I do not study languages; I study parts of the human brain that generate and perceive speech. I use human speech as evidence for my theories of phonological modules. In fact, I use human non-speech, too. (More on that below).
Confusingly, linguists often make it seem like we’re interested in languages. Maybe some are; I’m not. From time to time, I might lazily say “In French, {blah blah}”, but I’m really saying “There is a human who produced speech and he says he speaks ‘French’ (whatever that means).”
So, to be clear, ‘languages’ is not a scientific term; ‘phonological module’ is. So, I work on phonological modules, not languages.
You can read about the difference between cognition and ‘languages’ in:
de Lacy, Paul (forthcoming 2027). Evidence and methods in phonology. In Adam Jardine & Paul de Lacy (eds.)The Cambridge Handbook of Phonology. 2nd Edition. Cambridge University Press.
So which languages do I study?
With the above in mind, I have tended to rely on speakers of particular ‘languages’ to provide evidence for my theories.
Most recently, I have elicited data from speakers of Nevisian creole with Patrik Bye.
I’ve also worked with speakers of Gujarati, Nauruan, and Rarotongan.
I’ve also worked on glossolalia, though I ran out of money to complete that research, so it’s going very slowly.
My students have also conducted fieldwork with speakers of many other languages. For example, Petr Staroverov worked on Tundra Nenets. Shu-hao Shih worked on Gujarati and Piuma Paiwan. Eileen Blum worked with Irish Gaelic speakers.
Māori
In many publications, I report evidence from Māori speakers. Many Māori speakers grow up in New Zealand (where I grew up), though many also grow up in Australia. Here are some relevant articles:
de Lacy, Paul (2009). Phonological evidence. In Steve Parker (ed.). Phonological argumentation: Essays on evidence and motivation. Equinox Publications, ch.2.
[abstract] [chapter] [handout]
• Has a short discussion of Māori loanword phonology.
de Lacy, Paul (2004). Maximal Words and the Māori passive. In John McCarthy (ed.) Optimality Theory in phonology: A reader. Blackwell, pp. 495-512. [chapter]
de Lacy, Paul (2003). Maximal words and the Māori passive. In Andrea Rakowski and Norvin Richards (ed.) Proceedings of AFLA VIII: The eighth meeting of the Austronesian formal linguistics association. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 44. Cambridge, MA: MIT Linguistics Dept, pp.20-39.
[abstract] [article] [handout] [talk]
• These two articles are about the famous Māori passive allomorphy, and the gerund. They discuss Māori syllable structure, foot structure, and PrWd structure
de Lacy, Paul (2003). Constraint universality and prosodic phrasing in Māori. In Angela Carpenter, Andries Coetzee, and Paul de Lacy (eds.) Papers in Optimality Theory II. UMOP 26. Amherst, MA: GLSA Publications, pp.59-79. ROA 561.
[abstract] [chapter]
• Discusses prosodic phrasing and declarative and focus intonation in Māori.
de Lacy, Paul (2001). Predicate nominals in Māori, Minimalist Syntax Archive #179.
[article]
• The only pure syntax paper you’ll find on this website. About predicate nominals like “John is a teacher” and equatives “John is the man” in Māori. It argues that NP/DP predicates end up in the same place as D-linked wh-words, lending support to Sproat’s original analysis of VSO order as involving predicate movement to an A’ position.
de Lacy, Paul (1999). Circumscriptive morphemes. In Catherine Kitto and Carolyn Smallwood (eds.) Proceedings of AFLA (Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association) VI. Toronto: Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics, pp.107-120. Also ROA 339;http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~twpl/volume16.htm.
• Looks at a morphological phenomenon in Māori which involves the lengthening of an initial vowel in trisyllabic words. I analysize it as a type of morphological haplology: where a phonologically contentless morpheme coincides with part of the word and forces a prosodic boundary in it.
de Lacy, Paul (1998). A cooccurence restriction in Maori. Te Reo (Journal of the Linguistic Society of New Zealand) 40: 10-44.
[article]
• Looks at cooccurrence restrictions on labials in Māori. Contains some now outdated notions of feature underspecification.
de Lacy, Paul (1996). Circumscription revisited: an analysis of Maori reduplication, Rutgers Optimality Archive #133.
[abstract] [article]
• Analyzes the seven different reduplication patterns of Māori.