lyskawa | Language Science

I’m a third-year PhD student at the Department of Linguistics at the University of Maryland, College Park. My supervisors are Masha Polinsky and Omer Preminger.

My research focuses on heritage languages – how the language of each generation of heritage speakers differs from the homeland variety. Particularly, I’m interested in changes that cannot be explained solely by attrition or language transfer, but rather offer an insight into the universal structure of Language. Since my undergraduate studies, I’ve been a part of the Heritage Language Variation and Change project at the University of Toronto run by my former supervisor Naomi Nagy.

I’m also working on Mayan languages. I have used instrumental methods to challenge some of the existing views on the phonology of these languages. I’m affiliated with the field station in Sololá, Guatemala managed by the Language Science Center at UMD. In 2016 and 2017, I did fieldwork in Guatemala on two closely related Mayan languages – Kaqchikel and Tz’utujiil.

Collaborators:

Masha Polinsky - supervisor

Omer Preminger - supervisor