Mathematics

Nazarré Merchant received her Ph.D. in linguistics from Rutgers University. Additionally, she has a M.S. in mathematics and a M.S. in computer science both from the University of Oregon. Her undergraduate degree is from Eckerd College. Professor Merchant’s research focuses on the formal structure of linguistic theories with a particular emphasis on Optimality Theory and how the structure of a theory inherently classifies languages. Additionally, her research explores how language learners exploit grammatical structures to bootstrap language acquisition.