Mithun Marianne

Mithun Marianne is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), USA, since 1986. Previously, she held roles including Visiting Professor at UC Berkeley (1982-1986) and Professor at SUNY Albany (1973-1985). She earned a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1974. Her research focuses on morphology, syntax, discourse, prosody, language contact/change, typology, and documentation of Indigenous and Austronesian languages.

She has held visiting positions globally, including at the University of Nice, Stanford, and La Trobe University. She serves on editorial boards for journals like Amérindia and Journal of Linguistic Typology. Her honors include Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America (2008), the Medaille du Collège de France (2005), and Doctorates Honoris Causa from La Trobe University (2003) and the University of Oslo (2000). She was elected to the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in 1998.

Recent activities include leading international research initiatives on cross-linguistic clause combining (2010-2012) and serving on scientific committees for language documentation conferences. Her work bridges linguistic theory with empirical analysis, emphasizing fieldwork and endangered language preservation.