Thomas
Dissertation: The Social Accommodation Model in the Discourse of Pragmatic Opposition
Ng, Eve
Dissertation: Demonstrative words in the Algonquian Language Passamaquoddy: A descriptive and grammaticalization analysis
Paris, Luis
Professor, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, UNCuyo
Dissertation: Grammatical Encoding of Event Relations: Gerund Phrases in Spanish

2002

Davidson, Matthew
Dissertation: Studies in Southern Wakashan (Nootkan) Grammar
Krainz, Stacy
Dissertation: Professionalism vs. Audience Appeal in News Analysis Discussions: A Journalist’s Dilemma
Muansuwan, Nuttanart
Assistant Prof. Computer Engineering Department King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Thailand
Dissertation: Verb Complexes in Thai
Toratani, Kiyoko
Associate Professor of Japanese, York University
Dissertation: The morphoyntax and the logical structures of compound verbs in Japanese

2001

Im, Sung-Chool
Dissertation: Typological Patterns of Motion Verbs in Korean
Kopris, Craig
Dissertation: A Grammar and Dictionary of Wyandot
Melinger, Alissa
Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor), Psychology Department, University of Dundee
Dissertation: Morphological Complexity in English Prefixed Words: An Experimental Investigation
Rangkupan, Suda
Chulalongkorn University Language Institute, English as an International Language Graduate Program
Dissertation:Linguistic Characteristics of Psychological Perspective in Thai Narrative Discourse

2000

Facundes, Sidney
Dissertation: The Language of the Apurina People of Brazil (Maipure/Arawak)
Houghton, David
Research engineer, Comcast T+PD
Dissertation: Something about ‘Anything’: A Semantic Study of ‘A’, ‘The’, ‘Any’, & ‘Certain’
Um, Yongnam
Dissertation: Tone and Related phonological aspects of Middle Korean and Modern Dialects with reference to vowel length
Weber, Heather
Dissertation: Language and Interaction in a Usenet Newsgroup: Method and Analysis

1999

Han, Jeonghan
Dissertation: Grammatical Coding of Information Structure in Korean: A Role & Reference Grammar (RRG) Account
Kang, Kyung-Shim
Dissertation: The Phonetics and Phonology of Korean and Thai Obstruents
Min, Haesik
Dissertation: The Organization of Korean Spatial Concepts and Its Implications for the Korean-English Bilingual Lexicon
Wan, I-Ping
Dissertation: Mandarin Phonology: Evidence from Speech Errors
Wells-Jensen, Sheri
Dissertation: Cognitive Correlates of Linguistic Complexity: A Cross-Linguistic Comparison of Errors in Speech

1998

Diessel, Holger
Dissertation: Demonstratives in Cross linguistic and Diachronic Perspectives
Lee, Heechul
Dissertation:The Syntax and Semantics of the Korean Periphrasic Causative Construction
Mushin, Ilana
Dissertation: Evidentiality and Epistemological Stance in Macedonian, English, and Japanese Narrative
Watanabe, Noriko
Dissertation: A Functional Study of Character Introduction in Japanese Narrative: Examples from Oral Storytelling and Written Stories

1997

Nakamura, Wataru
Associate Professor, Tohoku University, Japan
Dissertation: A Constraint Based Typology of Case Systems

1996

Bumatay, Rosalina
Dissertation: A Focus Group Approach to the Study of Narrative Reading
Honda, Isao
Professor, Nagoya College, Japan
Dissertation: Negation: A Cross-Linguistic Study
Kemmerer, David
Dissertation: An Investigation of Syntactic Comprehension Deficits in Parkinson’s Disease
Madera, Monica
Dissertation: The Role of Language in the Perception of Ethnic Identity: The Case of the Buffalo Latino Hispanic/Hispanic Community

1995

Park, Ki-Seong
Dissertation: The Semantics and Pragmatics of Case Marking in Korean: A Role and Reference Grammar Account
Shimojo, Mitsuaki
Associate Professor, University at Buffalo
Dissertation: Focus Structure and Morphosyntax in Japanese: Wa and Ga and Word Order Flexibility

1994

Devitt, Daniel
Dissertation: Copula Constructions in Cross Linguistic and Diachronic Perspective
Oh, Sang-Ryong
Dissertation: Korean Numeral Classifiers: Semantics and Universals
Shafer, Valerie
Dissertation: An Electrophysiological Investigation of the Ability of Infants to Distinguish their Native Language from Non-Native Languages
Yang, Byong-Seon
Dissertation: Morphosyntactic Phenomena of Korean in Role and Reference Grammar: Psych-Verb Constructions, Inflectional Verb Morphemes, Complex Sentences, and Relative Clauses

1993

Li, Frank
Dissertation: A Diachronic Study of V-V Compounds in Chinese
Whaley, Lindsay
Dissertation: The status of Obliques in Linguistic Theory

1992

Abdoulaye, Mahamane L.
Dissertation: Aspects of Hausa Morphosyntax in Role and Reference Grammar