John Joseph McCarthy (born 1953) is an American linguist and the Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs 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 ...

since July 2017. In July 2018, he assumed office as the Provost. McCarthy is best-known for his work on

Optimality Theory Optimality theory (frequently abbreviated OT) is a linguistic model proposing that the observed forms of language arise from the optimal satisfaction of conflicting constraints. OT differs from other approaches to phonological analysis, which ty ...

phonology Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...

: with Alan Prince, he devised Correspondence Theory and alignment constraints, although he has subsequently renounced the latter.McCarthy, John. OT Constraints are Categorical. ''Phonology'' 20 75--138. 2003 He has since written textbooks like '' Doing Optimality Theory: Applying Theory to Data''. Earlier in his career, McCarthy was responsible, along with Prince, for extending autosegmental phonology, and later

, to morphology, in particular to solve the problem of nonconcatenative morphology in

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya language, Tigrinya, Aramaic, Hebrew language, Hebrew, Maltese language, Maltese, Modern South Arabian language ...

Career

HHe completed his A.B. in linguistics and Near Eastern languages at

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate education, undergraduate college of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Part of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Scienc ...

and obtained his Ph.D. from

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

in 1979. He was a professor at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...

and a visiting scientist at

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...

before moving to the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Books

* '' Formal Problems in Semitic Phonology and Morphology'', Routledge 2018 *'' Doing Optimality Theory: Applying Theory to Data'', Wiley-Blackwell 2008 * '' Optimality Theory in Phonology: A Reader'' (ed.), Wiley-Blackwell 2008 * '' A Thematic Guide to Optimality Theory'', Cambridge University Press 2001

References

External links

John McCarthy's homepage
1953 births Harvard College alumni MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences alumni Phonologists from the United States University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty Living people People from Medford, Massachusetts Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the Linguistic Society of America {{US-linguist-stub

Career

Books

See also

References

External links