Aaron Dinkin's web site
I still haven't really gotten around to making a web page yet. But I've produced enough stuff by now that I ought to have it accessible somewhere, so here it is. Note the general sparseness of my html design. You have no idea how long it took me to figure out how to get that picture over there.

I pronounce caught the same as cot.

papers|puzzles|poems|plays|people

Papers

 I'm a grad student in the Linguistics department at U.Penn. My main research interest is the interaction of abstract phonological structure with the direction of phonetic and phonological change, and how that interaction is manifested in dialect variation. My dissertation topic is Boundary Communities in the Dialectology of New York State; you can read a copy of my dissertation proposal if you like. Here's a selection of my research:

  • "Fading In and Out of the Inland North". Talk to be presented at Methods XIII, Leeds, August 2008.
  • "Settlement Patterns and the Eastern Boundary of the Northern Cities Shift". Talk presented at the American Dialect Society annual meeting, Chicago, January 2008. Handout (PDF).
  • "Bridging the Gap: Dialect Boundaries and Regional Allegiance in Upstate New York" (with William Labov). Talk presented at Penn Linguistics Colloquium 31, Philadelphia, February 2007. Handout (PDF).
  • "The Real Effect of Word Frequency on Phonetic Variation". Talk presented at Penn Linguistics Colloquium 31, Philadelphia, February 2007. Handout (PDF). Paper (PDF) printed in Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 14.1 (2008), 97–106.
  • "Unnatural Classes and Phonological Generalization in Dialect Formation". Talk presented at NWAV 35, Columbus, Ohio, November 2006. Handout (PDF).
  • "An Experimental Study on the Interpretability of Ostensible Subject-Control Promise". Talk presented at the LSA Summer Meeting, East Lansing, Mich., June 2006. Handout (PDF).
  • "'Sporadic' Syncope and Latin Phonology's Wicked Stepmother". Talk presented at Penn Linguistics Colloquium 30, Philadelphia, February 2006. Abstract (PDF).
  • Co-author to Michael Friesner on: "Russian Immigrants in Philadelphia as English Speakers and Philadelphians". Talk presented at NWAV 34, New York, October 2005. Handout (PDF). Paper printed as "The Acquisition of Native and Local Phonology by Russian Immigrants in Philadelphia" in Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 12.2 (2006), 91–104.
  • "Marry-Merry-Mary Merger in New England: Further Analysis". Talk presented at Methods XII, Moncton, N.B., August 2005. Handout (PDF).
  • "Mary, Darling, Make Me Merry; Say You'll Marry Me: Tense-Lax Neutralization in the Linguistic Atlas of New England". Poster presented at NWAV 33, Ann Arbor, Mich., October 2004. Paper (PDF) printed in Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 11.2 (2005), 73–90.

    My Erdős number is 4, if you count conference presentations: Erdős & Chvátal (1972); Chvatal & Sankoff (1975); Sankoff & Labov (1979); Dinkin & Labov (2007).

    Puzzles

     I was a member of "S.P.I.E.S.", the organizing team for the 2006 MIT Mystery Hunt. Puzzles I wrote for that Hunt include:
  • All for One and One for All
  • Calumny Challenge
  • Counterintelligence
  • Got Your Number
  • Gross Solitaire
  • 182.2 Smoots
  • A Research Puzzle
  • Revisions
  • Spoiler Warning!
  • one of eight subpuzzles for the puzzle event Data Analysis
  • with co-authors Matt Cain and Jennifer Berk: Editor
  • with co-authors Ross Hatton and Joia Hertz: License to Kill
  • co-author with Seth Kleinerman on: Joined at the Hip
  • co-author with Noah Snyder and Jeff Cohen on: Second Time's the Charm
  • co-author to Iolanthe Chronis on: Hey, Look, a Grid!
  • co-author to David Speyer on: Tea for Two and Two for Tea
    as well as several metapuzzles and a meta-metapuzzle, and some of endgame including a trivia puzzle that had to be solved in order to advance.

    Other puzzles I've written include one for a Random Hall puzzle session in March 2004 called A Short Quiz,
    and several for HRSFA's annual September mini-Hunts, including for the 2004 HRSFA Harry Potter–themed hunt:
  • Ancient Runes
  • Care of Magical Creatures
  • Charms;
    for 2006, one called Get Your Kicks;
    and for 2007, one called If You Wear This ... Hide Your Hair.

    Poems

     I often write double-dactyls. Sometimes I make people write double-dactyls.

    Plays

     I do way more on-campus theatre than any grad student legitimately has time for (mostly with the Underground Shakespeare Company and Penn Players). Shows I've been in at Penn include, but are not limited to:
  • The Tempest with Underground Shakespeare
  • You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown with Stimulus Children's Theater
  • A Midsummer Night's Dream with Underground Shakespeare
  • King Lear with Underground Shakespeare
  • Into the Woods with the Penn Law School Light Opera Company
  • Metamorphoses with iNtuitons
  • Lady in the Dark with the Penn Theatre Arts Program
  • Annie Get Your Gun with Penn Players
  • The Real Inspector Hound, the Penn Theatre Arts Council's Small Fall show
  • Reckless with Penn Players
  • The Merchant of Venice with Underground Shakespeare
  • Elsinore! with iNtuitons

    Prior to Penn, I music-directed Songs for a New World at MIT and vocal-directed Les Phys, my roommate Peter's masterpiece, at Harvard. Before that, I was music director of the Harvard Noteables, sine quibus non.

    If you want a more detailed list of shows I've done, look here.

    Becca|Jeff|Marnie|Ben|Melanie|Cendri|Rebecca|Steven|Priscilla|David|Jennifer|Warren|some others

    me: dinkin@ling.upenn.edu
    my office: 3600 Market Street, suite 800, equipment closet