Jacob Fernandes

jacob [dot] fernandes [at] nyu [dot] edu

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About Me

I am a second year PhD student of Linguistics at NYU and recent graduate from Harvard University (c/o '24) where I received a Joint Bachelors of Arts in Linguistics and Computer Science (Highest Honors), along with a language citation in Modern Japanese. My theoretical research interests include agreement, A/Ā distinction, and locality.

I am also passionate about language revitalization and documentation. I have linguistic fieldwork experience in languages from several language families:

  • Alabama (Muskogean)
  • Georgian (Kartvelian)
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Oshiwambo (Bantu)

My Publications

Manuscripts

  • [link] Fernandes, Jacob. 2024. Applications of Machine Learning for Predicting Sound Symbolism in Japanese and Korean Ideophones. Cambridge: Harvard Unviersity. [Dataset]
  • [link] Fernandes, Jacob. 2024. Size matters in Georgian, too.
  • [link] Fernandes, Jacob & Silva, Ava. 2024. Alabama Type I agent morpheme agreement: A Stratal OT account.

Presentations

  • [slides] (with Ava Silva) The allomorphs are not what they seem: a Stratal OT account of Alabama Agent Agreement. Talk presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA), 2026.
  • [Poster]“Too big to fail: Selective Opacity Effects in Three Types of Georgian Relative Clauses.” Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the South Caucasian Chalk Circle (SCCC), 2025
  • [slides] (With Tanya Bondarenko) Sentence mood in the tense system of the Alabama language Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA), 2025