Welcome to lecturer Alex Chabot

January 27, 2022 Linguistics

Alex Chabot, Lecturer in Linguistics, standing in the forest, looking at a hive-full of bees he is holding in his hand.

From the Côte d'Azur to College Park for phonology.

Say hello to Alex Chabot, now in the office next to the Blue Room, having just left the Azure Coast of France – Nice! – where he finished his dissertation, "Possible and Impossible Languages: Naturalness, and the Third Factor in the Light of Crazy Rules." The dissertation surveys "31 crazy rules" of phonological alternation, and argues on this basis "that there is no naturalness in phonology." What makes crazy rules crazy is instead "facts that lay outside of phonology—facts about human articulation, perception, and language change." While at Maryland, Alex will follow up on this research, while also teaching some courses.