‘Research & Projects’

Research Interests

My primary research foci centers around learnability and phonology. My approach in research in general is to be able to engage with the literature on higher-level questions regarding the architecture of the linguistic theory with an eye to both the computational and formal algorithmic levels of explanation; and of course to follow our strive to understand what language is from a biolinguistic perspective.

Broadly:

I have an inquiring mind primarily about:

  • phonology and child acquisition
  • puzzles in the data, especially with a learnability angle
  • artificial grammar learning

Main methods shaping my research would be:

  • experimental studies
  • computational modelling
  • corpus and quantitative analysis

More specifically:

Main topics that intrigue me currently:

  • What do learners acquire in morpho-phonological systems, and how do they navigate the tension between language-specific and universal principles, particularly regarding exceptions and inconsistencies? What insights can their errors and challenges offer into our theories of learnability?

  • In what ways do diverse factors, including statistical regularities and inherent soft biases not directly present in the input data (as seen in the surfeit-of-the-stimulus phenomenon), shape the acquisition of phonology and phonotactics?

  • How do structural and channel-based biases influence language learning, diachronic language change across generations, and the emergence of typological patterns observed across languages?

  • Which learning algorithms and representations most accurately reflect the developmental pathways observed in language acquisition through modeling? How do various implementations of models compare in their ability to learn different types of linguistic patterns?

Fascinations inside of linguistics:

  • How do children acquire morpho-syntax and phonology, and what implications do the observed developmental stages of grammatical knowledge have for our understanding of the underlying architecture of grammar?

  • How is the grammar architecturally organized, and how does phonology interface with syntax and morphology within the overall structure?

  • What kinds of formal language-theoretic approaches can enhance our understanding of the computational procedures involved in grammar, and how do these approaches relate to the physical realizations of the cognitive-level explanations of language?

  • How have different schools of linguistic thought in history shaped our current understanding of language, learning, and cognitive science?

Research Experience

The projects I have worked on involve phonetic and phonological analysis of linguistic data, analyzing behavioral data through experimental methods, and conducting remote fieldwork. They are listed below, in a chronological order.

Learning Morpho-phonological Alternations like French Liaison

⌛ [2023 - 2025]

This is a Master’s thesis project which consists of an artificial language learning experiment focusing on the learning of morpho-phonological processes that are described as phonologically conditioned allomorphy (analogous to French Liaison).

🔗 [Click Here] to get the official thesis document from the university library.

🔗 [Click Here] to view the thesis in an e-book format online.

🔗 [Click Here] to download the conference proceedings paper presented at CLA2024.

🔗 [OSF Repository] where the experimental material including the stimuli set and scripts are accessible.

Syntactic Bootstrapping and Literacy

⌛ [2024 - 2025]

I was a research assistant on this project and conducted data-wrangling, statistical analysis and visualization and survey preparation. The project studies the relationship between syntactic bootstrapping and reading for school-age children.

🔗

Vowel Variation in Nɬeʔkepmxcín: An Acoustic Study of Coarticulation

⌛ [2022]

This conference preceedings paper was the outcome of a field methods course project on Nɬeʔkepmxcín vowel variation. The aim of this study was to investigate the available impressionistic descriptions of vowel variation (in three consonantal environments (pre-velar, post-velar, labial) in both pre-vocalic and post-vocalic positions) as well as comparing the coarticulation effects including retraction of vowels with other neighboring languages.

🔗 [Click Here] to download the conference paper presented at ICSNL58.

Learning Phonotactic Rules Sensitive to Sonority Sequencing Principle in Persian: Prior Bias or Experience?

⌛ [2019 - 2021]

This project has focused on the SSP projection effects and learning phonotactics, using 2 acceptability judgment experiments with non-word stimuli. The goal was to test if Persian speakers exhibit any sensitivity to the SSP taking into account their linguistic experience with Persian phonotactic constraints with a CVC(C) syllable structure. Persian syllables have no attested onset clusters, and 21% of the attested coda clusters are against the SSP. The results confirmed the view that speakers can generalize their phonotactic knowledge beyond their lexicon and the fact that they exhibit some innate biases despite their lack of experience, along the lines of the POS argument.

🔗 The original work is an unpublished thesis in Persian, but an English excerpt of it and the stimuli set and scripts are accessible on an OSF repository.

🔗 The interactive individual participant plots can be viewed on this Shinyapp page.

Gutturals and Pharyngealization Harmony in the Meymandi Dialect

⏳ [2021 - under publication]

Co-authored chapter in the Springer Handbook of Phonetics and Phonology of Modern Iranian Languages

This study aims to investigate a phonological process involving guttarals in Meymandi, a dialect of Persian. In our analysis, we claim there is a pharyngealization harmony process in Meymandi which interacts with another common process in various dialects of Persian, Compensatory lengthening. This analyses is further accompanied by reports of acoustic measurements taken from audio recordings of speakers collected via remote fieldwork. The analysis shows phonetic evidence for this interaction.

🔗

IPA Chart translation project

⌛ [2018]

As part of a project at the International Phonetic Association, I have worked on translating the recent version of the full IPA chart to Persian. The collection of translated charts can be found here, if you are interested in adding another language!

🔗 [Click Here] to download the full IPA chart recent version in Persian.