Research summary
For linguists to make progress in understanding the grammatical principles that underlie human languages, it is essential they base theories on as broad and diverse a set of languages as possible. Dr. Jessica Coon’s research program investigates the particularly rich and complex systems of case grammatical agreement in languages of the Mayan and Algonquian families in Mexico, Guatemala and Canada. Through original fieldwork, this project will document and analyze these understudied and, in some cases, endangered languages. It will do so in a way that also achieves benefits to the communities in which these languages are spoken.