layout: page title: "About" permalink: bowersd.github.io/about
I am a linguist based in Eugene, Oregon. I work on both theoretical questions and applied problems. In 2023-2024 I had a fellowship with the Dynamic Language Infrastructure: Documenting Endangered Languages program under the National Endowment for the Humanities (paired with a Visiting Scholar appointment at Reed College). This fellowship was focused on lemmatizing Nishnaabemwin texts using a parser, and making the resulting analyses available on the Nishnaabemwin Online Dictionary and in Alan Ojiig Corbiere's forthcoming book M'Chigeeng Dbaajmowinan. This work builds on the post-doc I had between 2015-2017 at the University of Alberta, where I started developing the parser. In terms of the rest of my prior career, I also taught at Yale (2017-2018), had a Visiting Scholar appointment at the University of Arizona (2017-2022), and earned my PhD at UCLA (2010-2015) under Bruce Hayes and Kie Zuraw.
My research program fits within the Kiparskian paradigm: I seek to explain (at least some of) diachronic change through the architecture of synchronic grammar. My primary focus has been on the aftermath of rhythmic syncope, where an unremarkable sound change (the reduction and loss of unstressed syllables from iterative feet) triggers far-reaching restructuring in the morphophonological grammar. Richard Rhodes' lexicographic work (published in 1985) provides clear evidence of rapid restructuring in Nishnaabemwin. My work has expanded the descriptive picture with comprehensive field data and opened the way to a formal language theoretic explanation for the phonological catastrophe. See especially my paper in Phonology and my work with Sophie Hao.
There are other cases of rhythmic syncope and restructuring out there. I am particularly interested in Early Irish and Eastern Slavic, where the historical literature discusses tumultuous 'periods of trial and error' (to borrow a phrase from Isacenko's 1970 description of Eastern Slavic) beginning immediately after the onset of rhythmic syncope. Elliott Lash and I wrote a paper (accepted to Phonological Data and Analysis) showing a method that estimates the volume of loan words through time; this can plausibly be extrapolated to estimating the pace of language change. When applied to Irish, we find that very few loans likely entered during the rhythmic syncope period, which is commensurate with rhythmic syncope having quickly died out. I would like to gain a better grasp of the data in Irish and East Slavic sometime in this lifetime (or Mojeno Trinitario, Southern Pomo, Tonkawa, Macushi, Maga Rukai, etc.). If you want to team up, reach out!
Building on my penchant for applying primary field data to theoretical questions, I did an acoustic study looking for correlates of stress in Gujarati, about which some theoretical arguments on sonority-driven stress had been made. My paper in Phonological Data and Analysis found no empirical support for the theoretical claims.
When I am not being an academic, I sometimes help film-makers and others create fictional languages (see the first season of the Syfy show Killjoys, and this short film). I am also Daddy to my adored son and try to live so that I do not exacerbate the climate crisis. Oh, check out my Github repos.