Books
A Myriad of Tongues: How Languages Reveal Differences in How We Think (Harvard University Press) Out in 2023
Numbers and the Making of Us (Harvard University Press) Also in Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Japanese, Korean, Arabic and Chinese.
Selected as one of Smithsonian's 10 best science books of the year, winner of a PROSE award.
Read about it in The New York Times or New Scientist.
Linguistic Relativity: Evidence Across Languages and Cognitive Domains. (De Gruyter)
Read a review in Lingua.
Articles
The typological frequency of consonants is highly predictive of their order of acquisition in English Linguistic Typology
Exploring the role of speech in the transmission of airborne viruses via a novel method for combining aerosol and phonetic analysis (w./ M. Seifert, C. Darquenne, P. Tuminello, & J. Slade) Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on the Evolution of Language
The sounds of prehistoric speech Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
Speech adapts to differences in dentition within and across populations (w/ S. Chen) Scientific Reports
Grammatical number is sufficiently explained by communicative needs Cognitive Neuropsychology
The sound systems of languages are adaptive, but to what extent? Cadernos de Linguística
American politics in two dimensions (part of large research team) American Journal of Political Science
The diversity of linguistic references to quantities across the world's cultures Perspectives on Mathematics and Language of Different Disciplines
Is native quantitative thought concretized in linguistically privileged ways? Cognitive Neuropsychology
The global dispreference for posterior voiced obstruents: A quantitative assessment Language
The similar rates of occurrence of consonants across the world's languages Language Sciences
Why do people believe COVID-19 conspiracy theories? (part of large research team) Harvard Misinformation Review
Embodied and extended numerical cognition. (w/ M. Johnson) Explorations in archaeology and philosophy
Did post-neolithic changes in bite configuration impact speech? (w/ S. Chen) EVOLANG 13 Proceedings
Color salience, color term evolution, and the issue of relatedness (w/ C. O'Brien) EVOLANG 13 Proceedings
Languages in drier climates use fewer vowels. (Further analysis here) Frontiers in Psychology
From patterns in language to patterns in thought: Relativity realized across the Americas International Journal of American Linguistics
Lexical and grammatical number are cognitively and historically dissociable (Commentary) Current Anthropology
Yawning at the dawn of speech: A closer look at monkey formant space Commentary on Fitch et al.
Contrasting phonetic complexity across languages: Two approaches Measuring Language Complexity
Linguistic diversity and cognition Lingue e linguaggio
Climate, vocal folds, and tonal languages (w/ D. Blasi and S. Roberts) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
A closer look at a supposedly anumeric language International Journal of American Linguistics
Sounding the depths at the confluence of numerosity and language Linguistics Vaguard
Independent cross-cultural data reveal linguistic effects on basic numerical cognition Language and Cognition
Mapping explorations of linguistic influences on nonlinguistic thought Langages
Without language, no distinctly human numerosity (Commentary) Current Anthropology
Quantity recognition among speakers of an anumeric language. (w/ K. Madora) Cognitive Science
Climate and language: Has the discourse shifted? (w/ D. Blasi and S. Roberts) Journal of Language Evolution
Language evolution and climate: The case of desiccation and tone (w/ D. Blasi and S. Roberts) Journal of Language Evolution
A reconsideration of the motivations for preferred argument structure Studies in Language
Evidence for direct geographic influences on linguistic sounds: The case of ejectives (Further analysis here) PLoS ONE
Variable velic movement in Karitiana International Journal of American Linguistics
A survey of contemporary research on Amazonian languages Language and Linguistics Compass
Locus equation analysis as a tool for linguistic fieldwork Language Documentation & Conservation
Aspects of Karitiana vowels Anthropological Linguistics
The ligature between epicene pronouns and a more neutral gender perception Gender and Language
Evidence for language-mediated thought in 'plural' action perception Meaning, Form, and Body
RRG and the exploration of syntactically based relativistic effects Book chapter, Dusseldorf University Press
The tropic extension of the speech act scene in Karitiana Language, Meaning, and Society
Linguistic relativity and numeric cognition: New light on a prominent test case Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society
Negation and the untransitive category in Karitiana Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society
Numeric cognition among speakers of the Jarawara language: A pilot study and methodological implication PLC Proceedings
The origins of preferred argument structure Evolang 8 Proceedings
The temporal indeterminacy of nasal gestures in Karitiana PLC Proceedings
Perceptual dialectology: The view from Amazonian Brazil SALSA Proceedings
Understanding the adjacency of nasal oralization and stress in Karitiana Proceedings of the Chicago Linguistic Society
Semantically-oriented vowel reduction in an Amazonian language Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society
Evidence for language-mediated thought in the perception of non-gendered figures SALSA Proceedings
Evidence for relativistic effects in the construal of transitive events Proceedings of the UK Cognitive Linguistics Conference
Reduction of Brazilian Portuguese vowels in semantically-predictable contexts Proceedings of the ICPhS
Essays
How societies are defined by the segmentation of time Zocalo Public Square
What happens when a language has no words for numbers? The Conversation
Environment influences language production Serious Science
Editorial Work
I was an associate editor for IJAL for seven years.
Some Media Coverage
The Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, FiveThirtyEight, Smithsonian, National Geographic, Slate, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Nature, Science, Newsweek, Boston Globe and others have covered some of my work.
This paper was cited on Last Week Tonight.
Here's chat about numbers I had with the BBC.
Or a discussion of Numbers and the Making of Us on WNPR and Cited.
Discussions of language and ecology on Future Tense.
A Myriad of Tongues: How Languages Reveal Differences in How We Think (Harvard University Press) Out in 2023
Numbers and the Making of Us (Harvard University Press) Also in Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Japanese, Korean, Arabic and Chinese.
Selected as one of Smithsonian's 10 best science books of the year, winner of a PROSE award.
Read about it in The New York Times or New Scientist.
Linguistic Relativity: Evidence Across Languages and Cognitive Domains. (De Gruyter)
Read a review in Lingua.
Articles
The typological frequency of consonants is highly predictive of their order of acquisition in English Linguistic Typology
Exploring the role of speech in the transmission of airborne viruses via a novel method for combining aerosol and phonetic analysis (w./ M. Seifert, C. Darquenne, P. Tuminello, & J. Slade) Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on the Evolution of Language
The sounds of prehistoric speech Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
Speech adapts to differences in dentition within and across populations (w/ S. Chen) Scientific Reports
Grammatical number is sufficiently explained by communicative needs Cognitive Neuropsychology
The sound systems of languages are adaptive, but to what extent? Cadernos de Linguística
American politics in two dimensions (part of large research team) American Journal of Political Science
The diversity of linguistic references to quantities across the world's cultures Perspectives on Mathematics and Language of Different Disciplines
Is native quantitative thought concretized in linguistically privileged ways? Cognitive Neuropsychology
The global dispreference for posterior voiced obstruents: A quantitative assessment Language
The similar rates of occurrence of consonants across the world's languages Language Sciences
Why do people believe COVID-19 conspiracy theories? (part of large research team) Harvard Misinformation Review
Embodied and extended numerical cognition. (w/ M. Johnson) Explorations in archaeology and philosophy
Did post-neolithic changes in bite configuration impact speech? (w/ S. Chen) EVOLANG 13 Proceedings
Color salience, color term evolution, and the issue of relatedness (w/ C. O'Brien) EVOLANG 13 Proceedings
Languages in drier climates use fewer vowels. (Further analysis here) Frontiers in Psychology
From patterns in language to patterns in thought: Relativity realized across the Americas International Journal of American Linguistics
Lexical and grammatical number are cognitively and historically dissociable (Commentary) Current Anthropology
Yawning at the dawn of speech: A closer look at monkey formant space Commentary on Fitch et al.
Contrasting phonetic complexity across languages: Two approaches Measuring Language Complexity
Linguistic diversity and cognition Lingue e linguaggio
Climate, vocal folds, and tonal languages (w/ D. Blasi and S. Roberts) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
A closer look at a supposedly anumeric language International Journal of American Linguistics
Sounding the depths at the confluence of numerosity and language Linguistics Vaguard
Independent cross-cultural data reveal linguistic effects on basic numerical cognition Language and Cognition
Mapping explorations of linguistic influences on nonlinguistic thought Langages
Without language, no distinctly human numerosity (Commentary) Current Anthropology
Quantity recognition among speakers of an anumeric language. (w/ K. Madora) Cognitive Science
Climate and language: Has the discourse shifted? (w/ D. Blasi and S. Roberts) Journal of Language Evolution
Language evolution and climate: The case of desiccation and tone (w/ D. Blasi and S. Roberts) Journal of Language Evolution
A reconsideration of the motivations for preferred argument structure Studies in Language
Evidence for direct geographic influences on linguistic sounds: The case of ejectives (Further analysis here) PLoS ONE
Variable velic movement in Karitiana International Journal of American Linguistics
A survey of contemporary research on Amazonian languages Language and Linguistics Compass
Locus equation analysis as a tool for linguistic fieldwork Language Documentation & Conservation
Aspects of Karitiana vowels Anthropological Linguistics
The ligature between epicene pronouns and a more neutral gender perception Gender and Language
Evidence for language-mediated thought in 'plural' action perception Meaning, Form, and Body
RRG and the exploration of syntactically based relativistic effects Book chapter, Dusseldorf University Press
The tropic extension of the speech act scene in Karitiana Language, Meaning, and Society
Linguistic relativity and numeric cognition: New light on a prominent test case Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society
Negation and the untransitive category in Karitiana Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society
Numeric cognition among speakers of the Jarawara language: A pilot study and methodological implication PLC Proceedings
The origins of preferred argument structure Evolang 8 Proceedings
The temporal indeterminacy of nasal gestures in Karitiana PLC Proceedings
Perceptual dialectology: The view from Amazonian Brazil SALSA Proceedings
Understanding the adjacency of nasal oralization and stress in Karitiana Proceedings of the Chicago Linguistic Society
Semantically-oriented vowel reduction in an Amazonian language Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society
Evidence for language-mediated thought in the perception of non-gendered figures SALSA Proceedings
Evidence for relativistic effects in the construal of transitive events Proceedings of the UK Cognitive Linguistics Conference
Reduction of Brazilian Portuguese vowels in semantically-predictable contexts Proceedings of the ICPhS
Essays
How societies are defined by the segmentation of time Zocalo Public Square
What happens when a language has no words for numbers? The Conversation
Environment influences language production Serious Science
Editorial Work
I was an associate editor for IJAL for seven years.
Some Media Coverage
The Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, FiveThirtyEight, Smithsonian, National Geographic, Slate, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Nature, Science, Newsweek, Boston Globe and others have covered some of my work.
This paper was cited on Last Week Tonight.
Here's chat about numbers I had with the BBC.
Or a discussion of Numbers and the Making of Us on WNPR and Cited.
Discussions of language and ecology on Future Tense.
