Past Honors Theses in Linguistics

Emma Buis
American English Listeners’ Ability to Perceive Non-Native Sibilant Contrasts in Native-like and Non-Native Vowel Contexts
Supervisor: Pam Beddor

Mariko Ito
The Effect of Positive and Negative Emotion on Speech Production
Supervisor: Jelena Krivokapic

Yicheng Li, 2020 Matt Alexander Award recipient
Phonetically Gradient and Lexically Diffuse: Ongoing Vowel Mergers in Minjiang Southwestern Mandarin
Supervisor: Andries Coetzee

Annika Topelian, 2020 Matt Alexander Award recipient
Heritage Language Acquisition and Bilingualism: Western Armenian in the Diaspora
Supervisor: Acrisio Pires

Carly Marten, 2019 Matt Alexander Award Recipient, 2019 Raoul Wallenberg Humanitarian Award Recipient
A Case Study of Circumcision Narratives for Women in Addis Abada, Ethiopia
Supervisor: Savi Namboodiripad and Timothy Johnson (Women’s Studies)

Brianna Wells
Perspectives on Code-Switching in Bilingual Classrooms in the United States
Supervisor: Elaine McNulty

Jason Butcher
Antipassives in Montana Salish
Supervisor: Sarah Gray Thomason

Emily Miiller
Deconstructing Verb Particles Constructions
Supervisor: Elaine McNulty
This student was awarded the 2018 Matt Alexander Award for Outstanding Honors Thesis in Linguistics.

Frances Sobolak
Can Truncation in Montana Salish Be Predictable and Prosodic?
Supervisor: Sarah Gray Thomason

Rachel Bryan
The Possible Effects of Formal Second Language Instruction on Conscious Syntactic Knowledge of One's Native Language.
Supervisor: Elaine McNulty.

Joseph Lesada
Taglish in Metro Manila: An Analysis of Tagalog-English Code-Switching.
Supervisor: Marlyse Baptista.
Joseph received the Matt Alexander Award for an outstanding Honors thesis in Linguistics.

No Honors Theses

Erika Adsit
The Morphosyntax of Case in Cuzco Quechua: Evidence for a New Type of Nominalized Clause
Supervisor: Acrisio Pires, Second Reader: Samuel Epstein

Amelia Flynn
Diachronic Development of Haitian Creole
Supervisor: Marlyse Baptista, Second Reader: Sarah Grey Thomason

Isabel McKay
Laughing with Letters: A Corpus Investigation of the Use of Written Laughter on Twitter
Supervisor: Deborah Keller-Cohen, Second Reader: Robin Queen
Isabel received the Matt Alexander Award for an outstanding Honors thesis in Linguistics, and from the Honors Program, a Virginia L. Voss Memorial Award for excellence in writing by Honors women

Gabrielle Valentic
The Influences of Teacher Multilingual Linguistic Response of Spanish-English Bilingual Student Linguistic Output
Supervisor: Carmel O'Shannessy, Second Reader: Marlyse Baptista

Sarah Harper
Phonetic Transfer in Third Language Acquisition: L2 Spanish Influence on the Production of L3 Portuguese Voiced Stops
Supervisor: Pam Beddor, Second Reader: Nicholas Henriksen.
Sarah received the Matt Alexander Award for an outstanding Honors thesis in Linguistics

Rachel Bayer
Null Subjects in Creole Languages.
Supervisor: Marlyse Baptista, Second Reader: Acrisio Pires.
Rachel received the Matt Alexander Award for an outstanding Honors thesis in Linguistics

Julia Bogen
An Evaluation of Written Recasts and Metalinguistics Information on Second Language Learner
Uptake Supervisor: Nick Ellis. Second Reader: Carmel O'Shannessy

Amy Hemmeter
Gender and Formality Effects on the Production of Vocal Fry.
Supervisor: Carmel O'Shannessy Second Reader: Robin Queen

Patrick Kelley
Semantic Processing of Escher Sentences: Seemingly Null, informatively Full
Supervisor: Jonathan Brennan Second Reader: Samuel Epstein
Frances Morton The Sex Trade: Language Ideology Behind "Sex Work" and "Sex Trafficking" Supervisor: Carmel O'Shannessy Second Reader: Debby Keller-Cohen

Liam Considine
Early Linguistic Interactions: Distributional Properties of Verbs in Syntactic Patterns
Supervisor: Nick Ellis, Second Reader: Ezra Keshet.
Liam received the Matt Alexander Award for an outstanding Honors thesis in Linguistics

Emily Coppess
The Resetting of the Null Subject Parameter in Old and Middle English
Supervisor: Acrisio Pires, Second Reader: Sam Epstein.
Emily received the Matt Alexander Award for an outstanding Honors thesis in Linguistics

Sarah Hansen
An Analysis of Linguistic Discrimination: Undergraduate Reactions to Nonnative Instructors
Supervisor: Robin Queen, Second Reader: Carmel O'Shannessy

Lucy Zhao
A Cultural Comparison of Spatial Metaphors in Chinese and English
Supervisor: Ben Fortson, Second Reader: Ezra Keshet

Gifford Edward Reed Blaylock
The Phonetics of Default Consonant Epenthesis
Supervisor: Patrice Beddor, Second Reader: Andries Coetzee

Jaclyn Zetta Cohen
An Analysis of Classification: A Look at the Semantic Function of Mandarin Classifiers
Supervisor: Ezra Keshet, Second Reader: William Baxter

Jaclyn Fiscus
The L Words: Lesbians and Language Investigating Linguistics Performance of Sexuality on The L Word
Supervisors: Anne Curzan and Robin Queen

Bryn Hauk
The Vitality of Veps: Preserving Language Across Provincial Borders
Supervisor: Steven Abney, Second Reader: Robin Queen.
Bryn received the Matt Alexander Award for an outstanding Honors thesis in Linguistics, and from the Honors Program, a Virginia L. Voss Memorial Award for excellence in writing by senior Honors women

Jasmine Hentschel
Idhar-Udhar Se: The Use of English in Modern Hindi Cinema
Supervisor: Sally Thomason, Second Reader: Carmel O’Shannessy

Shang Kong
A Minimalist Analysis of Chinese wh-Question
Supervisor: Acrisio Pires, Second Reader: Samuel Epstein.
Shang received the Matt Alexander Award for an outstanding honors thesis in Linguistics

J. Lee McMahan
The Processing of English Definite Determiner Phrases & the Eye-tracking Research Methodology
Supervisor: Rick Lewis. Second Reader: Samuel Epstein

Katharine Lee Barcy
Parlez-vous Anglais?: Rhythmic Transfer in French Accented English.
Supervisors: Andries Coetzee & John Swales.

Marcus Paul Berger
Mengarini Revisited: A Translation and Analysis of Selections from Grammatica Linguae Selicae.
Supervisors: Sally Thomason & Ben Fortson.

Lindsay Marie Blackwell
Changing the Possibilities: Narrative Discourse and Conversational Strategies in Instant Messaging.
Supervisors: Robin Queen & Anne Curzan.

Gabriel Palmer Pompilius
The Vowels of Alemannic in Diachrony: The Progression of a German Dialect Through Three Eras.
Supervisors: Robert Kyes & Robin Queen.

Rosalie Edmunds
"They'll be doing away with those buffalo": Language, Culture, and History in a Salish-Pend d'Oreille Narrative.
Awarded 2009 Virginia Voss Award for excellence in writing by senior honors women.

Charles Fletcher III
La Lengua Rosa: A Sociolinguistic Study of Gay Spanish in Madrid.

Alan Mishler
Voice Onset Time in Japanese Voiceless Stops: Domain-initial Strengthening and Perceptual Salience.
Awarded 2009 Marshall Sahlins Social Science Award from LSA Honors and 2009 Matt Alexander Award for best honors thesis in Linguistics.

Ania Musial
Overcoming the Subset Problem: The Subset Problem and You, or, Maximum Entropy Modeling of L2 Phonotactic Acquisition.

Lauren Friedman
The Loss of Old English Null Expletive 'it': How a Language Can Transform from One that Allows Null Expletives to One that Disallows them.
Awarded the 2008 Matt Alexander Award for best honors thesis in Linguistics and 2008 Virginia Voss Award for best honors thesis by a woman writer.

Song Hee Kim
Various Functions of the Discourse Marker "well" in selected Speech Events from Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English.

Emma Caitlin Schroder
The Status of Loanwords in Wolof.
Emma was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award in Linguistics for her outstanding combination of scholarship and leadership in the undergraduate program.

Justin Ryan Wedes
Bare Necessities: A Quantitative Study of Bare Noun Frequency in Cape Verdean Creole.

Sehar Azad
The Doctor's Orders: Prescription of Eighteenth-Century Grammarians and the Implications for the Written Language.
2007 Recipient of the Matt Alexander Award for the best honors thesis in Linguistics.

Edward Cormany
Syntactic Models for Coordination in English and Latin

Louann Fang
The Restaurant Workplace as a Discourse Community: A Case Study of Language Contact and Communication Ideology

Alexa Feldman
The Etymology, Use and Perception of Taboo Language

Dave Kush
Compound Interest: Applying a Serialization Phrase Structure to Hindi Verbal Compounds

Caitlin Light
German in the Diaspora: Commonalities in Emigrant Dialects

Joseph F. Sawka
Where Do Leading Questions Lead?: Working Toward a Linguistic Definition of Leading in Courtroom Discourse

Charles Crissman
Incorporating Reference Time into a Binding Approach to Sequence of Tense
Supervisor: Acrisio Pires, Second Reader: Sam Epstein
Awarded Highest Honors, the Linguistics Outstanding Graduate Senior Award., and the University of Michigan Honors Sidney Fine Teaching Award.

Kellan Cummings
Contact, Malta: The ‘Language Question’ and its Implications for Linguistics Scholarship

Nayana Dhavan
A Non-Absolutive and Unified Movement Analysis of Hindi Passives and Ergatives
Supervisor: Acrisio Pires; Second Reader: Sam Epstein.
Awarded Highest Honors, the Matthew Alexander Award for Outstanding Honors Thesis in Linguistics, and the University of Michigan Honors V. Voss Award for Excellence in Academic Writing.

Jori Lindley
Linguistic Motivations Behind ‘Incorrect’ Pronoun Forms in English Coordinate NPs

Julia Malette
A Sociolinguistic Case Study on Bilingual Education in Honduras

Erika Picciotto
Phonological Transfer in Second Language Acquisition

Natasha Abner
Resultatives gone minimal
Supervisor: Acrisio Pires; Second Reader: Sam Epstein.
Awarded Highest Honors, the University of Michigan Honors V. Voss Award for Excellence in Academic Writing, and Linguistics Outstanding Graduating Senior Award.

Sunny Park
The Acquisition of the English Article System by Advanced Korean Learners of English

Samantha Sefton
Nasals and Nasalization in American English: Implications for Theories of Coarticulation

Nina Simms
Running head: Speaker Awareness and Prosodic Disambiguation

Dara Smith
Sounding Male or Female Online: Perceived Indexes of Gender in Online Communication

Sarah Van Bonn
French and English Journal Article Abstracts from General and Applied Lingusitics: A Comparative Study

Erika Alpert
The Role of Coarticulation in the Origin of Canadian Raising

Eriko Atagi
Simply Accented or Simply Incomprehensible: A Study of the Factors Involved in the Perception of Accented Speech

Aaron Isley
A Linguistic Account for Cult Phenomena

Max Montesino
An OCP-Based Description of Nasal Harmony in Optimality Theory

Keli Rulf
The Syntax, Semantics, and Early Acquisition of One

Jessica Cooke
Does subcategorization frequency influence eye movements in a passive listening paradigm?

Kathleen Shaw
A Study of the Acquisition of Variable Vowel Systems Among African American Children