About

I am a PhD student in the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Linguistics. Before coming to Penn, I graduated from the University of Michigan with a BA in linguistics and Asian studies (Southeast Asia submajor). My research interests are centered around language contact with an emphasis on contact-induced change of morphology, so I am lucky to be co-advised by Professors Marlyse Baptista and David Embick. I am specifically interested in morphology feature transfer in creole and pidgin languages that have Malay or Tagalog as a source language.

Outside of my work, I am an avid language learner! I speak French and Indonesian and took some Korean courses in college. Research experiences have also exposed me to Jejueo, Malay, Betawi, and Cham. I am currently studying Filipino and Tagalog (with some dabbling in Irish).

I can be best reached at pristina[at]sas[dot]upenn[dot]edu or you can use this link.

How to pronounce my name

Although I was named after the capital of Kosova/o, my parents adopted an Americanized pronunciation, and my first name is pronounced [prɪˈstinə] or pris-teen-ah. My surname/family name is represented by the Chinese character 官. You can listen to the variations of its pronunciation here, but the Hakka one is the most applicable to my family.