I’m the Associate Chair & Associate Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Languages, Linguistics, and Comparative Literature at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida. I was previously a Diversity Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Linguistics at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, USA. I received my PhD from the Department of Linguistics at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
My research focuses on morphosyntax, syntactic theory, the syntax-prosody interface, and language documentation. I am interested in understudied and endangered languages, with a specialization in Algonquian languages.
My dissertation (`The syntax of Mi’gmaq: A configurational account’) investigates the underlying syntactic structure of Mi’gmaq (Eastern Algonquian) and the effect of discourse on the syntax and prosody. I employ various methodologies to gather data, including experimental methods and elicitation in a variety of fieldwork settings.
My main language of study is the Listuguj-dialect of Mi’gmaq. I began working with speakers in September 2011 as a part of a field methods course, and began fieldwork in the community in Summer 2012. Together with a team of students and professors, we have entered into a partnership with a team of language educators in the community to develop teaching materials in the language. You can follow some of the work we are doing at http://migmaq.org/.
I also have experience working with East Cree (Central Algonquian), a dialect of Cree spoken in the James Bay region of Northern Quebec, with Marie-Odile Junker at Carleton University. You can follow see some of the work being done with this language at http://www.eastcree.org/.
Michael David Hamilton (Florida Atlantic University) 