Welcome to Alexis Michaud's home page!

My main research areas are experimental phonetics and linguistic typology (especially tonal typology). I also have a strong interest in historical linguistics, and a lasting commitment to linguistic documentation--tapping the potential of the new technologies to provide reliable, high-quality databases of rare and endangered languages.

After completing a Ph. D. in Phonetics at the Labo de Phonétique et Phonologie, I was awarded a tenure position at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) as full-time researcher, starting in October 2006. I am now working at the LACITO-CNRS laboratory, a laboratory specialised in research into rare languages. At the LACITO, I continue to do fieldwork on Naxi, a Tibeto-Burman language, and investigate synchronic and diachronic issues raised by languages of the Sino-Tibetan and Austroasiatic families. The LACITO is located in a building that bears the name of the great linguist/scientist André-Georges Haudricourt--one of the many reasons why I am delighted to work there. 

The years I spent at the Labo de Phonétique et Phonologie were very intense and rewarding. The academic environment there is magnificent, and gives students an awareness of all that has been accomplished in the history of phonetics/phonology (especially since the times of the Abbé Rousselot for experimental phonetics, in the late 19th century, and since Praguian phonology in the 1920s and 1930s), as well as a keen sense of all that there is still to be done. 

A CV presenting my degrees, professional activities and publications is available here. These pages provide a more informal presentation, divided into sections: research, resources, and fieldwork. 

New to 2008:

- an article about tones in Naxi, published in the Journal of the International Phonetic Association; 

- a conference paper on tones and intonation for ISSP '08; 

- and the extension of my research to a new language, /la.ze/, which is spoken in Muli county 木里, Liangshan prefecture 凉山, Sichuan 四川. This is part of a four-year research project headed by Katia Chirkova. 

New to 2009: an article about tones in Tamang (Nepal), in collaboration with Martine Mazaudon; and an analysis of the phonemes and tones of the Na ("Mosuo") language (China).

(Link to a full list of my downloadable publications)

Resources

Fieldwork