Maša Bešlin
[ˈmaʃə ˈbɛʃlɪn]
![](https://masabeslin.com/assets/img/prof_pic3.jpg)
I’m a PhD candidate in the Linguistics Department at the University of Maryland. My advisors are Masha Polinsky and Dave Embick.
Very broadly, I’m interested in exploring what the combinatorial limits of natural language tell us about its general properties. My research is primarily in syntax and its interfaces with phonology and semantics, with an empirical focus on Slavic and Mayan languages. My thesis asks the following questions: What are the basic building blocks of syntax and how do they map onto lexical categories, as traditionally construed? Does structure-building look the same above and below the ‘word’ level? Do syntactic and morphophonological locality effects have a common origin?
I’m affiliated with UMD’s Guatemala Field Station, where I’ve gained fieldwork experience in K’iche’. My research on this language has examined exceptive constructions, antipassives, ellipsis, and the widely held (but not closely scrutinized) view that Mayan languages lack the category Tense.
You can check out other topics I’ve worked on in my CV.