Among the many ways in which sounds alternate in the world's languages, changes in the order of sounds (metathesis) are relatively rare. Mutsun, a Southern Costanoan language of California which was documented extensively before the death of its last speaker in 1930, displays three patterns of synchronic consonant-vowel (CV) metathesis. Two of…

The Pacific Coast Athabaskan (PCA) languages are part of the Athabaskan language family, one of the most geographically widespread in North America. Over a millennium ago Athabaskan-speaking groups migrated into northwestern California and southwestern Oregon from a northern point of origin several hundred miles away, but even after several…

Learners frequently experience phonologically inconsistent input, such as exposure to multiple accents. Yet, little is known about the consequences of phonological inconsistency for language learning. The current study examines vocabulary acquisition with different degrees of phonological inconsistency, ranging from no inconsistency (e.g., both…

Using the Practice Theory Approach to Language, this dissertation examines how social actors use communicative practices within activities to constitute a communicative context that I call the American English Stuttering Speech Community (AESSC). Building on previous linguistic research on stuttering and sociological research on collectives of…

This article discusses the consonantal correspondences that occur between Zuni and California Penutian, and proposes a revision of the set of consonant features used to illustrate these correspondences. (CLK)

This article proposes a California Penutian etymology for two distinct roots meaning "two," and shows some of the transformations of morphological material which have characterized innovations in language subgroups related to California Penutian. This provides important evidence for the history of California Penutian. (CLK)