Reseach | Maksymilian Dąbkowski

A'ingae (or Cofán, ISO 639-3: con) is an Amazonian isolate spoken by ca. 1,500 Cofán people in the province of Sucumbíos (northeast Ecuador) and the department of Putumayo (southern Colombia). In addition to documenting and describing the language, I have explored a number of theoretical topics, including the morphophonology of metrical stress and glottal stops, recent sound changes, morphosyntactic boundary marking, apprehensional semantics, second-position clitics, pied-piping, conditional constructions, and others.

In a series of papers, I describe and analyze the interactions among A'ingae metrical stress, glottal stops, and the structure of the language's complex words. First, I provide detailed descriptions of A'ingae phonology (1) and the morphosyntax of verbs and clauses (2). Then, I delve into aspects of the morphology of A'ingae glottalization in the verbal domain, including its morphophonologically mediated relation to stress (3), its role in the metrically optimizing verbal reduplication -ʔσ pla (4), and the morphosyntax of -ʔ T realized between verbal inflection and discourse marking (5). Finally, I describe the morphophonology of the A'ingae noun phrases (6), analyze patterns of deglottalizing contamination found in historically derived nouns (7), and explain the syntactic blocking of phonological effects observed with nominal classifiers (8) and other nominal/adjectival morphemes (9).

(1) Phonology. In: Metrical stress and glottal stops in A'ingae: A study of cyclicity and dominance at the interface of phonology and morphology, pp. 32–64. Doctoral dissertation. University of California, Berkeley. 2025. chapter (an earlier version of the chapter published in Language and Linguistics Compass)

(2) Morphosyntax of A'ingae clauses and verb phrases: A description. Manuscript. University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam. Submitted. manuscript (an earlier version of the paper available as Chapter 4 of the dissertation Metrical stress and glottal stops in A'ingae: A study of cyclicity and dominance at the interface of phonology and morphology)

(3) Strata, diacritics, and their interactions: A study of verbal morphophonology. In: Metrical stress and glottal stops in A'ingae: A study of cyclicity and dominance at the interface of phonology and morphology, pp. 136–209. Doctoral dissertation. University of California, Berkeley. 2025. chapter (an earlier version of the chapter published across Natural Language & Linguistic Theory and Phonology) ❧ Dissertation talk presented at the University of California, Berkeley. 2025. slides

(4) A'ingae reduplication is phonologically optimizing. In: Supplemental Proceedings of the 2022 Annual Meeting on Phonology. Ed. by Noah Elkins, Bruce Hayes, Jinyoung Jo, and Jian-Leat Siah. Washington, DC: Linguistic Society of America. 2023. proceedings poster

(5) Boundary glottals and A'ingae information structure: A morphological argument for a discourse feature geometry. Syntactic Theory and Research. Resubmitted. manuscript ❧ In: NELS 55: Proceedings of the Fifty-Fifth Annual Meeting of the North Eastern Linguistic Society, Volume One, pp. 149–158. Ed. by Duygu Demiray, Roger Cheng-yen Liu, and Nir Segal. Amherst, Massachusetts: GLSA (Graduate Linguistics Student Association), Department of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. 2025. proceedings poster

(6) Morphology and morphophonology of the A'ingae noun phrase: A description. In preparation.

(7) Deglottalizing contamination in A'ingae historical derivatives. In: Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 10(1), 5879. Washington, DC: Linguistic Society of America. 2025. proceedings

(8) Nominalizing classifiers and the limits of dominance: A first look at A'ingae's syntactically blocked morphophonology. In: Phonological domains in Algonquian and other morphologically complex languages. Ed. by Natalie Weber. Oxford University Press. Accepted. manuscript

(9) Hierarchy compliance in A'ingae phonological overriding: A study of dominance effects and their morphosyntactic blocking. In preparation.

I describe and analyse two phenomena affecting diphthongs: postlabial raising (*ai > ɨi / P _) and postlabial rounding (/ae/ → [oe] / P _). The postlabial raising reflects a sequence of sound changes, whereby *ai first postlabially rounded and then unrounded (followed by replacement and paradigmatic leveling) (1). The postlabial rounding of /ae/ results from its subsegmental make-up, ae = (a¹ a² e² e³), contributing a novel argument for the representations of Q-Theory (2).

(1) Postlabial raising and paradigmatic leveling in A'ingae: A diachronic study from the field. In: Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 8(1). 5428. Ed. by Patrick Farrell. Washington, DC: Linguistic Society of America. 2023. proceedings poster

(2) A Q-Theoretic solution to A'ingae postlabial rounding. Linguistic Inquiry, pp. 1–14. 2025. squib

I propose that in A'ingae, nasality is a suprasegmental feature of the morpheme, and that it always spreads from the left edge. This predicts that, within a morpheme, (pre)nasal(ized) segments are never preceded by oral sonorants/vowels, and that prenasalized stops are always followed by oral segments.

The (progressively more) Amazonian character of A'ingae nasality. Paper presented at the 6th Symposium on Amazonian Languages, University of Alberta in Edmonton, AB. 2026. handout

I analyze A'ingae second-position clitics as matrix clausal C-heads, demonstrating that—despite its apparent non-configurationality—A'ingae has a structured left periphery (1). I describe A'ingae pied-piping structures and account for them using Cable's (2010) Q-particle theory (2).

(1) A'ingae second-position clitics are matrix C-heads. In: Proceedings of the Workshop on Structure and Constituency in the Languages of the Americas 25, pp. 31–42. Ed. by Marianne Huijsmans, D. K. E. Reisinger, and Rose Underhill. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics. 2023. proceedings

(2) A'ingae pied-piping: A Q-based analysis. Paper presented at the 4th Symposium on Amazonian Languages, University of California, Berkeley. 2022. handout

In a collaborative project with Scott AnderBois, we describe and analyze different uses of the A'ingae apprehensional morpheme -sa'ne appr (1). We put forth a formal account of rationale and precautioning clauses, which captures language-internal asymmetries and typological trends within this semantic domain (2–3). We propose a typological framework for describing and comparing apprehensional synchrony and diachrony (4).

(1) The apprehensional domain in A'ingae (Cofán), as first author, with Scott AnderBois. In: Apprehensional constructions in a cross-linguistic perspective, pp. 77–117. Ed. by Martina Faller, Marine Vuillermet, and Eva Schultze-Berndt. Research on Comparative Grammar. Berlin: Language Science Press. 2026. chapter

(2) A'ingae =sa'ne 'appr' and the semantic typology of apprehensional adjuncts, as equal author, with Scott AnderBois. In: Proceedings of the 30th Semantics and Linguistic Theory Conference, pp. 43–62. Ed. by Joseph Rhyne, Kaelyn Lamp, Nicole Dreier, and Chloe Kwon. Washington, DC: Linguistic Society of America. 2020. proceedings

(3) Rationale and precautioning clauses: Insights from A'ingae, as first author, with Scott AnderBois. Journal of Semantics 40(2-3), pp. 391–425. 2024. article

(4) The semantics and expression of apprehensional modality, as second author, with Scott AnderBois. Language and Linguistics Compass 19(1), e70002. 2025. article

I have documented A'ingae in the indigenous communities of Dureno and Sinangoé (Sucumbíos, Ecuador) and remotely (1–2). I am depositing over 57 hours of oral narrative video recordings (of which over 16 hours have been transcribed and translated) as well as elicitation data, including fieldnotes and over 220 hours of audio recordings (3).

(1) A'ingae language documentation, as equal author, with Justin Bai, Kalinda Pride, and Nicholas Tomlin. Poster presented at Summer Research Symposium, Brown University, Providence, RI. 2017. poster

(2) Language background. In: Metrical stress and glottal stops in A'ingae: A study of cyclicity and dominance at the interface of phonology and morphology, pp. 21–30. Doctoral dissertation. University of California, Berkeley. 2025. chapter (an earlier version of the chapter published in Language Documentation and Description)

(3) A'ingae field materials. 2020-19. California Language Archive, Survey of California and Other Indian Languages. University of California, Berkeley. collection

I describe the meanings of A'ingae nominalizing classifiers (1). I argue that in distanced conditionals, mental space distance is conveyed with the semantically bleached similative marker (2). I propose that the A'ingae "nominal negative" -a nn expresses agreement with the Neg(ative) feature on T (3).

(1) Cofán comes in all shapes and sizes. Manuscript. Brown University, Providence, RI. 2017. manuscript

(2) Conditional constructions in A'ingae. Manuscript. University of California, Berkeley. 2021. manuscript

(3) Polarity agreement in A'ingae nominalizations. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, Denver, CO. 2023. handout

In a collaborative project with Hannah Sande and Emily Clem, we document and analyze discontinuous vowel harmony in Guébie (Kru, ISO 639-3: gie) focus fronting. We propose a novel model of the phonology-syntax interface, where subparts of phonologically evaluated phases may undergo further movement.

Discontinuous vowel harmony in Guébie: Cyclic interleaving of syntax and phonology, as third author, with Hannah Sande and Emily Clem. Language, pp. 1–32. 2026. article

In collaboration with Gašper Beguš et al., I investigate the phonological properties of sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) communication. I demonstrate that sperm whale codas pattern like human vowels in several ways. E.g., different coda types are correlated with particular click qualities, and coda durations are intentionally controlled. Sperm whale coda vocalizations thus represent one of the closest parallels to human phonology of any known animal communication system.

(1) The phonology of sperm whale coda vowels, as second author, with Gašper Beguš, Ronald L. Sprouse, David F. Gruber, and Shane Gero. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 293(2069), 20252994. 2026. article ❧ Poster presented at the 2025 Annual Meeting on Phonology, University of California, Berkeley. 2025. poster

(2) Spectral properties of sperm whale coda vowels off the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador, as third author, with Gašper Beguš, Ronald Sprouse, Roee Diamant, David F. Gruber. Project CETI. Submitted.

CC BY 4.0 © Alex Boersma

In collaboration with Gašper Beguš, I investigate unusual phonological and syntactic patterns from a diachronic perspective. We show that phonetically unmotivated intervocalic devoicing, word-final voicing, and word-final nasalization in several Austronesian languages and Dakota (Siouan, ISO 639-3: dak) arose from sequences of natural sound changes (1–2). We propose that the Austronesian (ISO 639-5: map) voice system has resulted from the reanalysis of prepositions as postverbs (3).

(1) The blurring history of intervocalic devoicing, as second author, with Gašper Beguš. Journal of Linguistics 61(2), pp. 211–230. 2025. article

(2) Complex diachronies of final nasalization in Austronesian and Dakota, as first author, with Gašper Beguš. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 9(1). 2024. article

(3) The origins of the Austronesian voice system and subject-only restriction, as second author, with Gašper Beguš. Manuscript. University of California, Berkeley and the University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam. 2026. manuscript_PsyArXiv manuscript_lingbuzz

In a collaborative project with Gašper Beguš and Ryan Rhodes, we outline a research program and design experiments aimed at testing the performance of large language models on linguistic theory (1–2). We show that OpenAI's o1 vastly outperforms previous models on tasks involving drawing syntactic trees and phonological generalization (1).

(1) Large linguistic models: Investigating LLMs' metalinguistic abilities, as second author, with Gašper Beguš and Ryan Rhodes.IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence 6(12), pp. 3453–3467. 2025. article ❧ (as first author, with Gašper Beguš) Poster presented at the 99th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, PA. 2025. poster

(2) Large language models and (non-)linguistic recursion, as first author, with Gašper Beguš. Manuscript. University of California, Berkeley. 2023. manuscript_arXiv manuscript_lingbuzz

I have contributed to a collection of fieldwork materials on Paraguayan Guaraní (or PG, Tupian, ISO 639-3: gug) (1), and analyzed the prosodic structure of the language's verbs (2). I show that the PG (partially free) suffix order is determined by phonological subcategorization and prosodic well-formedness (3). I propose that the phenomenon of free affix order is driven by either phonology or morphology, giving rise to two distinct typological profiles (4). In a collaborative project with Katherine Russell, we demonstrate that prosodic wordhood plays a central role in the grammar of PG and must be referenced to account for suffix order, reduplication, as well as nasal spreading (5).

(1) Berkeley Field Methods: Paraguayan Guaraní, with María Gómez, Irma Easty Ovelar, Madeline Bossi, Emily Drummond, Emily Grabowski, Rebecca Jarvis, Phuong Khuu, Lev Michael, and Katherine Russell. 2020-09. California Language Archive, Survey of California and Other Indian Languages. University of California, Berkeley. collection

(2) Paraguayan Guaraní prosody and the typology of variable affix order. Manuscript. University of California, Berkeley. 2022. manuscript

(3) Prosody drives Paraguayan Guaraní suffix order. In: Supplemental Proceedings of the 2021 Annual Meeting on Phonology. Ed. by Peter Jurgec, Liisa Duncan, Emily Elfner, Yoonjung Kang, Alexei Kochetov, Brittney K. O'Neill, Avery Ozburn, Keren Rice, Nathan Sanders, Jessamyn Schertz, Nate Shaftoe, and Lisa Sullivan. Washington, DC: Linguistic Society of America. 2022. proceedings poster

(4) Paraguayan Guaraní and the typology of free affix order. In: Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 7(1). 5159. Ed. by Patrick Farrell. Washington, DC: Linguistic Society of America. 2022. proceedings

(5) Wordhood at the heart of Paraguayan Guaraní morphology, as first author, with Katherine Russell. Paper presented at the workshop on Exploring Boundaries: Phonological Domains in the Languages of the World, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø. 2025. handout

In a collaborative project with Alyssa Loo, Ellie Pavlick, and Roman Feiman, we demonstrate that people's understanding of a written narrative is disrupted when certain types of inferences are violated. Our findings show that people can reason spontaneously, automatically, and correctly, and suggest that natural logic constitutes an inherent part of human thought.

Language comprehension reveals natural logical ability, as first author, with Alyssa Loo, Ellie Pavlick, and Roman Feiman. Manuscript. University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam and Brown University, Providence, RI. 2023. manuscript ❧ (as first author, with Roman Feiman) Paper presented at the 34th CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 2021. slides

In a collaborative project with Justin Bai, Nicholas Tomlin, and Kalinda Pride, we formalize a syntactic fragment of Yucatec Maya (Mayan, ISO 639-3: yua) in Sign-Based Construction Grammar (1). I argue against a nominalization analysis of the language's intransitive subjunctive control (2).

(1) Yucatec Maya in SBCG: A fragment, as equal author, with Justin Bai, Kalinda Pride, and Nicholas Tomlin. Paper presented at the 24th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, University of Kentucky, Lexington. 2017. slides grammar_signature

(2) Yucatecan control and lexical categories in SBCG. In: Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, pp. 162–178. Ed. by Stefan Müller. CSLI Publications. 2017. proceedings slides

I have dabbled in other things, including Polish sociolinguistics and pragmatics, pied-piping, Garífuna prosody, philosophy, translation, and emojis.

Variable syntax of the Polish future imperfective. Manuscript. University of California, Berkeley. 2023. manuscript slides

Pied-piping by Cyclic Agree: In defense of feature percolation. Manuscript. University of California, Berkeley. 2021. manuscript

Wordhood and stress in Garífuna. Manuscript. University of California, Berkeley. 2021. manuscript

Berkeley Field Methods: Garifuna, with Frank Palacio, Anna Björklund, Alexander Elias, Wendy López Márquez, Lev Michael, Tzintia Montaño Ramírez, Allegra Robertson, Dakota Robinson, and Zachary Wellstood. 2021-25. California Language Archive, Survey of California and Other Indian Languages. University of California, Berkeley. collection

Definiteness and word order in Polish. Manuscript. Brown University, Providence, RI. 2018. manuscript

Marrying the prosentential theory of truth to formal semantics. Manuscript. Brown University, Providence, RI. 2018. manuscript

A Wittgensteinian look on vagueness. Ivy League Undergraduate Research Journal 1, pp. 1–12. Ivy League Undergraduate Research Symposium. 2018. article

The end and the beginning and The three oddest things. Translations of the poems Koniec i początek and Trzy rzeczy najdziwniejsze by Wisława Szymborska. Aldus, a Journal of Translation 8, pp. 6–13. 2016. translations

Proposal for a pretzel emoji, as equal author, with Justin Bai. Unicode® Technical Committee Document Registry L2/16-374. 2016. document

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