Word-level prosodic systems
My primary interest is the phonological representation of pitch accent languages and how they fit into the overall prosodic typology. Much of my motivation centers on the historical typology of accentual change: tone language > pitch accent language > stress language. The borders between 'pitch accent' and its neighbors is quite fuzzy, so one goal in looking at its representation is to find the "tipping point" between one system and another, whether this is in an autosegmental framework, through constraint reranking or some other representation. Since my vision of this particular project is fairly large (I'd love to have a few research assistants on it once I start teaching!), I've been spending time on simply getting better acquainted with the variety of behaviors found across different prosodic systems, notably in the Otomanguean family.
Historical linguistics methodology
Beyond the historical aspect my phonological work tends to take on, I am also interested in theory-oriented issues in historical linguistics, including the interaction between linguistics and other academic fields. I think it is important that we better articulate methodologies that will guide the way that linguists use non-linguistic data and, similarly, the way that linguistic data is used by other specialists. Time depth and long distance relationships are particularly important areas in which guidelines should be clarified not only because the assumptions behind them are sometimes misrepresented but also because they constitute a significant part of linguistics as it reaches the general public.
