Inina

Fanggualu'an inina

  • Indigenous language work & reclamation, revitalization

  • Indigenous thoughtways and philosophies

  • Chamoru linguistics (morphosyntax, phonology)

  • Austronesian linguistics (comparative/historical, typology)

  • Language contact and change

  • Linguistic fieldwork, documentation, and conservation

På’gogu 

  • English loanword integration in Chamoru. (Ongoing): My current research asks how English loanwords are integrated in Chamoru speech. This research aims to uncover the ways in which Chamoru speakers conform English speech sounds into the Chamoru sound system, if they are faithfully producing English speech sounds in Chamoru, and/or if they are innovating sound change through this language contact phenomenon. This project seeks to uncover the strategies Chamoru speakers employ for English loanword integration so as to better inform language pedagogy as it relates to the Chamoru sound system. 

Fåkpo’

  • Nonverbal clauses in Chamoru. (2025). This study was conducted through the compassionate mentorship of my current academic adviser Line Mikkelsen. The study sought to determine the morphosyntactic mechanisms that regulate the surface realizations of Chamoru nonverbal clauses. Using the Higgins taxonomy of nonverbal clauses, I found that Chamoru employs two strategies to distinguish nonverbal clauses types: verbal agreement or juxtaposition. Chamoru uses verbal agreement for predicational clauses, but uses juxtaposition for all other types of nonverbal clauses (specificational, identificational, and equative). This observation provides support for a predicational-equative distinction á la Citko (2008) and a small clauses phrase structure, e.g. EqP. This research further contributes to the literature on nonverbal clauses by providing evidence for possible underlying syntactic structures of languages that do not have a copular verb. Additionally, this research shows that despite long-term sustained language contact, Chamoru morphosyntax has remained relatively unaffected and actually resembles the surface forms of its Austronesian siblings.

  • A history of Chamoru language resistance and resurgence. (2025). This study was conducted in honorable collaboration with my fellow Chamoru scholar Ha’åni Lucia Falo San Nicolas. This history sought to trace the language policies that shaped the early American colonial period of Guåhan and the response that the post-World War II representative government enacted to mitigate the rapid language shift toward English and revitalize Chamoru. We offer a history of Chamoru language that not only acknowledges the well established political history, but also uncovers the everyday acts of resistances that Chamoru women embodied during those early American colonial years and the embodiment of that legacy today by Chamorus that breathe new life into Chamoru through various traditional arts (music) and modern technology (the internet/social media). This history offers our community the reminder that despite continual language contact and colonial subjugation, our ancestors’ resistance reminds us of our obligation to Chamoru’s continuity. 

  • Acoustic features of geminates in Chamoru. (2021). This study was conducted through the gracious collaboration of my MA thesis adviser David Ruskin, PhD. The study sought to determine the acoustic features of geminates in Chamoru. Focusing on singleton and geminate stops, the study found that although there is a length distinction, there also appears to be change-in-progress. This was evident through the length distinction between singletons and geminates among older speakers and a collapse of this distinction among younger speakers. This study showed that Chamoru geminates resemble much of the geminates in other world’s languages, i.e. geminates are marked by at least double the length of its singleton counterpart and obligatory shortening of preceding vowel. This research presents Chamoru language workers the opportunity to reflect on and determine possible linguistic interventions to mitigate this change-in-progress. That is: Do we let it run its course? Or do we intervene and create language teaching material that takes this finding into consideration?