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

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) is a public land-grant research university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts system and was founded in 1863 as the ...

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, Kartvelian language family. It is the official language of Georgia (country), Georgia and the native or primary language of 88% of its population. It also serves as the literary langu ...

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

Republic of Georgia A republic, based on the Latin phrase ''res publica'' ('public affair' or 'people's affair'), is a state in which political power rests with the public (people), typically through their representatives—in contrast to a monarchy. Although a ...

when it was still part of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. 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 The Mingrelian or Megrelian language ( ) is a Kartvelian language spoken in Western Georgia (regions of Mingrelia and Abkhazia), primarily by the Mingrelians. Mingrelian has hist ...

Udi Udi may refer to: Places * Udi, Enugu, a local government areas and city in Nigeria * Udi Hills, Enugu State, Nigeria * Udi, a place in the Etawah district of Uttar Pradesh, India People Given name * Udi Aloni (born 1959), Israeli-American film ...

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

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

Career

Harris received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in 1976 after studying at Randolph-Macon Woman's College, the

University of Glasgow The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals; ) is a Public university, public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the List of oldest universities in continuous ...

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, it is one of the original plate glass university, plate glass universities. The university comprises three camp ...

. She taught at

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private university, private research university in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provide ...

from 1979 to 2002, serving as the department chair of Germanic and Slavic Languages there from 1993 to 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, United States, on Long Island. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State Univ ...

from 2002 to 2009, before taking up a position at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2009 where she remained until her retirement in 2020.

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 American languages, especially those of Central America, and on historical linguistics in general. Campbell is professor emeri ...

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 Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

in 2009. *She was elected a

Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned or professional societies, the term refers ...

in 2012. *She served as

President of the Linguistic Society of America The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for linguistics founded in December 1924. At the first meeting, the LSA membership elected Hermann Collitz as their first president. Since then, there have been presidencies, with diff ...

in 2016. *Harris was elected

Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (post-nominal letters FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: # Fellows – scholars resident in t ...

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 American 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 American linguists 20th-century American academics 21st-century American linguists 21st-century American academics Fellows of the British Academy