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Me in New Haven

About Me

Hi! I'm Samuel Andersson (Sammy, they/them), a linguistics PhD student at Yale University. I mainly work on phonological theory, with a mix of theoretical and experimental methods. A lot of my work deals with the Northwest Caucasian language Abkhaz, whose stress system I studied in my PhD dissertation (advised by Claire Bowern and Natalie Weber).

Personal Information

  • Name :
    Samuel Andersson
  • Email :
    samuel{dоt}andersson{аt}yale{dоt}edu
  • Mailing Address :
    Samuel Andersson
    Yale University
    Department of Linguistics
    PO Box 208366
    New Haven, CT 06520

Research

My PhD dissertation dealt with the phonetics and phonology of word stress in Abkhaz. I use a mix of phonetic experiments, corpus tools, computer programming, and traditional methods from phonological theory in my work.

Some of my work uses the framework of Substance-Free Rule-Based Phonology (where 'substance-free' means that phonology does not refer to phonetic content, or substance). Topics I've worked on more specifically include phonological opacity, language games, vowel systems, and stress.

Written work

Journal articles, book chapters, proceedings papers, and work in preparation

Andersson, Samuel. (Submitted). Stress Assignment in Abkhaz Verbs: A corpus-based approach.

Andersson, Samuel. (Submitted). Schwa Distribution and Stress Alternations in Abkhaz.

Samuels, Bridget, Samuel Andersson, Ollie Sayeed, and Bert Vaux. (2022). Getting Ready for Primetime: Paths to acquiring substance-free phonology. Revue Canadienne de Linguistique/Canadian Journal of Linguistics 67(4):552-580. Link to published paper

Andersson, S. (Ms.). Sieves and Herrings: For distinctive vowel length in Swedish. Link to Lingbuzz version

Andersson, S., Sayeed, O., & Vaux, B. (Submitted). Regularity and Lexical Diffusion in Phonological Change. In G. Longobardi & P. Crisma (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Diachronic and Historical Linguistics.

Andersson, Samuel. (2021). Abkhaz Stress as a Segmental Property. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 27(1):1–10. Link to published paper

Andersson, Samuel, Bert Vaux, and Zihni Pysipa (Şener). (2021). Cwyzhy Abkhaz. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 1–21. Link to published paper

Andersson, Samuel. (2020). Creating Boundaries and Stops in German: An Analysis in Universal Boundary Theory. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 5(1):765–76. Link to published paper

Andersson, Samuel. (2020). I’m Sorry But Time Travel Isn’t Real: Against Counterfeeding from the Past. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 26(1):1–8. Link to published paper

Andersson, Samuel. (2020). The Segmental Feature [Stress] in Abkhaz. Qualifying Paper, Yale University. Link to paper

Hao, Y., & Andersson, S. (2019). Unbounded Stress in Subregular Phonology. Proceedings of the 16th Workshop on Computational Research in Phonetics, Phonology, and Morphology, 135–143. https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/W19-4216 Link to published paper

Andersson, S. (2019). The Evolutionary Syntax of Universal 20. Qualifying Paper, Yale University. Link to paper

Andersson, S. (2018). (*)ABA in Germanic verbs. Glossa, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.733 Link to published paper

Andersson, S. (2018). Rorövovarorsospoproråkoketot: Language games and Swedish phonology. Supplemental Proceedings of the 2017 Annual Meeting on Phonology, 1–10. https://dx.doi.org/10.3765/amp.v5i0.4244 Link to published paper

Andersson, S. (2017). Safety in Numbers: Geminates in Lisbon Portuguese. Cambridge Occasional Papers in Linguistics, 10, 22–37. Link to published paper

Andersson, S. (2017). Phonological Theory: The View from European Portuguese. BA thesis: University of Cambridge.

Andersson, S., Sayeed, O., & Vaux, B. (2017). The Phonology of Language Contact. Oxford Handbooks Online in Linguistics. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935345.013.55. Link to published paper

Presentations

Conference talks and poster presentations

Andersson, S. (2024). Individual Segments Carry Lexical Stress in Abkhaz. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, New York, NY. Link to poster

Andersson, S. (2023). Do Abkhaz Schwas Carry Secondary Stress?: An acoustic study. Presented at the 97th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Denver, CO. Link to poster

Andersson, S, Bridget Samuels, Bert Vaux, and Konstantinos Voudouris. (2021). Oops, I Did It Again: A Typology of Phonological Iterativity. Presented at the Penn Linguistics Conference (PLC) 45, Virtual. Link to slides

Andersson, S. (2021). More Than Moras: Tone-Bearing Consonants in Sukuma. Presented at the 95th Annual Meeting of the LSA, Virtual. Link to poster

Andersson, Samuel, Ollie Sayeed, Bridget Samuels, and Bert Vaux. (2020). Emergentism and Substancelessness: New Arguments from Whistling. Presented at the Workshop on Theoretical Phonology (WTPh) 2020, Virtual. Link to slides

Andersson, S. (2020). Let Me Stress How Flat Phonology Is: The Segmental Feature [Stress] in Abkhaz. 44th Penn Linguistics Conference, Philadelphia, PA. Not presented because of COVID-19.

Andersson, S. (2020). Creating Boundaries and Stops in German: A Universal Boundary Theory analysis. Talk presented at the 94th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, New Orleans, LA. Link to slides

Andersson, S. (2019). Let Me Stress How Flat Phonology Is: The segmental feature [stress] in Abkhaz. Talk presented at SYNC2019@NYU, New York, NY. Link to slides

Andersson, S. (2019). Creating Boundaries and Stops in German: A Universal Boundary Theory analysis. Poster presented at the 7th Annual Meeting on Phonology, Stony Brook, NY. Link to poster

Andersson, S., Dolatian, H., & Hao, Y. (2019, October). Computing Vowel Harmony: The generative capacity of Search and Copy. Poster presented at the 7th Annual Meeting on Phonology, Stony Brook, NY.

Andersson, S. (2019). Are There Boundaries between Segmental and Prosodic Phonology? Talk presented at the Segmental Processes in Interaction with Prosodic Structure (SPIPS), Tromsø. Link to slides

Andersson, S. (2019). Just a Boy and His Birch Bark: The phonology of Onfim’s Old Novgorodian. Talk presented at the 24th International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL24), Canberra. Link to slides

Andersson, S., Sayeed, O., Samuels, B., & Vaux, B. (2019). Conspiracies in California: A reconsideration of Yokuts. Poster presented at the 27th Manchester Phonology Meeting (27mfm), Manchester.

Andersson, S. (2019). We Should Set Some Boundaries: Phonology in Universal Boundary Theory. Invited talk presented at the Workshop on Theoretical Phonology, Montreal. Link to slides

Andersson, S. (2019). Shut Your Mouth!: A new explanation for changes in final nasals. Talk presented at the PhoNE 2019, New Haven, CT. Link to slides

Andersson, S. (2019). The Evolutionary Syntax of Universal 20. Invited poster presented at the Identifying (In)definiteness: From Silent Morphosyntax to Semantics, Yale University. Link to poster

Andersson, S. (2019). I’m Sorry but Time Travel Isn’t Real: Against counterfeeding from the past. Talk presented at the Penn Linguistics Colloquium 43, Philadelphia, PA. Link to slides

Andersson, S. (2019). There Is No Rule-Ordering Paradox in Mojeño Trinitario. Poster presented at the LSA 93rd Annual Meeting, New York, NY. Link to poster

Andersson, S. (2018). I’m Sorry but Time Travel Isn’t Real: Against counterfeeding from the past. Talk presented at the SYNC 2018, Stony Brook, NY. Link to slides

Andersson, S. (2018). k͡t and ɡ͡d in English: Evidence for Coronal-Velar Stops. Poster presented at the 26th Manchester Phonology Meeting (26mfm), Manchester. Link to poster

Andersson, S. (2018). The Limits of Factorial Typology: For extralinguistic explanation in phonology. Talk presented at the NAPhC X, Montreal. Link to slides

Andersson, S. (2018). The Limits of Factorial Typology: For extralinguistic explanation in phonology. Poster presented at the Phonology in the North-East (PhoNE) 2018, Boston, MA. Link to poster

Andersson, S. (2018). Morphology without morphemes: A reply to Embick (2013). Poster presented at the LSA 92nd Annual Meeting, Salt Lake City, UT. Link to poster (typo corrected)

Andersson, S. (2017). He, he, it: Against universal restrictions on gender syncretism. Talk presented at the SYNC2017, Yale University. Link to slides (updated bibliography)

Andersson, S. (2017). Rorövovarorsospoproråkoketot: Language games and Swedish Phonology. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting on Phonology (AMP) 2017, New York, NY. Link to poster

Andersson, S. (2017). The Phonetics-Phonology Interface in Swedish. Talk presented at the Undergraduate Linguistics Association of Britain (ULAB) 2017, Cambridge. Link to slides

Andersson, S. (2016). Sieves and Herrings: The Phonology of Swedish Vowel and Consonant Length. Talk presented at the Undergraduate Linguistics Association of Britain (ULAB) 2016, Aberdeen. Link to slides