Rebecca Paterson
Associate Research Scholar
Princeton University
Certified Linguistics Consultant
SIL Africa Area
I study how grammatical structures are used by speakers today and how these grammatical structures may have developed over time. In these ways, I aim to inform how we understand the capacity, diversity, and beauty of language.
I use tools from language documentation and linguistics to create corpora of oral stories. These corpora are then used to demonstrate the natural grammatical patterns used within the community. Using a collaborative process, I marshal these oral stories from recording through to transcription and translation.
My research interests include African languages, morphosyntax, language description and documentation, diachronic morphosyntax, and discourse grammar. I am particularly interested in the morphosyntax of the Kainji languages of Nigeria and how they can inform our understanding of the Niger‑Congo language family more broadly.
Interests
- Language description and documentation
- Morphosyntax
- Kainji languages
- Diachronic syntax
- Discourse grammar
Education
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B.Sc., 2001
Cairn University