Manuel Otero

Biography

Manuel Otero joined Eastern’s Department of English in 2019 after earning a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Oregon. He specializes in the description of endangered languages and the documentation of their histories. His research examines languages spoken by marginalized communities in western Ethiopia and Sudanese refugees in the U.S.. Professor Otero teaches introductory linguistics and writing courses at Eastern and his overarching goal is to expose students to the beauty and complexity of human language, how it changes over time, and how it is an integral part of what makes us human.

Research Interests

• Historical Linguistics
• Documentation and Description of Endangered Languages

Publications

Otero, Manuel A. in press. At the intersection of associated motion, deictic direction and grammatical aspect in the Koman languages. Antoine Guillaume & Harold Koch (eds.), Associated Motion. De Gruyter Mouton.

Otero, Manuel A. accepted. Deictic direction, associated motion and ‘exchoative’ aspect in Ethiopian Komo. Studies in Language.

Otero, Manuel A. 2019. Aspects of Ethiopian Komo (morpho)phonology. Linguistic Discovery 16(2). 136-178.

Olejarczuk, Paul, Manuel A. Otero & Melissa Baese-Berk. 2019. Acoustic correlates of anticipatory and progressive [ATR] harmony processes in Ethiopian Komo. Journal of Phonetics 74. 18-41.

Otero, Manuel A. 2015. [+ATR] dominant vowel harmony except when it’s not? Evidence from Ethiopian Komo. In Ruth Kramer, Elizabeth C. Zsiga & One Tlale Boyer (eds.), Selected proceedings of the 44th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, 212–220. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.