Fieldwork

A traditional Mongolian ger 'house'

An elaborate ovoo 'altar; shrine' in the Mongolian countryside

Burning of zul 'candle' during the Kalmyk New Year, also known as Zul

Kalmyk Oirat

Since 2022, I have been working with speakers of the Kalmyk language, which is a standardised variety of Oirat. Kalmyk is spoken by an aging minority of ethnic Kalmyks in the Republic of Kalmykia, Russia, where it is also an official language, and in the Kalmyk-American diasporic community. I am interested in exploring the relationship between case and agreement, and the morphosyntax of the nominal domain in Kalmyk and other Oirat varieties.

I also have an ongoing community-facing project with my collaborators, Ghilyana Dordzhieva and Darina Gedeeva, aimed at revitalising the Kalmyk language in the Kalmyk-American diaspora. Currently, we are developing materials for a conversational Kalmyk course for English-speaking learners, and our project is supported by Wikitongues. We have also created a Living Dictionary for Kalmyk.

Khalkha Mongolian

Since 2020, I have been working with speakers of Khalkha Mongolian, the standardised variety of Mongolian spoken in Mongolia. My current dissertation research focuses on the phenomenon of subject case alternations in Khalkha embedded clauses, and how it interacts with nominalisation and binding.