Larry M. Hyman (born September 26, 1947, in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
,
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the mo ...
) is Distinguished
Professor Emeritus
''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
of
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Ling ...
at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
. He specializes in
phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
and has particular interest in
African languages.
Education and career
He received his B.S., M.A, and Ph.D. degrees from the
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California S ...
. His 1972 Ph.D. dissertation was supervised by
Victoria Fromkin
Victoria Alexandra Fromkin (; May 16, 1923 – January 19, 2000) was an American linguist who taught at UCLA. She studied slips of the tongue, mishearing, and other speech errors, which she applied to phonology, the study of how the sounds of a ...
and entitled, "A Phonological Study of Fe’fe’-
Bamileke
The Bamileke are a Central African people who inhabit the Western High Plateau of Cameroon.
Languages
The Bamileke languages belong to the Grassfields branch of the Niger-Congo language family, which is sometimes labeled as a " Bantuoid lang ...
."
Hyman taught at the
University of Southern California
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, accreditation = WSCUC
, type = Private research university
, academic_affiliations =
, endowment = $ ...
from 1971 to 1988. There he edited and contributed to many volumes in the ''Southern California Occasional Papers in Linguistics'' (''SCOPIL'') series. He took up a position in UC-Berkeley's Department of Linguistics in 1988, where he served as chair of the department from 1991 to 2002. He remained at Berkeley until his retirement in 2022.
Hyman's widely cited and influential research focuses on
phonological theory,
language typology
Linguistic typology (or language typology) is a field of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features to allow their comparison. Its aim is to describe and explain the structural diversity and the c ...
, and
African languages, particularly
Bantu languages
The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages.
Th ...
and other
Niger-Congo languages.
He has received numerous grants for his research, mostly from 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 ...
. He also received a
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
in 1979.
Honors and awards
Hyman was the President of the
Linguistic Society of America
The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', ...
(LSA) in 2017 and delivered his presidential address on "What tone teaches us about language". He is also a
Fellow
A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context.
In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements.
Within the context of higher educatio ...
of the LSA and served on the LSA Executive Committee from 2003-2005. He received the
Victoria A. Fromkin Lifetime Service Award from the LSA in 2021.
He became a Chevalier (Knight) of the prestigious
Ordre des Palmes Académiques
A suite, in Western classical music and jazz, is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral/concert band pieces. It originated in the late 14th century as a pairing of dance tunes and grew in scope to comprise up to five dances, sometimes with ...
in 2021.
A
Festschrift
In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the ...
in his honor, ''Revealing Structure'', was published by the
University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...
in 2018.
He has been chair of the Editorial Board, University of California Publications in Linguistics since 1999. He has been editor or on the editorial board of many linguistic journals, including ''
Linguistic Inquiry
''Linguistic Inquiry'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal in generative linguistics published by the MIT Press
The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (Uni ...
'', ''Journal of African Languages & Linguistics'', ''
Language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
'', ''
Natural Language and Linguistic Theory
''Natural Language & Linguistic Theory'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering theoretical and generative linguistics. It was established in 1983 and originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers. Since 2004 the journal is pu ...
'', ''Lingua Descriptive Series'', ''
Phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
(Yearbook)'', ''
Linguistic Typology
Linguistic typology (or language typology) is a field of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features to allow their comparison. Its aim is to describe and explain the structural diversity and the c ...
'' and ''Africana Linguistica'' (
Musée royal de l'Afrique central).
Selected publications
* ''
Phonology: Theory and Analysis'' (1975)
* "Why describe African languages?" In A. Akinlabi & O. Adesola (eds.) ''Proceedings of the 4th World Congress of African Linguistics'', New Brunswick 2003, 21–42. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, 2005.
* "The word in Luganda". In F.K. Erhard Voeltz (ed.), ''Studies in African linguistic typology'', 171–193. John Benjamins, 2005 (with Francis Katamba).
* "Word-prosodic typology". ''
Phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
'' 23.225–257, 2006.
* "On the representation of tone in Peñoles Mixtec". ''
International Journal of American Linguistics
The ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' (''IJAL'') is an academic journal devoted to the study of the indigenous languages of the Americas. ''IJAL'' focuses on the investigation of linguistic data and the presentation of grammatical ...
'' 73.165–208, 2007 (with John P. Daly).
* "Where’s phonology in typology?" ''
Linguistic Typology
Linguistic typology (or language typology) is a field of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features to allow their comparison. Its aim is to describe and explain the structural diversity and the c ...
'' 11.265–271, 2007.
* "Niger-Congo verb extensions: Overview and discussion". In Doris L. Payne and Jaime Peña (eds), ''Selected Proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference on African Linguistics'', 149–163. Sommerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project, 2007.
* "Elicitation as experimental phonology: Thlantlang Lai tonology". In Maria-Josep Solé, Pam Beddor & Manjari Ohala (eds), ''Experimental Approaches to Phonology in Honor of
John J. Ohala'', 7–24. Oxford University Press, 2007.
* "Directional asymmetries in the morphology and phonology of words, with special reference to Bantu." In ''
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Ling ...
'' 46.2 (2008).
* "Universals in phonology". In ''The Linguistic Review'', 2008.
* "Focus in Aghem". In ''Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Structure'', Potsdam, June 6–8, 2006 (with
Maria Polinsky).
* Prosodic morphology and tone: the case of Chichewa. In Harry van der Hulst, René Kager & Wim Zonneveld, eds., ''The prosody-morphology interface'', 90-133. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. (with
Al Mtenje)
* ''A theory of phonological weight''.
Mouton. 1985.
References
External links
Curriculum VitaeLarry Hyman on Fieldwork as a state of mind
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hyman, Larry
American phonologists
University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty
Linguists from the United States
Linguists of Niger–Congo languages
1947 births
Living people
Fellows of the Linguistic Society of America
Linguistic Society of America presidents