About
I am an Associate Professor at Brown University. I am trying to explain the ways languages, and in particular their phonological systems, change.
My research focuses on the way consonant and vowel weakening patterns evolve, on the characteristics of linguistic convergence, on the balance between different kinds of information rate (in particular speech rate vs. the rest), and on the universality of information as a characteristic of segments. Recently, I found myself obsessing over methodological innovations, and I expect to release many of them in the coming months and years.
If you have any questions, please contact me.
Random comments regarding my name
If you cite any of my papers, note that my surname is “Cohen Priva,” not “Priva.” I know that it does not follow the American hyphenation pattern, and I might yield in future publications, but it’s “Cohen Priva, Uriel” not “Uriel C. Priva”
I pronounce my name /uʁ̞i'el/, but you can use your native liquid(s) if you drop the American English initial /j/. My name begins with an aleph (א), not a yod (י).
The Hebrew spelling is אוריאל כהן פריווה, but the transliteration from Arabic is misleading. The original name had a /f/, /e/, and /w/, not a /p/, /i/, and /v/ (there are several Cohen-Freue around, but I am not sure how we’re related).
Places to go
For linguistics and language at Brown, check out our main website!
