My research focuses on the description of understudied languages, mainly the languages of Africa (especially Eastern and Southern Africa), and emphasizing the theory of symbolic morpho-phonemic computations, but recently branching out areally to Saami and Kurdish. My central goal is testing aspects of linguistic theory against new data from undescribed and underdescribed languages. Much of my research focuses on tonal systems, feature theory, the theory of syntax-phonology interaction, and component interaction. Here is a list of the lesser-known languages I've worked on.

I am currently working on a descriptive reference grammar of the Bantu language Kikerewe, which is spoken in Tanzania. This grammar includes all aspects of the language, including phonology, morphology, and syntax (a version of the manuscript will be made available here soon). In collaboration with Curt Rice and Berit Anne Bals at the University of Tromsø; I am also working on aspects of the phonology of North Saami. Our current paper describing gradation is here (the earlier version is here for historical purposes). For anyone interested in hearing Saami, we have a very rough wordlist of some Saami nouns with sound files here. I've also been working with Anders Holmberg (U. Newcastle) in the Kurdish dialect Hawrami. My introductory phonology textbook, Introducing Phonology (published by Cambridge University Press) concentrates on learning how to solve phonology problems and analyse datasets. A web page with errata and additional data is there. I also edit the journal Studies in African Linguistics

2006. Minimality and Onsetless Syllables in Zinza. Phonology 23: 431-441.

2006. Topics in Taita Tone II. Studies in African Linguistics 35: 33-72.

2003. Tone. (w. Charles Kisseberth) in D. Nurse & G Philippson (eds.) The Bantu languages, 59-70.  London & NY: Routledge..

2002. The verbal tone system of Zina Kotoko. in Schmidt, Odden & Holmberg (eds). Some aspects of the grammar of Zina Kotoko, 15-34. Lincom Studies in African Linguistics 54. Munich: Lincom Europa.

The Unnatural Tonology of Kotoko.

Ordering (paper presented at the Phonology 2000 Symposium at MIT and Harvard)

Kikerewe-English Dictionary.

Patterns of Reduplication in Kikerewe (also appearing in OSUWPL: tiny pagination differences).

The file WhatIsTheory.pdf is an introductory philosophy-of-science type paper that I (sometimes) use in the graduate introductory phonology class.

Other downloads:

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David Odden Dept. of Linguistics OSU Columbus, OH 43210

I can be reached by sending email to mylastname at ling dot whatever the domain is in your browser that got you here.

Homer