Keith Plaster

Lecturer in Linguistics

Departments/Programs

Linguistics

Degrees

Georgetown University, J.D.
Harvard University, M.A.

Expertise

Phonology, historical linguistics, phonetics, morphology, forensic linguistics, heritage linguistics.

Profile

I am interested in examining how language change informs our understanding of phonology and morphology. My research interests include:

the phonology of stress systems (and especially morphologically governed stress systems);
nominal categorization, including noun classifier, noun class and gender systems, and the computational modeling of these systems;
the phonology of poetic meter and rhyme; and
the linguistics of ancient and modern law.

I am also interested in the historical grammar of the various Indo-European branches, the Mayan languages, and the languages of the Caucasus. Much of my work has focused on the older Indo-European languages, the Native American languages of the Pacific Northwest, and the languages of the Caucasus.

Courses Taught

COSI	138a	Computational Linguistics Second Year Seminar
LING	100a	Introduction to Linguistics
LING	105a	Phonetics
LING	110a	Phonological Theory
LING	150a	Historical Linguistics and Language Change
LING	160b	Mathematical Methods in Linguistics
LING	190b	Topics in Linguistics
LING	197a	Language Acquisition and Development