Carol Rose Little obtained her PhD from Cornell University. She joined the Modern Languages, Literatures and Linguistics department as an assistant professor of linguistics in 2021. Prior to coming to OU, she was a postdoctoral researcher at McGill University.
Her research program brings together syntax, semantics and morphology, rooted in a strong commitment to fieldwork and language documentation. She investigates possible structural variations crosslinguistically and how these structures interface with semantic computation. Her theoretical analyses draw on data collected from fieldwork with understudied languages, primarily the Mayan language Ch'ol. She has also published papers on Mi'gmaq, Finnish and Indonesian. She has been doing fieldwork with Ch'ol-speaking communities in Chiapas, Mexico since 2015.
At OU, Dr. Little teaches syntax, semantics, introduction to linguistics and field methods. She strives to create a dynamic environment in her courses so that each student may come away with a deeper understanding of the material. Her holistic approach to teaching makes it so that students may apply skills and concepts learned in her courses outside the classroom.
Research Interests: Syntax, semantics, morphology, language documentation, Mayan languages, Ch'ol
