Education:

2007                                    Massachusetts Institute of Technology

                                             Ph.D. granted in Linguistics.

                                             Dissertation: Repetition Avoidance in Human Language.

                                             Supervisor: Donca Steriade.

 

2000                                    Harvard University

                                             Master’s degree granted in Linguistics.

                                            

2000                                    Harvard University

Bachelor’s degree granted in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations & Linguistics, Summa cum laude.

                                             Thesis:  Pharyngealization in Dialects of Arabic.

 

 

Fellowships, honors and awards:

2004                                    Outstanding Young Investigator, BioMag 2004

2002-2005                          National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship

2001-2002                          Andrew W. Mellon Graduate Fellowship

2000-2001                          Fulbright Fellow (Yemen)

Summer 2000                     American Institute for Yemeni Studies Fellow

Summer 2000                     Flora M. Burt Travel and Research Fellowship (Yemen)

1998                                    Phi Beta Kappa

 

                                            

Publications:

Hacquard, Valentine, Mary Ann Walter and Alec Marantz. 2007. “The Effects of Inventory on Vowel Perception in French and Spanish: An MEG Study.” Brain and Language. paper

 

Walter, Mary Ann. 2006. “Grammatical Gender via Lexical Statistics: The Case of Arabic-to-Spanish Loanwords.” In Studies in Loanword Phonology, MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 52, F.F. Hsieh & M. Kenstowicz (Eds). Cambridge, MA: MITWPL. paper

 

Walter, Mary Ann and T. Florian Jaeger. Forthcoming. “Constraints on English that-drop: A strong lexical OCP effect.” Proceedings of the 41^st Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS). paper

 

Walter, Mary Ann. 2006. “Pharyngealization Effects in Maltese Arabic.” In Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics: Proceedings of the 16^th Arabic Linguistics Society Symposium, S. Boudelaa (Ed.).  Amsterdam:  John Benjamins. (refereed) paper

 

Walter, Mary Ann. 2005. “Child Arabic.”  Encyclopedia of the Arabic Language. Leiden: Brill.

Solicited contribution.

 

Walter, Mary Ann and Valentine Hacquard. 2004. “MEG Evidence for Phonological Underspecification.” Proceedings of BioMag 2004. longer version

 

Walter, Mary Ann. 2004. “Loan Adaptation in Zazaki Kurdish.” In Studies in Zazaki Grammar: Working Papers in Endangered and Less Familiar Languages 6, M. Kenstowicz (Ed.). Cambridge, MA: MITWPL. paper

 

Hacquard, Valentine and Mary Ann Walter. 2004. “Correlating Consonant Confusability and Brain Responses:  An MEG Study.”  Proceedings of the 29^th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society (BLS), P. Novak & C. Yoquelet (Eds.). Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Linguistic Society. paper

 

Walter, Mary Ann. 2003. “Kalaam, Kalaarbaam:  An Arabic Language Game in Hadramaut, Yemen.”   Proceedings of the 10^th Annual Symposium about Language and Society – Austin (SALSA).  Austin: Texas Linguistic Forum v. 45. paper

 

Bowern, Claire and Victoria Lotridge. 2002. Ndebele. Munich:  Lincom Europa. Contributor.

 

Edited volumes:

2004. Proceedings of the First Workshop on Altaic and Formal Linguistics (WAFL 1). A. Csirmaz, Y. Lee, & M. A. Walter (Eds.). Cambridge, MA: MITWPL.

 

1999. Harvard Working Papers in Linguistics 7.

 

Invited talks:

“Phonetic repairs of phoneme repetition.” Lund University Linguistics Department. April 20, 2006.

 

“OT Treatments of the OCP.” Stockholm University Fonologikollokviet. March 23, 2006.

 

“Repairing Repetition Phonetically.” Stockholm University Avseminarium. March 2, 2006.

 

“Underneath the OCP: Phonetic variation in American English.” University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign. Nov. 11, 2005.

 

“Underneath the OCP: Phonetic variation in American English.” Purdue Linguistics Lunchtime Seminars. Oct. 5, 2005.

 

“Investigating Sub-phonemic Contrast with Magnetoencephalography (MEG).” Purdue Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences Lunch Seminar. Sept. 26, 2005.

 

With Valentine Hacquard. “MEG and Phonological Perception.” Workshop on the Connection between Experimental and Theoretical Linguistics. Utrecht University, June 2003.

 

Conference presentations:

“Boudledidge: A contribution to language game typology.” Poster, 15^th Manchester Phonology Meeting, Manchester, May 24-26, 2007. poster

 

“Gradient gender assignment in Spanish: An OT-GLA account.” Experimental Approaches to Optimality Theory, Ann Arbor, Michigan, May 18-20, 2007. handout

 

“Adults assigning gender: Loanwords and L2 acquisition.” Amsterdam Gender Colloquium: An International Workshop on Grammatical Gender, Amsterdam, Sept. 15-16, 2006. handout

 

“OCP-driven Variation in American English Schwa Production.” Poster, Third Old World Conference in Phonology (OCP3), Budapest, Jan. 17-19, 2005. poster

 

With Valentine Hacquard, “Phonological Underspecification: Evidence from Neural Responses.” Generative Linguistics in the Old World (GLOW). Geneva, April 2005. handout

 

With T. Florian Jaeger. “Constraints on English that-drop: A Strong Lexical OCP Effect.” 41^st Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS), April 7-9, 2005.

 

With Valentine Hacquard. “Conditioned Allophony in Speech Perception: An MEG Study.” Second Old World Conference in Phonology (OCP2), Tromso, Jan. 20-22, 2005. slides

 

“Arabic Pluralization in Second-Language Acquisition.” Poster, Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition (GALANA). University of Hawaii at Manoa, Dec. 18-20, 2004. poster

 

With Valentine Hacquard. “MEG Evidence for Phonological Underspecification.” Poster, Biomag 2004, Boston, Aug. 12-18. poster

 

With Valentine Hacquard. “Warping of the Perceptual Space due to Vowel Inventory Size and Organization.” 12^th Manchester Phonology Meeting. Manchester, May 20-22, 2004.

 

“Vowel Adaptation in Zazaki Kurdish.” Generative Linguistics in the Old World (GLOW). Thessaloniki, April 2004. handout

 

With Valentine Hacquard. “Inventory and Allophony in Vowel Perception: An MEG Study.” KIT 3rd International Symposium on Brain and Language: Neurocognitive linguistics research and brain science by MEG, fMRI and related technology. Tokyo, December 11-12, 2003. slides

 

“The Meaning of Names in Hadramaut.”  Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Annual Meeting.  Anchorage, November 5-7, 2003. paper

 

With Valentine Hacquard. “Correlating Consonant Confusability and Brain Responses:  An MEG Study.”  Berkeley Linguistic Society (BLS) Annual Meeting.  Berkeley, CA, February 14-17, 2003. slides

 

“The Arabic Dialect of Hadramaut, Yemen.”  Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Annual Meeting.  Washington, D.C., November 24-25, 2002.

 

“Final Position, Prominence, and Licensing of Contrast.”  2^nd Annual Conference on Contrast and Complexity in Phonology.  Toronto, May 3-5, 2002. handout

 

“Kalaam, Kalaarbaam:  An Arabic Language Game in Hadramaut, Yemen.”  10^th Annual Symposium on Language and Society – Austin (SALSA).  Austin, TX, April 12-14, 2002. handout

 

“Arabic Card Jargon:  A Sociolinguistic Study in the Transmission of Popular Culture.”  4^th Annual Regional Middle East Studies Conference.  Santa Barbara, CA, March 23, 2002. handout

 

“The Arabic Dialect of Hadramaut, Yemen.”  North American Conference on Afroasiatic Languages.   Houston, TX, March 22-23, 2002. handout

 

“Pharyngealization Effects in Maltese Arabic.”  16^th Arabic Linguistics Society Symposium.  Cambridge, UK, March 1-2, 2002. handout

 

Service:

Office of Fellowships, interviewer and panel member, Northwestern University, 2007.

Student administrative volunteer, Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute, 2005.

Graduate Student Representative to the faculty, 2003-2004.

Departmental Colloquium Organizer, 2003-2004.

Organizing Committee, Workshop on Altaic in Formal Linguistics (WAFL), May 2003.

Organizing Committee, North East Linguistic Society (NELS) 33^rd Annual Conference, October 2002.

Graduate Student Council representative for the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT, 2002-2003.