Research and Publications

Research

Wum, Cameroon

My primary research interest is the development of typological databases for the purpose of informing grammatical theories. I have created a database of morphosyntactic focus-encoding constructions in 135 languages across Africa. This wide-scale typological investigation of focus constructions reveals overall patterns in focus encoding that are not obvious when studying individual languages. I am interested both in expanding this database to include non-African languages, as well as the possibility of using the tools developed in this database project to investigate other morphosyntactic constructions.

I have also worked on documentation of the Esimbi language in Cameroon. My focus of research in Esimbi is the atypical pattern of vowel harmony found in the verbal system. Esimbi uses a combination of height and backness harmony which spread in different directions to affect a series of prefix vowels, while the vowels found in noun and verb stems are always high.

Publications and Presentations

2017

• Kalinowski, Cristin. The Marking of Emphasis in African Languages. New York African Studies Association Conference. University at Buffalo. March 31 – April 1.

2015

• Kalinowski, Cristin. A Typology of Morphosyntactic Encoding of Focus in African Languages. University at Buffalo dissertation.
• Kalinowski, Cristin. A Typology of Focus Encoding in African Languages. 11th Conference of the Association for Linguistic Typology. University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. August 2.
• Kalinowski, Cristin and Jeff Good. Grammatical Coding by Depotentiation: Evidence from African Focus Constructions. Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. Portland, January 9.

2014

• Kalinowski, Cristin and Jeff Good. Focus as a Grammatical Relation: Evidence from Africa. Workshop on Understudied Languages and Syntactic Theory, 21st International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. University at Buffalo. August 27.
• Kalinowski, Cristin and Jeff Good. Non-canonical Head-marking of Information Structure in African Languages. Workshop on Information Structure in Head-marking Languages. Syntax, Typology, and Information Structure Group. Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen. March 28-29.

2011

• Kalinowski, Cristin and Jeruen E. Dery. Contextually-Informed Linking in Role and Reference Grammar. 2011 International Course and Conference on Role and Reference Grammar. Santiago, Chile. August 12.
• Dery, Jeruen E. and Cristin Kalinowski. A Contextual Projection for Role and Reference Grammar. 2011 International Course and Conference on Role and Reference Grammar. Santiago, Chile. August 11.

2010

• Multidirectional Vowel Harmony in Esimbi. 41st Annual Conference on African Linguistics. Toronto, May 6.
• Vowel Harmony in Esimbi: A Case Study in Multidirectional Vowel Harmony. University at Buffalo qualifying paper.

2009

• Multidirectional Vowel Harmony in Esimbi. Proceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Berkeley, CA. 147-155
• Multidirectional Vowel Harmony in Esimbi. 35th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. University of California, Berkeley. February 14.

2008

• Vowel Harmony in Esimbi: A Case Study in Multidirectional Vowel Harmony. Linguistics Department Colloquium. University at Buffalo. November 21.
• A Description of Vowel Harmony in Esimbi. African Linguistics Day. University of Toronto. March 20.