Moira Yip (b. 1949) is a British-American linguist. She earned her PhD in Linguistics in 1980 at

MIT 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 ...

as a student of

Morris Halle Morris Halle (; July 23, 1923 – April 2, 2018) was a Latvian-born Jewish American linguist who was an Institute Professor, and later professor emeritus, of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The father of "modern phonolog ...

. She retired from her position as Professor of Linguistics at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = � ...

(UCL) in 2009. While at UCL she also was co-director of the Centre for Human Communication and Pro-Provost for China. Before taking up the position at UCL in 1999, she was Professor of Linguistics and Acting Dean at the University of California-Irvine (1992-1999) and Associate Professor at

Brandeis University Brandeis University is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational institution sponsored by the Jews, Jewish community, Brandeis was established on t ...

(1982-1992). Moira Yip worked on a wide range of issues in theoretical phonology, and particularly on the phonology of Chinese. Her publications include papers on reduplication, morpho-phonology, prosodic phonology, and feature theory. Her frequently cited dissertation on the ''Tonal phonology of Chinese'' was published in the ''Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics'' series (Routledge). In 2002 she published the first modern textbook on tone in the Cambridge University Press linguistics textbook series. Her 1988 journal article on the Obligatory Contour Principle was important in extending the understanding and application of this principle in pre-

Optimality Theory In linguistics, 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 ...

phonology. Since 2017 she has authored a wildlife blog, https://eyesonthewild.blog. She is married to business academic George Yip.

Key publications

* Yip, Moira J. 1980. The tonal phonology of Chinese. PhD dissertation, MIT. * Yip, Moira. 1988. The Obligatory Contour Principle and Phonological Rules: a Loss of Identity. ''Linguistic Inquiry'', 19 (1), 65-100. * Yip, Moira. 1989. Contour tones. ''Phonology'', 6(1), 149-174. * Yip, Moira. 2002. ''Tone''. Cambridge University Press.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yip, Moira Linguists from the United Kingdom Women linguists Living people MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences alumni 1949 births University of California, Irvine faculty Brandeis University faculty University College London Phonologists