Alice Carmichael Harris (born November 23, 1947) is an American linguist. She is currently Professor of Linguistics at the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, it ...

, where she has been employed since 2009.

Research

Citing an early interest in the “systematic, almost mathematical aspects of languages,” Harris began investigating ergativity in graduate school, and in doing so began to study the

Georgian language Georgian (, , ) is the most widely-spoken Kartvelian language, and serves as the literary language or lingua franca for speakers of related languages. It is the official language of Georgia and the native or primary language of 87.6% of its p ...

. She was one of the first Americans allowed to do research in the

Republic of Georgia A republic () is a "state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th c ...

when it was still part of the Soviet Union. She has continued to work in this region, looking at different characteristics of Georgian, Laz, Svan,

Mingrelian Mingrelian may refer to: *the Mingrelians *the Mingrelian language Mingrelian or Megrelian (, ) is a Kartvelian language spoken in Western Georgia (regions of Mingrelia and Abkhazia), primarily by the Mingrelians. The language was also called kol ...

Udi Udi may refer to: Places * Udi, Enugu, a local government areas and city in Nigeria * Udi, a place in the Etawah district of Uttar Pradesh, India People * Udi Gal (born 1979), Israeli Olympic sailor * Udi Vaks (born 1979), Israeli Olympic judoka ...

, and

Batsbi The Bats people ( ka, ბაცი, tr) or the Batsbi (ბაცბი), are Nakh-speaking Tushetians in the country of Georgia. They are also known as the Ts’ova-Tush (წოვათუშები) after the Ts’ova Gorge in the historic Geo ...

. Harris also has a strong interest in promoting the larger topic of documenting endangered languages. She played a key role in establishing the

Documenting Endangered Languages The Documenting Endangered Languages (DEL) program is a joint effort between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to help fund fieldwork, research, and community activities that are involved in re ...

(DEL) Program, a granting sub-unit that is part of the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

Career

Harris received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1976 after studying at

Randolph-Macon Woman's College Randolph College is a private liberal arts and sciences college in Lynchburg, Virginia. Founded in 1891 as Randolph-Macon Woman's College, it was renamed on July 1, 2007, when it became coeducational. The college offers 32 majors; 42 minors; � ...

, the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

and the

University of Essex The University of Essex is a public university, public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, Essex is one of the original plate glass university, plate glass universities. Essex's shield consists of the an ...

. She taught at

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...

from 1979–2002, serving as the department chair of Germanic and Slavic Languages there from 1993–2002. She was Professor of Linguistics at

SUNY Stony Brook Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system' ...

from 2002–2009, before taking up a position at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2009.

Awards

*In 1998, a book she co-wrote in 1995 with

Lyle Campbell Lyle Richard Campbell (born October 22, 1942) is an American scholar and linguist known for his studies of Indigenous languages of the Americas, indigenous American languages, especially those of Central America, and on historical linguistics in ...

won the Leonard Bloomfield award from the LSA, an award given out every two years to a book that makes an outstanding contribution to the understanding of languages or linguistics. *Harris received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2009. *She was elected a Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America in 2012. *She served as President of the Linguistic Society of America in 2016. *Harris was elected Fellow of the British Academy in July 2020.

Publications

*1981. ''Georgian Syntax: A Study in Relational Grammar.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reprint published 2009. *1982. "Georgian and the unaccusative hypothesis." ''Language.'' *1985. ''Diachronic Syntax: The Kartvelian Case'' (Syntax and Semantics, 18). New York: Academic Press. *1991. "Mingrelian." ''The indigenous languages of the Caucasus.'' Volume 1: The Kartvelian languages, 313–394. Delmar, New York: Caravan Books. *1995. Alice C. Harris and Lyle Campbell. ''Historical Syntax in Cross-Linguistic Perspective.'' Cambridge University Press. eonard Bloomfield Book Award 1998. Chinese translation published in 2007.*2000. "Where in the word is the Udi clitic?" ''Language.'' *2002. ''Endoclitics and the Origins of Udi Morphosyntax''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. *2003. "Cross-linguistic Perspectives on linguistic change." ''The Handbook of Historical Linguistics.'' *2008. "Reconstruction in syntax: reconstruction of patterns." ''Principles of syntactic reconstruction''. G. Ferraresi, and M. Goldbach, eds. John Benjamins. *2017. ''Multiple Exponence.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press.

References

External links

Faculty web page

Linguist list
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Alice C. 1947 births Living people Linguists from the United States Women linguists Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Vanderbilt University faculty University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty Kartvelian studies scholars Linguists of Caucasian languages Linguists of Kartvelian languages Linguistic Society of America presidents Fellows of the Linguistic Society of America 20th-century linguists 20th-century American academics 21st-century linguists 21st-century American academics