Monik Charette (born 29 May 1957) is a French-Canadian

linguist 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. Linguis ...

and

phonologist 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 ...

who taught at SOAS the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

, in the United Kingdom. She 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 ...

morphophonology Morphophonology (also morphophonemics or morphonology) is the branch of linguistics that studies the interaction between morphological and phonological or phonetic processes. Its chief focus is the sound changes that take place in morphemes (mi ...

, stress systems,

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is an Assimilation (linguistics), assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is t ...

, syllabic structure and word-structure, focusing on

Altaic languages Altaic (; also called Transeurasian) is a controversial proposed language family that would include the Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, Mongolic and Tungusic languages, Tungusic language families and possibly also the Japonic la ...

, Turkish, and French.

Education and career

Charette earned her BA from

Université du Québec à Montréal The Université du Québec à Montréal (English: University of Quebec in Montreal), also known as UQAM, is a French-language public university based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the largest constituent element of the Université du Québe ...

(UQAM), and her MA and PhD from

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...

, graduating in 1988. By 1989 she was working as a Training Fellow in Linguistics at the University of London

School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury ar ...

; by 1990 she was a

lecturer Lecturer is an List of academic ranks, academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. T ...

in linguistics there, and later became a

senior lecturer Senior lecturer is an academic rank. In the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, and Israel senior lecturer is a faculty position at a university or similar institution. The position is tenured (in systems with this concep ...

, teaching courses on phonology at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. She was also associate dean for postgraduate matters at the Faculty of Languages and Cultures. Charette retired and moved back to Canada in 2019.

Research

Charette is one of the founders and first proponents of Government Phonology, the phonological adaptation of

Government and Binding Theory A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...

, with work done on vowel-zero alternation in French, on government-licensing, on headedness in element theory, on empty and pseudo-empty categories, on Turkish word-structure, among many others. Government Phonology she contributed the concepts of government-licensing and licensing constraints; in 1989 she was the first to propose a phonological version of the Minimality Condition. With Aslı Göksel, Charette conducted research on licensing constraints (LC's); later research on LC's refers to their work as the "Charette-Göksel Hypothesis". Together with

Jonathan Kaye Jonathan Andrew Kaye (born August 2, 1970) is an American professional golfer who played on the PGA Tour. Biography Kaye was born in Denver, Colorado, and is Jewish. He attended Sunnyslope High School in Phoenix, Arizona, where he was a star in ...

, she led the research at SOAS, London, aimed at reducing the number of elements in Element Theory, concluding in the emergence of the so-called Revised Theory of Elements. Charette's most cited work is her monograph from 1991, ''Conditions on Phonological Government'', published by

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...

, which is the first extended study written within the framework of phonological government. In her analysis of French, she contributed to the general understanding of the relation between skeletal positions and higher prosodic structure in the form of her "pointless onsets" in h-aspiré words. She participated in the preparations of the

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 h ...

for Jonathan Kaye, ''Living on the Edge'', eventually edited by Stefan Ploch alone and published in 2003. In 2001, Charette spoke at the Ninth Manchester Phonology Meeting in the session ''Phonology and syntax - the same or different?'', where she presented the Government Phonology perspective. In 2009, she co-edited, with

Peter K. Austin Peter Kenneth Austin, often cited as Peter K. Austin, is an Australian linguistics, linguist, widely published in the fields of language documentation, syntax, linguistic typology and in particular, endangered languages and language revitalisati ...

, Oliver Bond, David Nathan and Peter Sells, the volume ''Proceedings of Conference on Language Documentation and Linguistic Theory 2'', London: SOAS. Her contributions to the understanding of the

syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...

in phonological theory, of Turkish vowel harmony and of

schwa In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...

in French are acknowledged in handbooks and companions to phonology.

Major publications

* 1989 "The Minimality Condition in Phonology". ''Journal of Linguistics'' 25.1: 159-187. * 1990 "Licence to govern". ''Phonology'' 7: 233-253. * 1991 ''Conditions on Phonological Government''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press."Review of Conditions on Phonological Government"
by Mike Maxwell, in ''Notes on Linguistics''. Issues 56-63. Summer Institute of Linguistics; 1992. p. 62–64. * 1992 "Mongolian and Polish meet Government Licensing". ''SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics and Phonetics'' 2: 275-291. * 1994 "Vowel Harmony and Switching in Turkic languages". ''SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics and Phonetics'' 4: 31-52. Also in Kardela, Henryk, Bogdan Szymanek (eds.), ''A Festschrift for Edmund Gussmann'', 29-56. Lublin 1996: University Press of the Catholic University of Lublin. * 1996 "Licensing constraints and vowel harmony in Turkic languages". ''SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics and Phonetics'' 6: 1-25. Also in Cyran, Eugeniusz (ed.), ''Structure and Interpretation. Studies in Phonology'', 65-88. Lublin 1998: Folium. * 1998 "Empty and pseudo-empty categories". ''SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics and Phonetics'' 8: 167-176. * 2000 "When p-licensing fails: the final high vowels of Turkish". ''SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics'': 3-18. * 2003 "Empty and pseudo-empty categories". In ''Living on the Edge. 28 papers in honour of Jonathan Kaye'', Stefan Ploch (ed.), 465-479. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. * 2004 "Defining the structure of Turkish words". ''SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics'' 13: 49-79. * 2006 "The end of the (Turkish) word". ''SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics'' 14: 23-40. * 2008 "The vital role of the trochaic foot in explaining Turkish word endings". ''Lingua'' 118.1: 46-65. * 2018 "The internal TR clusters of Acadian French: a hint from schwa". In: Lindsey, Geoff and Nevins, Andrew, (eds.), ''Sonic Signatures''. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

References

External links

Google Scholar report
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Charette, Monik Linguists from Canada Women linguists 1949 births Living people Université du Québec à Montréal alumni McGill University alumni Academics of the University of London Academics of SOAS University of London Phonologists