John McCarthy
Distinguished University Professor
Department of Linguistics
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003 USA

E-mail:
Office: South College 311
Phone: (413) 545-6830
Fax: (413) 545-2792

For general information about me, stay here.

For information about my teaching and advising, go here.

Course web pages are available to registered students on Spark.

For information about my publications, go here.

For my CV, go here.

The Latest

My paper “The serial interaction of stress and syncope” is in press at Natural Language and Linguistic Theory.

My textbook Doing Optimality Theory is now available. The UK publication date is April 11, 2008, and the US publication date is May 2.

 

About me

I work in phonological theory and allied fields. My recent research deals with a range of issues arising in and around Optimality Theory, such as the nature of markedness constraints, the difference between gradience and categoricality, phonological opacity, and the role of morphological paradigms in phonology. In the past, I've published articles on topics like the phonetics and phonology of pharyngeal consonants in Semitic, vowel harmony in northwestern Spain, the Obligatory Contour Principle and the nature of geminates, reduplication/phonology interactions, morphological templates, and the nature of faithfulness constraints. My research is often informed by evidence drawn form the Semitic languages. More detailed information can be found on my research and publications page.

I first learned about Optimality Theory from its creators, Alan Prince and  Paul Smolensky. Alan is also my long-time collaborator, pre- and post-OT, on the theory of Prosodic Morphology. The theory of Prosodic Morphology is an attempt to give independent, general explanations for the properties of reduplication, root-and-pattern morphology, and other phenomena at the interface between phonology and morphology. Optimality Theory is a general theory of constraint interaction, with applications to many areas of linguistics but with particular relevance to Prosodic Morphology. See my research and publications page for more information.

My teaching activities include the full range of graduate and undergraduate courses in phonology as well as Linguistics 101 a large introductory lecture course. (Most recent enrollment: 330.) I recently completed a textbook, Doing Optimality Theory, which Blackwell is publishing. Like my colleagues, I spend a great deal of time working one-on-one with graduate students. See my teaching page for information about students I've supervised in the past.

Background Information

Personal
Born Medford, Massachusetts, 1953. Native speaker of the Boston dialect. Some interesting contrasts (.wav files):
The ShahR accords with his view vs. The Shah Records Radio Tehran. Say "saTin" now. vs. Say "SaTurn" now.

Education
A.B. 1975, Harvard University, linguistics and Near Eastern Languages.
Ph.D. 1979, MIT, linguistics.

Professional
Taught at UT Austin 1979-1984.
Joined UMass Amherst faculty in 1985. Professor since 1989, department head 1993-96.
Taught at 1987, 1991, and 1997 LSA Summer Institutes.
Consultant (1984-1986) at Department of Linguistics and AI Research, AT&T Bell Laboratories

Honors and Awards
Distinguished University Professor, 2007.
Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2005.
Guggenheim Fellowship, 1992-93.
University of Massachusetts Amherst Award for Outstanding Accomplishments in Research and Creative Activity, 2005.
Chancellor’s Medal and Distinguished Faculty Lecture, 2004.
Outstanding Teacher Award, College of Humanities and Fine Arts, 1995.
President of Arabic Linguistics Society, 1989-90.
Lansdowne Visiting Scholar, University of Victoria (British Columbia), 1994.
Faculty Fellowship, UMass Amherst, 1997.
Editorial Boards:
                 Phonology
                 Linguistic Inquiry
                 Phonology Editor for Oxford International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (first and second editions).

Last revised  April 10, 2008.