Margaret "Peggy" Speas is a

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 ...

who works on

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) ...

, specifically evidentiality and

Navajo The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States. With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...

. She is a 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 ...

. Speas received her PhD in Linguistics from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

in 1986. Speas's work focuses on differences between elicitation, documentation and linguistic data analysis on North American Native Languages. She also works with preservation of

and is a founding member of the

Navajo Language Academy The Navajo Language Academy (NLA; Navajo ''Diné Bizaad Naalkaah'') is a non-profit educational and advocacy organization which focuses on the Navajo language. Overview The NLA organizes efforts of linguists and language instructors to train teac ...

Work with language preservation

Peggy Speas has been heavily involved with the preservation of North American native languages, with focus on Navajo. She is a founding member of the Navajo Language Academy, where she has served as president for two years. Founded in 1997, the Academy is a nonprofit organization which promotes the study and preservation of Navajo. In the end of 1999, she finished her term as an associate editor on the journal, ''

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 met ...

''. Speas is a co-author, with

Evangeline Parsons Yazzie Evangeline Parsons Yazzie ( 1952 – May 22, 2022) was a Navajo educator and author of the first textbook adopted by the U.S. public education system to teach the Navajo language. Life Yazzie received a Master of Arts degree in Bilingual Multi ...

, on the book ''Diné Bizaad Bináhoo'aah: Rediscovering the Navajo Language'', which is now used as the official state textbook for the Navajo language in New Mexico. In 2011, she was recognized as a Spotlight Scholar for her over 20 years of work in preserving North American native languages.

Key publications

(2007) Yazzie, Evangeline Parsons, Jessie Ruffenach, Margaret Speas, and Berlyn Yazzie. ''Diné Bizaad Bináhoo'aah''. Salina Bookshelf, 2007. (2004) Speas, Margaret. "Evidentiality, logophoricity and the syntactic representation of pragmatic features." ''Lingua'' 114.3: 255-276. (2003) Speas, Peggy, and Carol Tenny. "Configurational properties of point of view roles." ''Asymmetry in grammar'' 1: 315-345. (1994) Speas, Peggy. "Null arguments in a theory of economy of projection." (1990) Speas, Margaret. ''Phrase structure in natural language''. Vol. 21. Springer Science & Business Media, 1990. (1986) Speas, Margaret Jean. ''Adjunctions and projections in syntax''. Dissertation. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Speas, Margaret Linguists from the United States University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences alumni Syntacticians Women linguists Linguists of Navajo 20th-century linguists 21st-century linguists Year of birth missing (living people) Living people