Interview with Professor Mia Gong

Last week, the WHASC Editor talked with Mia Gong, who just joined the Department as an Assistant Professor.

Professor Gong received the PhD in 2022 from Cornell University. Her research, which is in theoretical syntax and the syntax-morphology interface, aims to account for structural variation and typological parallels across languages. It is characterized by a strong commitment to fieldwork, in particular to two Mongolic languages: Dagur and Chakhar Mongolian. Her work has appeared or will soon appear in Linguistic Inquiry and Glossa.

WHASC Editor: How did you get into linguistics?

Gong: I took my first linguistics class in the form of an introductory syntax class while I was studying for my Master’s degree at the University of Delaware. Despite having a rather late start in linguistics, I was immediately drawn to the subject and soon afterwards I decided to pursue linguistics as a career. With the encouragement of my advisors I decided to leave UD to pursue a PhD in linguistics. After moving to Cornell, I had a lot of fun exploring typologically different languages and developed a more general interest in languages of East/Central Asia. 

WHASC Editor: What is a project that you are currently working on?

Gong: One of my current projects is on the same-subject/different-subject constructions in Mongolic languages, which superficially resembles the switch-reference system found in many American languages. I am very excited to be working with native speakers of different Mongolian dialects to test out several hypotheses for this project over the next few weeks. 

WHASC Editor: What is a big question in your subdiscipline that excites you, and why?

Gong: I’ve always been interested in the problems of descriptive and explanatory adequacy. For example, how can our theory be constructed in a way so that it correctly describes the tacit competence of native speakers, while simultaneously providing a principled explanation (independent of any particular language) for the selection of the descriptively adequate grammar? To what extent does our current theory of language qualify as a genuine explanation? While these are familiar problems, they help remind me why I entered the field of linguistics and have always grounded me and kept me going. 

WHASC Editor: What is the most interesting thing you have seen/done/learned about in Santa Cruz so far?

Gong: I would say the nature. I have never lived in a place like Santa Cruz before, and it’s always great to be walking on campus and see the early morning/twilight mist.

We are excited to have you as a member of the Department, Mia!