About

Natalie Weber is an Assistant Professor in the Yale Linguistics department. Her research program focuses on theoretical phonology and issues at the syntax-phonology interface, including the relationships between prosodic and morphosyntactic constituents, phonological realization of morphemes, and linearization. She also has a secondary research interest in historical phonology and the challenges of subgrouping within language families. Since 2011, her empirical focus has been on prosodic structure in Blackfoot, an Algonquian language spoken in Montana, USA, and Alberta, Canada. Outside of her academic work, she enjoys social improvised partner dances such as swing, blues, and Argentine tango. Originally from Texas, she is proud of her roots.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Linguistics
• Philosophy
• Artificial Intelligence
• Psychology
• Speech recognition
• Programming language
• Natural Language Processing

Selected publications

• Blackfoot Words

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2025-10-15

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  A database of inflected word tokens in Blackfoot (Algonquian; ISO-639-3: bla). Each word token is analyzed into its constituent stem and morpheme tokens, including their containment relationships. Each stem and morpheme token is linked to an abstract lemma type. For more information, see https://www.blackfootwords.com/.

  PublisherDOI

• Blackfoot Words: a database of Blackfoot lexical forms

  Language Resources and Evaluation · 2023-03-31

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This paper describes the structure and creation of Blackfoot Words, a new relational database of lexical forms (inflected words, stems, and morphemes) in Blackfoot (Algonquian; ISO 639-3: bla). To date, we have digitized 63,493 individual lexical forms from 30 sources, representing all four major dialects, and spanning the years 1743-2017. Version 1.1 of the database includes lexical forms from nine of these sources. This project has two aims. The first is to digitize and provide access to the lexical data in these sources, many of which are difficult to access and discover. The second is to organize the data so that connections can be made between instances of the "same" lexical form across all sources, despite variation across sources in the dialect recorded, orthographic conventions, and the depth of morpheme analysis. The database structure was developed in response to these aims. The database comprises five tables: Sources, Words, Stems, Morphemes, and Lemmas. The Sources table contains bibliographic information and commentary on the sources. The Words table contains inflected words in the source orthography. Each word is broken down into stems and morphemes which are entered into the Stems and Morphemes tables in the source orthography. The Lemmas table contains abstract versions of each stem or morpheme in a standardized orthography. Instances of the same stem or morpheme are linked to a common lemma. We expect that the database will support projects by the language community and other researchers.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Situating Blackfoot within a typology of (mobile) boundary tone grammars

  Proceedings of the Annual Meetings on Phonology · 2022-08-05 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  We propose that boundary tones are best understood as derived from the interaction of constraints that introduce tones at certain levels of the prosodic hierarchy and constraints that govern the alignment of those tones to segmental material. On this decomposition of the classic notion of a boundary tone, we expect to find languages in which a tone introduced by a prosodic constituent surfaces away from the edge of that constituent. We refer to these as 'mobile' boundary tones. Informed by a quantitative analysis of pitch contours, we argue that Blackfoot is a mobile boundary tone language. We provide a grammar to account for the Blackfoot pattern, where a L tone introduced by the prosodic word surfaces before a H tone docked to the stress syllable, and we situate Blackfoot within a mini-typology predicted by re-ranking of the proposed constraints.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Prosodic Word Recursion in a Polysynthetic Language (Blackfoot; Algonquian)

  Languages · 2022-06-24 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This paper focuses on prosodic adjunction at the Prosodic Word level in a polysynthetic language. I argue that recursion at a depth of more than two levels can only be generated by a theory which requires exact correspondence between certain syntactic phrases and Prosodic Words. Such a theory is similar to Phonological Phrase correspondence in Match Theory, suggesting there is an underlying shared property between correspondence at the Prosodic Word and Phonological Phrase levels. In addition, this theory must include a constraint which prohibits recursive prosodic constituents in order to generate the attested typology of clitics across languages. The empirical focus is the prosodic structure of the verbal complex in Blackfoot (Algonquian; ISO 639-3: bla). Using phonotactic evidence I argue that the vP phase corresponds to a Prosodic Word, and that each prefix to the stem is a Prosodic Word adjunct. I then compare several theories of the syntax-prosody interface, including versions of Alignment Theory, Wrap Theory, and Match Theory. A subset of schematic candidates with one or two prefixes to a stem are used to determine which theories generate the attested typology of clitics as well as a multiply recursive Prosodic Word structure.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Blackfoot Words

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2022-07-11

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Blackfoot Words, a relational database of lexical tokens (words, stems, and morphemes), their constituent structure, and their corresponding lemmas in Blackfoot (Algonquian; ISO 639-3: bla). For more information, see https://www.blackfootwords.com/.

  PublisherDOI

• (Don't) Try this at Home! The Effects of Recording Devices and Software on Phonetic Analysis

  Language · 2021 · 34 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  • Psychology

  Because of restrictions on in-person research due to COVID-19, researchers are now relying on remotely recorded data to a much greater extent than in the past. Given the change in methodology, it is important to know how remote recording might affect acoustic measurements, either because of different recording devices used by participants and consultants or because of the software used to make recordings. This study investigates audio signal fidelity across different inperson recording equipment and remote recording software when compared to solid-state digital audio. We show that equipment choice and software can have a large effect on acoustic measurements, including those of frequency, duration, and noise. The issues do not just reflect decreased reliability; some measurements are systematically shifted in particular recording conditions. These results show the importance of carefully considering and documenting equipment choices, particularly for crosslinguistic or cross-speaker comparisons. We close with a framework for researchers to use in deciding what types of recording may be most appropriate.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Blackfoot Words

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2021-12-12

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Blackfoot Words, a new relational database of lexical forms (words, stems, and morphemes) in Blackfoot (Algonquian; ISO 639-3: bla). For more information, see https://www.blackfootwords.com/.

  PublisherDOI

• (Don't) try this at home! The effects of recording devices and software on phonetic analysis: Supplementary material

  Language · 2021 · 11 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  • Linguistics
  PublisherDOI

• Phase-based Constraints within Match Theory

  Proceedings of the Annual Meetings on Phonology · 2021-05-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This paper argues that Match Theory (Selkirk 2011) cannot account for some types of phrasal syntax-prosody correspondence in Blackfoot (Algonquian; Frantz 2017). I focus on the verbal complex and show that the verbal complex contains phrasal syntactic structure all the way up to a CP phrase, and that it contains two distinct prosodic constituents corresponding the vP/VP and the CP, respectively. Since the verbal complex contains phrasal syntax, theories of phrasal syntax-prosody correspondences should apply. I argue that the definitions of the syntactic units which correspond to prosodic constituents must be redefined based on phases, and show how a phase-based revision of Match Theory can account for the syntax-prosody correspondence in Blackfoot verbal complexes. The result is a unified theory of the prosodic phonology of stems and phrases which is built on universal syntactic definitions. Although Match Theory is the theoretical focus of this paper, the evidence from Blackfoot implies that phrasal syntax-prosody correspondences can and should be brought 'below the word' in any theory of prosodic phonology.

  PublisherDOI

• Syntax, prosody, and metrical structure in Blackfoot

  2020 · 118 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Natural Language Processing
  • Linguistics

  This dissertation investigates the correspondences between syntactic, prosodic, and metrical constituents in Blackfoot (Algonquian), a polysynthetic language. I propose that the syntax-prosody correspondence is distinct from the alignment of prosodic and metrical structure. In a parallel constraint-based model of phonology, this predicts that a language might satisfy isomorphic syntax-prosody correspondence at the expense of prosodic and metrical alignment, or vice versa. To determine the generalizations in Blackfoot, I gathered data by conducting fieldwork with speakers and consulting published reference materials. Some arguments in the dissertation are based on original morphological and phonological analyses of Blackfoot stems. For the syntax-prosody correspondence, I hypothesize that each syntactic phase corresponds to a particular prosodic constituent by default. Specifically, the vP phase (the predicate of events), matches to a Prosodic Word (PWd) constituent, and the DP and CP phases match to Phonological Phrase (PPh) constituents. I model these relationships using a modified version of Match Theory (Selkirk 2011), where mismatches between syntactic phases and prosodic structure only occur in order to satisfy prosodic wellformedness constraints. For the relation between prosody and metrical structure, I hypothesize that the edges of metrical constituents align to different prosodic constituents (prosodic word, phonological phrase, or intonational phrase). Regarding structure in Blackfoot, I argue that a constraint which requires sister nodes within the prosodic structure to be of the same type outranks the syntax-prosody MATCH constraints. This forces each DP argument and also the remainder of the CP (e.g. the verbal complex) to be matched to a PPh constituent. The vP phase and every higher vP projection corresponds to a PWd constituent, which is distinct from the PPh. I argue that the metrical constituents in Blackfoot align to PPh edges, and that syllables frequently span PWd edges. This is a predicted outcome, given that the MATCH and ALIGN constraints are violable. The model I propose accounts for the correspondence relations in Blackfoot, and leads to a typology of predicted language types, with implications for extending Match Theory to account for polysynthetic languages.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Christopher P. Brown

  The University of Texas at Austin

  5 shared

• Yeojoo Yoon

  2 shared

• Juhyae Kim

  2 shared

• Hanna Thompson

  Duke University

  2 shared

• Erika Frandrup

  2 shared

• Roslyn Burns

  Yale University

  2 shared

• Chelsea Sanker

  Palo Alto University

  2 shared

• Claire Bowern

  Yale University

  2 shared

Education

• PhD, Linguistics

  University of British Columbia

  2020