Michael Becker

Associate professor
Linguistics department
University of Massachusetts Amherst

Research interests

Phonological determinants of word formation processes
Computational modeling of lexical and behavioral word formation data
Check out the sublexical learner!
Documentation, analysis, and preservation of endangered languages

Publications

(to appear) Michael Becker, Bruna Franchetto, Arawa Didi Kuikuro, Yanapa Mehinaku Kuikuro, Andrija Petrovic. Os acentos na língua kuikuro (karib alto-xinguano).

(2024) Michael Becker, Andrew Nevins, Filomena Sandalo, and Érick Rizzato. Prosodic generalizations in the Brazilian Portuguese diphthongal plural. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 4, 1–31. [https://doi.org/10.16995/jpl.9740]

(2022) Michael Becker. Cairene Arabic stress is local. Radical: A Journal of Phonology 4, 211–247. [https://radical.cnrs.fr/becker-cairene-arabic-stress-is-local/]

(2020) Michael Becker and Peter Jurgec. Positional faithfulness drives laxness alternations in Slovenian. Phonology 37(3), 335–366. [https://doi.org/10.1017/S0952675720000160] [project page]

(2020) Honaida Ahyad and Michael Becker. Vowel unpredictability in Hijazi Arabic monosyllabic verbs. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 5(1): 32. 1–18. [https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.814] [project page]

(2018) Michael Becker, Andrew Nevins, Filomena Sandalo, and Érick Rizzato. The acquisition path of [w]-final plurals in Brazilian Portuguese. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 17(1), 4. [https://doi.org/10.5334/jpl.189]

(2018) Jana Willer Gold, Boban Arsenijević, Mia Batinić, Michael Becker, Nermina Čordalija, Marijana Kresić, Nedžad Leko, Franc Lanko Marušič, Tanja Milićev, Nataša Milićević, Ivana Mitić, Anita Peti-Stantić, Branimir Stanković, Tina Šuligoj, Jelena Tušek, and Andrew Nevins. When linearity prevails over hierarchy in syntax. PNAS 115:3, pp. 495–500. [https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1712729115] [paper]

(2018) Anne-Michelle Tessier and Michael Becker. Vowel but not consonant identity and the very informal English lexicon. In Gillian Gallagher, Maria Gouskova and Sora Yin (eds.), Supplemental Proceedings of the 2017 Annual Meeting on Phonology. Washington, DC: Linguistic Society of America. [https://doi.org/10.3765/amp.v5i0.4248] [project page]

(2017) Michael Becker, Lauren Eby Clemens, and Andrew Nevins. Generalization of French and Portuguese Plural Alternations and Initial Syllable Protection. NLLT 35:2, pp. 299–345. [https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-016-9343-y] [project page]

(2017) Michael Becker and Peter Jurgec. Interactions of tone and ATR in Slovenian. In Wolfgang Kehrein, Björn Köhnlein, Paul Boersma & Marc van Osterndorp (eds.) Segmental structure and tone. Tübingen: de Gruyter, pp. 11–25 [https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110341263-002] [paper, also ROA-995]

(2016) Michael Becker and Maria Gouskova. Source-oriented generalizations as grammar inference in Russian vowel deletion. Linguistic Inquiry 47:3, pp. 391–425. [https://doi.org/10.1162/LING_a_00217] [project page]

(2013) Maria Gouskova and Michael Becker. Nonce words show that Russian yer alternations are governed by the grammar. NLLT 31:3, pp. 735–765. [https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-013-9197-5] [project page]

(2012) Michael Becker, Andrew Nevins, and Jonathan Levine. Asymmetries in generalizing alternations to and from initial syllables. Language 88:2, pp. 231–268. [https://doi.org/10.1353/LAN.2012.0049] [project page]

(2012) Michael Becker. Target selection in Error Selective Learning. Brill's Annual of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics 4, pp. 120–139. [https://doi.org/10.1163/18776930-00400006] [project page]

(2011) Michael Becker and Anne-Michelle Tessier. Trajectories of faithfulness in child-specific phonology. Phonology 28:2, pp. 163–196. [https://doi.org/10.1017/S0952675711000133] [project page]

(2011) Michael Becker, Andrew Nevins, and Nihan Ketrez. The Surfeit of the Stimulus: Analytic biases filter lexical statistics in Turkish laryngeal alternations. Language 87:1, pp. 84–125. [https://doi.org/10.1353/LAN.2011.0016] [project page]

(2011) Michael Becker and Kathryn Flack Potts. The Emergence of The Unmarked. In Marc van Oostendorp, Colin J. Ewen, Elizabeth Hume, and Keren Rice (eds.) The Blackwell Companion to Phonology, pp. 1363–1379. [https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444335262.wbctp0058] [paper]

(2010) Christopher Potts, Joe Pater, Karen Jesney, Rajesh Bhatt, and Michael Becker. Harmonic Grammar with Linear Programming: From linear systems to linguistic typology. Phonology 27:1, pp. 77–117. [https://doi.org/10.1017/S0952675710000047] [ROA-984]

(2007) Michael Becker. Tone licensing and categorical alignment in Serbo-Croatian. In Leah Bateman et al. (eds.) University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics 32: Papers in Optimality Theory III. Amherst: GLSA, pp. 1–19. [paper]

(2007) Michael Becker and Joe Pater. OT-Help user guide. In Michael Becker (ed.), University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics 36: Papers in Theoretical and Computational Phonology. Amherst: GLSA, pp. 1–12. Also available as ROA 928. [paper]

(2003) Michael Becker. Lexical stratification of Hebrew: The disyllabic maximum. In Yehuda Falk (ed.) Proceedings of IATL 19. [paper]

(2003) Michael Becker. Hebrew Stress: Can't you hear those trochees? In Elsi Kaiser and Sudha Arunachalam (eds.) Proceedings of PLC 26, 9.1: 45–58. [paper]

Manuscripts

(in prep) Michael Becker and Daniel Ben-Levi. Automating the reading tradition of Romantic French poetry.

(submitted to NLLT) Michael Becker, Bruna Franchetto, Arawa Didi Kuikuro, Yanapa Mehinaku Kuikuro, Andrija Petrovic. The incoherent stress of Kuikuro.

(submitted to Phonology) Blake Allen and Michael Becker. Learning alternations from surface forms with sublexical phonology. lingbuzz/002503 [lingbuzz/002503]

Dissertation

(2009) Phonological Trends in the Lexicon: The Role of Constraints [dissertation, also ROA-1008]

Invited talks

(2023) Descrição e análise da prosódia no trabalho de campo: acento e tom. Department of Linguistics, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

(2021) Acento incoerente em kuikuro. Department of Linguistics, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Joint work with Bruna Franchetto (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro & CNPq), Arawa Didi Kuikuro, Yanapa Mehinaku Kuikuro (University of Campinas), and Andrija Petrovic (Stony Brook University).

(2020) Round table participant: Desafios teóricos e descritivos para a morfologia na atualidade. Part of the conference “ABRALIN ao vivo 2020”.

(2020) Cairene Arabic stress is local. Atelier de Phonologie, Laboratoire Structures Formelles du Langage, Paris VIII.

(2019) Sources of complexity in morphophonology. PEP lab, Department of Linguistics, New York University.

(2018) Modeling the Arabic broken plural. Department of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts Amherst.

(2017) The Sublexical Learner. Tutorial given as a part of the Annual Meeting on Phonology, NYU.

(2017) A produtividade da distribuição vocálica em árabe. Department of Linguistics, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Joint work with Honaida Ahyad (SBU).

(2016) Segmental effects on stress in Slovenian. Invited keynote speaker at Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics, Cornell University.

(2015) MaxEnt as a baseline theory of grammar. MFM Fringe Meeting, University of Manchester.

(2015) Learning French plural morphology. Department of Linguistics and Translation at the University of Montreal. Joint work with Blake Allen (UBC), Lauren Clemens (SUNY Albany), Maria Gouskova (NYU) and Andrew Nevins (UCL).

(2015) Learning grammars, not representations. Department of Linguistics at the University of Maryland. Joint work with Maria Gouskova (NYU) and Blake Allen (UBC).

(2014) Multiple grammars organize speaker knowledge. SYNC conference, Stony Brook University. Joint work with Maria Gouskova (NYU) and Blake Allen (UBC).

(2014) Experigen. Tutorial given as a part of Phonology 2014, MIT.

(2013) A grammatical approach to exceptional Portuguese plurals. Departamento de Linguística, IEL-UNICAMP (State University of São Paulo). Joint work with Lauren Eby Clemens and Andrew Nevins.

(2013) Computing morphophonology in a constraint-based framework. Linguistics department, Stony Brook University. Joint work with Maria Gouskova and Blake Allen.

(2012) Universal Grammar protects Initial Syllables. Department of cognitive science, Johns Hopkins University. Joint work with Lauren Eby Clemens, Jon Levine, and Andrew Nevins.

(2012) La grammaire universelle protège les syllabes initiales. Département de linguistique, Université du Québec à Montréal. Joint work with Lauren Eby Clemens, Jon Levine, and Andrew Nevins.

(2012) Universal Grammar protects Initial Syllables. Linguistics department, Indiana University. Joint work with Lauren Eby Clemens, Jon Levine, and Andrew Nevins.

(2011) Universal Grammar protects Initial Syllables. Linguistics department, Harvard University. Joint work with Lauren Eby Clemens, Jon Levine, and Andrew Nevins. [handout]

(2010) Finding Universal Grammar in Initial Syllables. Linguistics department, Stony Brook University. [handout]

(2010) Target selection in Error Selective Learning. At the workshop on computational modelling of sound pattern acquisition. University of Alberta, Edmonton. [project page]

(2009) Learning hidden structure in paradigms. Université Paris 7. [handout]

(2009) Learning hidden structure in paradigms. Linguistics department, UCSC. [handout]

(2009) Surface-based generalizations over lexical exceptions. Linguistics department, UCLA. [handout]

(2008) The role of markedness in generalizing over lexical exceptions. Linguistics department, NYU. [handout]

(2008) Why and how to use Universal Grammar in learning irregular morphology. Linguistics department, Reed College. [handout]

(2008) What do Hebrew speakers know about irregular patterns? The role of Universal Grammar. Department of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Texas at Austin. [handout]

(2007) The role of statistical generalizations in the grammar. Phonology reading group, University of Tromsø. [handout]

(2007) The role of statistical generalizations in the grammar. Linguistics department colloquium, Ben Gurion University. [handout]

(2006) Computational Optimality Theory with finite candidate sets. MIT Phonology Circle. [handout]

Refereed conference papers

(2021) The prosody of Kadiwéu verbs. Amazonicas VIII, online. With Seoyoung Kim (University of Massachusetts Amherst) and Filomena Sandalo (UNICAMP).

(2020) The incoherent stress of Kuikuro. Annual Meeting on Phonology, UCSC. With Bruna Franchetto (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro & CNPq), Arawa Didi Kuikuro, Yanapa Mehinaku Kuikuro (University of Campinas), and Andrija Petrovic (Stony Brook University).

(2019) Binarity and ternarity in the Kadiwéu verb. 93rd meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, New York City. With Seoyoung Kim (Stony Brook University) and Filomena Sandalo (UNICAMP).

(2018) Binarity and ternarity in the Kadiwéu verb. Annual Meeting on Phonology, UCSD. With Seoyoung Kim (Stony Brook University) and Filomena Sandalo (UNICAMP).

(2018) Vowel distribution in the Arabic root. 92nd meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Salt Lake City, Utah. With Honaida Ahyad (Stony Brook).

(2017) Vowel but not consonant identity and the very informal English lexicon. Annual Meeting on Phonology, NYU. With Anne-Michelle Tessier, Simon Fraser University.

(2017) Affix-specificity makes stress learnable. 91st meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Austin, TX.

(2016) Inconspicuous unfaithfulness in Slovenian. Annual Meeting on Phonology, USC. With Peter Jurgec, University of Toronto.

(2016) Sonority restricts laryngealized plosives in Southern Aymara. 43rd meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society. With Paola Cépeda (SBU).

(2016) The predictability of vowel alternations in Urban Hijazi Arabic imperfective nonce forms. 43rd meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society. With Honaida Ahyad (SBU).

(2015) The acquisition path of plurals in Brazilian Portuguese. The Romance Turn VII (Venice). With Andrew Nevins (UCL), Filomena Sandalo, and Érick Rizzato (UNICAMP).

(2015) Fewer grammars, more coverage for the English past tense. 23rd Manchester Phonology Meeting. With Blake Allen (UBC).

(2015) Learning alternations from surface forms with sublexical phonology. 89th meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Portland, OR. With Blake Allen (UBC).

(2014) Learning alternations from surface forms with sublexical phonology. Phonology 2014, MIT. With Blake Allen (UBC).

(2013) Gender without morphological segmentation in French. Phonology 2013, UMass Amherst. With Michael Dow (Indiana).

(2013) A quantitive study of the caesura in Baudelaire's and Verlaine's alexandrines. Conference on metrical structure: text-setting and stress, MIT. [project page]

(2013) Grammar inference expresses source-oriented generalizations in Russian yer deletion. 21st Manchester Phonology Meeting. With Maria Gouskova (NYU). [project page]

(2013) Wug-testing source-oriented generalizations: grammar inference in yer deletion. 87th meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Boston, MA. With Maria Gouskova (NYU). [project page]

(2012) Source-oriented generalizations as grammar inference in yer deletion. 43rd Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society, CUNY. With Maria Gouskova (NYU). [project page]

(2012) A wug study of the grammar of Russian yers. 86th meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Portland, OR. With Maria Gouskova (NYU) [project page]

(2012) Discrete grammar beats phonetics and usage-based predictors in alternations. 86th meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Portland, OR. With Lauren Eby Clemens (Harvard) and Andrew Nevins (UCL). [project page]

(2011) Russian yer alternations are governed by the grammar. 42nd Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society, Toronto. With Maria Gouskova (NYU). [project page]

(2011) A richer model is not always more accurate: the case of French and Portuguese plurals. 42nd Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society, Toronto. With Lauren Eby Clemens (Harvard) and Andrew Nevins (UCL). [project page]

(2011) Differential treatment of initial syllables rears its head. 85th meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Pittsburgh, PA. With Jonathan Levine (Harvard) and Andrew Nevins (UCL). [handout]

(2010) Differential treatment of initial syllables rears its head. 41st Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society, UPenn. With Jonathan Levine (Harvard) and Andrew Nevins (UCL). [handout]

(2010) Trajectories of faithfulness in child-specific phonology. 84th meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Baltimore, MD. With Anne-Michelle Tessier (Alberta). [project page]

(2010) Initial syllable faithfulness as the best model of word-size effects in alternations. 84th meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Baltimore, MD. With Andrew Nevins (Harvard).

(2009) Initial syllable faithfulness as the best model of word-size effects in alternations. 40th Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society, MIT. With Andrew Nevins (Harvard). [handout]

(2009) The role of markedness in generalizing over lexical exceptions. 83rd meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, San Francisco, CA. [handout]

(2008) The role of markedness constraints in learning lexical trends. 82nd meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Chicago, IL. [handout]

(2007) Tone/ATR interactions in Slovenian. 7th European Conference on Formal Description of Slavic Languages (FDSL-7) in Leipzig. With Peter Jurgec (Meertens).

(2007) From the lexicon to a stochastic grammar. 38th Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society, University of Ottawa. [poster, handout]

(2007) From the lexicon to a stochastic grammar. Workshop on Variation, Gradience and Frequency in Phonology, Stanford Univesity. [poster, handout]

(2007) Tone/ATR interactions in Slovenian. Workshop on Segments and Tone, Meertens Institute/Amsterdam University. With Peter Jurgec (Meertens). [handout]

(2007) When and why to ignore lexical patterns in Turkish obstruent alternations. 81st meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Anaheim, CA. With Andrew Nevins (Harvard) and Nihan Ketrez (Yale). [project page]

(2006) CCamelOT: An implementation of OT-CC's GEN and EVAL in Perl. 80th meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Albuquerque, NM. [handout]

(2003) Hebrew Stress: Can't you hear those trochees? Penn Linguistics Collquium 26, University of Pennsylvania.

Workshop presentations

(2009) Trajectories of faithfulness in child-specific phonology. Northeast Computational Phonology Circle (NECPhon) III, MIT. With Anne-Michelle Tessier (Alberta). [project page]

(2008) Learning hidden structure in morphological bases. MUMM 2, a UMass-MIT phonology meeting. [handout]

(2007) Prudent error-driven learning in OT-CC. Northeast Computational Phonology Circle (NECPhon), UMass Amherst. [handout]

(2006) When and why to ignore lexical patterns in Turkish obstruent alternations. Yale Turkish Linguistics Workshop. With Andrew Nevins (Harvard) and Nihan Ketrez (Yale). [project page]

(2006) Tone licensing and categorical alignment in Serbo-Croatian. HUMDRUM, Johns Hopkins University.

(2006) Verum Focus and T-to-Σ movement in English. ECO5 syntax workshop, MIT. [handout]

(2004) The interpretation of boundary tones: Turkish and beyond. Intonation Matters, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

(2004) Lexical exceptions: Putting the grammar to work. HUMDRUM, Rutgers University.

Software

(2014) The sublexical morphophonological learner [web application]. With Blake Allen (UBC). Available at sublexical.phonologist.org.

(2010) Experigen: an online experiment platform. With Jonathan Levine. Available at becker.phonologist.org/experigen.

(2007) LexLearn: a learner of irregular phonology using constraint cloning and OT-CC. Pre-release version available upon request.

(2007) OT-Help: typology explorer for Optimality Theory and Harmonic Grammar. With Joe Pater and Christopher Potts (UMass). http://people.umass.edu/othelp/.

(2005) CCamelOT: an implementation of OT-CC's GEN and EVAL in Perl. http://becker.phonologist.org/CCamelOT/

Other things

(2010) Living Lexicon of Hebrew Nouns. With Shmuel Bolozky.