About

Adam McCollum is a professor whose research focuses on phonology, with particular attention to vowel harmony phenomena in Turkic and Uralic languages. He has co-authored scholarly work on the inevitability of non-myopic harmony, contributing to the field's understanding of phonological processes. McCollum has also explored domains of emergence and decay in vowel harmony, as evidenced by his submitted chapter examining these patterns from the perspective of Turkic and Uralic languages. His research involves extensive fieldwork, including data collection from Kazakh and Uyghur speakers in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where he collaborated with PhD students from Rutgers University. This hands-on approach enriches his linguistic analyses and supports his academic contributions. In addition to his research, McCollum has international experience as a Fulbright Scholar, having spent a year in Almaty, Kazakhstan. During this time, he and his family engaged deeply with the local culture and people, an experience that was highlighted in an interview with Forbes magazine in Kazakhstan. This period abroad not only enhanced his research but also fostered a personal connection to the Kazakh community and the linguistic properties of Turkic languages. McCollum's work exemplifies a blend of theoretical inquiry and practical fieldwork, contributing valuable insights to the study of phonology and language dynamics in Central Asia.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Linguistics
• Philosophy
• Art
• Mathematics
• Epistemology
• Sociology
• Physics
• Psychology
• Speech recognition

Selected publications

• LOANWORD ADAPTATION IN KAZAKH: OBSTRUENT VOICING ALTERNATIONS

  Bulletin of Toraighyrov University Philology series · 2026-03-27

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The investigation of loanword phonology has been immensely fruitful. Generally, research on loanword phonology has focused on the interaction of borrowing and lending phonologies, the interaction of phonetic and phonological representations, and the influence of extra-grammatical factors, like orthography and sociocultural prestige, in patterns of loanword adaptation. In addition, evidence from loans has clarified the analysis of the native phonology. This second, more narrow focus is the goal of this paper. We investigate patterns of obstruent voicing in loans to further understand the phonology of Kazakh. Non-coronal obstruents in Kazakh alternate for voicing at morpheme boundaries. Considering only the native and nativized lexica of the language, an analysis of either intervocalic voicing or syllable-final devoicing would seem most plausible. Each rule is able to account for all the data presented below. However, evidence from relatively recent loans supports the need for both rules, an analysis that would otherwise be strongly dispreferred by traditional notions of economy.

  PublisherDOI

• On How and Why Vowel Harmony Decays

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2024-10-22

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Drawing on data from a range of language families, this chapter discusses harmonies which show signs of diachronic decay, outlining a number of pathways by which harmony may decay as well as the language-internal and language-external forces that may trigger decay. Both phonetic coarticulation and misperception have been linked to the emergence of vowel harmony (VH). This link, however, does not explain the ways in which phonological VH may change. There exists a multitudinous array of patterns in between phonetic coarticulation and robust, iterative harmony. Further, this link does not address the ways that harmony may decay. This chapter lists four different ways in which this might occur.

  PublisherDOI

• Vowel Harmony

  Elsevier eBooks · 2024-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Weak determinism and the computational consequences of interaction

  Natural Language & Linguistic Theory · 2024-01-03 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Recent work has claimed that (non-tonal) phonological patterns are subregular (Heinz 2011a,b, 2018; Heinz and Idsardi 2013), occupying a delimited proper subregion of the regular functions—the weakly deterministic (WD) functions (Heinz and Lai 2013; Jardine 2016). Whether or not it is correct (McCollum et al. 2020a), this claim can only be properly assessed given a complete and accurate definition of WD functions. We propose such a definition in this article, patching unintended holes in Heinz and Lai’s (2013) original definition that we argue have led to the incorrect classification of some phonological patterns as WD. We start from the observation that WD patterns share a property that we call unbounded semiambience , modeled after the analogous observation by Jardine (2016) about non-deterministic (ND) patterns and their unbounded circumambience . Both ND and WD functions can be broken down into compositions of deterministic (subsequential) functions (Elgot and Mezei 1965; Heinz and Lai 2013) that read an input string from opposite directions; we show that WD functions are those for which these deterministic composands do not interact in a way that is familiar from the theoretical phonology literature. To underscore how this concept of interaction neatly separates the WD class of functions from the strictly more expressive ND class, we provide analyses of the vowel harmony patterns of two Eastern Nilotic languages, Maasai and Turkana, using bimachines, an automaton type that represents unbounded bidirectional dependencies explicitly. These analyses make clear that there is interaction between deterministic composands when (and only when) the output of a given input element of a string is simultaneously dependent on information from both the left and the right: ND functions are those that involve interaction, while WD functions are those that do not.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Epiphenomenal and True Non-Iterative Vowel Harmony

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2024-10-22

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This chapter discusses the (non-)iterativity of vowel harmony patterns, and goes on to explain how to model non-iterativity within Optimality Theory. In rule-based terms, an iterative rule is one whose output feeds further application of the rule, while a non-iterative rule does not feed itself. As noted by Kisseberth, modeling such patterns is a challenge for Optimality Theory. Five types of patterns that apply within a domain strictly smaller than the word are examined. Four of these support the claim of Kaplan that apparent non-iterativity can be derived via other well-motivated patterns in the relevant language. However, data from the Central dialect of Crimean Tatar supports the case that harmony may be truly non-iterative, which suggests that iterativity must be choice in the phonological grammar.

  PublisherDOI

• Rounding Harmony

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2024-10-22 · 1 citations

  book-chapterSenior author

  Abstract A survey of rounding harmony (RH) from across the world’s languages reveals certain recurring patterns. These patterns have been described and analyzed in prior typological work, which has generally started with the observation that the simplest possible RH pattern—a vowel must be rounded if it is adjacent to a rounded vowel—is rarely encountered. Rather, phonological constraints on either the trigger, the target, or both are nearly always observed. This chapter summarizes the RH systems of languages that represent the known patterns, including data that have been previously included in typological accounts as well as more recently identified instances of rounded harmony, and suggests certain phonetic factors that may underlie the typological patterns that are known to exist.

  PublisherDOI

• The rise and fall of rounding harmony in Turkic

  2023-11-30 · 2 citations

  book-chapterSenior author

  Abstract It has been proposed that vowel harmony in general arises through the phonologization of vowel-to-vowel coarticulation (e.g. Hyman 2002; Przezdziecki 2005; Barnes 2006). Specifically for Turkish, Johanson (1979a) argues that the evolution of rounding harmony is attributable to the reduced phonetic quality, [ə], of [+high] suffixes. Given these claims, the null hypothesis for the loss of phonological harmony would affect the domain of harmony as a whole, resulting in phonetic vowel-to-vowel coarticulation. Drawing on nineteenth-century texts and the authors’ own fieldwork on Crimean Tatar and Kazakh, this chapter argues that the decay of rounding harmony in numerous Turkic languages crucially involves contraction of the harmonic domain and the proliferation of invariant suffixes.

  PublisherDOI

• Use It or Lose It Harmony in Komo

  Proceedings of the Annual Meetings on Phonology · 2023-05-13 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  This paper discusses a case of putative dominance reversal in the Komo language (Otero 2015, 2019), which we analyze as a related, but distinct repair strategy called “Use it or Lose it” (Mullin & Pater 2015).Mullin & Pater (2015) argue that Use it or Lose it harmony is a pathological prediction of Agree for the same basic reason that “Sour Grapes” harmony (Wilson 2003, 2006; Heinz & Lai 2013) has been regarded as pathological – both Use it or Lose it and Sour Grapes harmony patterns are non-myopic (Wilson 2003, 2006). Wilson argues that unbounded spreading patterns are universally myopic, and as such, no theory should predict that the realization of some element in spreading – trigger or target – depends on downstream information. However, recent research has shown that some patterns in natural languages are, in fact, non-myopic, indicating that the predictions of Agree are not as problematic as previously thought. This paper argues that the best analysis of Komo relies on the activity of [Atr] and both regressive [+Atr] spreading and [+Atr] trigger effacement are repairs to a single marked structure in the language, *VC0[Hi, Atr].

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Issues in Uyghur phonology

  Language and Linguistics Compass · 2022-12-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract This article presents an overview of several significant aspects of the phonology of Uyghur (ISO: uig; pronounced [ʊjˈʁʊr]; Turkic: China). In addition to summarising previous research, we present new data and highlight its relevance for phonological theory. The paper focuses primarily on the processes of backness harmony, rounding harmony, and vowel reduction. Particular attention is paid to the complex, and sometimes opaque, interactions between these processes, as well as the role of phonological exceptionality.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Non-iterativity, Icy Targets, and the Need for Non-linear Representations in Feature Spreading

  Proceedings of the Annual Meetings on Phonology · 2022-08-05 · 81 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Vowel and vowel-consonant harmonies have been central to much linguistic theorizing over the last century. One prevailing theme in this work is the need for non-linear representations. Clements (1981) and Jurgec (2011) argue for the superiority of non-linear representations for the analysis of unbounded and bounded feature spreading, respectively. This paper modifies and extends the metrical analysis in Jurgec (2011) to provide an Optimality Theoretic account for three bounded harmonies, rounding harmony in Central Crimean Tatar, as well as ATR harmony in Bangla and Iny. In all of these patterns, a vowel undergoes harmony but does not further propagate the harmonic feature. The metrical analysis is then compared to analyses employing string-based and autosegmental representations.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Anna Mai

  Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics

  5 shared

• Eric Baković

  UC San Diego Health System

  4 shared

• Eric Meinhardt

  University of California, San Diego

  4 shared

• Darya Kavitskaya

  3 shared

• Caicai Zhang

  Hainan Medical University

  2 shared

• Si Chen

  Google (United States)

  2 shared

• James Essegbey

  University of Florida

  2 shared

• Sharon Rose

  Vellore Institute of Technology University

  1 shared