Nicholas Rolle

Nicholas Rolle is an Assistant Professor in the Program in Linguistics at Princeton University, with a concurrent research position at the Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS) in Berlin. He holds a PhD (2018) from UC Berkeley's Department of Linguistics. His research focuses on phonology, its interfaces with morphology and syntax, and Africanist linguistics, particularly in Niger-Congo languages. Key topics include grammatical tone interactions, prosodic constituency, and typological studies across African languages.

Education: PhD in Linguistics (2018), UC Berkeley; prior research at ZAS Berlin. Research emphasizes fieldwork collaboration with communities in Nigeria and Sierra Leone, documenting languages like Limba, Esan, Degema, Izon, and Kalabari. His work integrates formal theory with empirical data, contributing to projects like the ALFA database analyzing African vowel systems.

Recent publications explore tone-driven epenthesis in Wamey and Ghomala’, segment-tone interactions, and theoretical debates in morphology-phonology interfaces. Collaborations include editing Morphology's special issue on multiple exponence and co-authoring studies on subcategorization and allomorphy. His book project on grammatical tone under contract with Mouton de Gruyter synthesizes morpho-phonological interfaces.

Key projects include the ALFA initiative mapping areal linguistic features in Africa, revealing correlations between ATR harmony and interior vowel systems. Fieldwork locations include Sierra Leone's mountainous regions and southern Nigeria, prioritizing community collaboration for language documentation.