Research

Phonology. My research focuses on phonology, the study of speech sound patterns in natural languages. In particular, I am interested in prosody, the area of phonology studying phenomena such as pitch, intonation, and rhythm, and phonotactics, which explores the principles governing the organization of speech sounds into larger units, such as syllables and words. I have delved into topics like tone, stress, prosodic weight, and their complex interactions in natural languages. I primarily subscribe to the strain of research known as metrical stress theory, which analyzes stress patterns using metrical constituency. Many of my recent projects have revolved around the debate between different phonological frameworks, centering on determining which of these frameworks provide the most plausible models of the phonological component of the grammar. My current work is deeply rooted in constraint-based theories of phonology, including Optimality Theory and Harmonic Grammar. Some key areas in my research include opaque interactions between phonological processes, complex prosodic systems, constraint cumulativity, and the prosodic patterning of clitics. My research is conducted under the supervision of Kevin Ryan and Aleksei Nazarov.

Dialectology and linguistic variation. My foundational linguistic education in Belgrade was profoundly influenced by the rich tradition of South Slavic dialectology. During this period, I drew inspiration from the works of renowned South Slavic dialectologists, including Aleksandar Belić, Stjepan Ivšić, and especially Pavle Ivić, whose descriptive and theoretical contributions to South Slavic dialectology and historical linguistics inspired my journey in linguistics. My research combines the immense prosodic complexity documented across South Slavic dialects with linguistic theory, aiming to provide plausible analyses of long-standing issues in South Slavic dialectology, and to inform prosodic theory using novel South Slavic data, to the mutual benefit of these two areas of research. I obtained a Master's degree from the University of Belgrade in 2021. My Master's thesis, supervised by Professor Ana Batas, takes up the issue of the acoustic manifestation of word stress in a non-standard variety of Serbian. This project integrates my interests in dialectology and linguistic variation, acoustic phonetics, and prosody.

Historical linguistics. I embarked on my academic journey as an historical linguist during my undergraduate program, with a primary focus on Balto-Slavic and ancient Germanic languages, as well as the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European, the hypothetical ancestor of numerous languages spoken in Europe and parts of Asia. This interest has led to several papers and conference presentations, covering a wide range of issues, including the regularity of sound change and the interface between diachronic prosody and etymology. Throughout this period, I had the privilege to work under the guidance of Professor Orsat Ligorio.

Syntax. Since I started my PhD program at Harvard, I have learned a great deal about syntax, both from my professors and my peers. I am currently working on my second generals paper on cross-clausal A-dependencies in Serbian, which integrates syntactic theory with experimental and quantitatve methods. My research in this area is supervised by Susi Wurmbrand, to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for opening my eyes to the thrilling world of linguistics beyond phonology, defying my earlier beliefs.