Bert Vaux


Bert Vaux teaches phonology and morphology at the University of Cambridge. Previously, he taught for nine years at Harvard and three years at University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Vaux specializes in phonological theory, dialectology, field methodology, and languages of the Caucasus. Vaux was editor of the journal Annual of Armenian Linguistics from 2001 to 2006 and is co-editor of the book series Oxford Surveys in Generative Phonology.

Professional history

Vaux's Law, which he first formulated in a 1998 article in Linguistic Inquiry, states that laryngeally unspecified – i.e. voiceless – fricatives become / in systems contrasting fricatives without reference to /; thus they are to be aspirated or, more technically, to be pronounced with a spread glottis.

Selected publications

Vaux is frequently consulted by the press for linguistic articles. For example, in 2004 he discussed product names that contain place names, such as Coney Island hot dogs. In 2005 he was interviewed in USA Today regarding the differences in regions of the United States about whether to call carbonated soft drinks "soda", or "pop", or "coke". In 2002-2003 his survey to create a linguistics map for the United States was mentioned in the press. In 2005 the San Francisco Chronicle mentioned his research about how musician vocabulary affects vocabulary at large.