About Me:
I am currently Senior Lecturer in Language Change in the English Language and Linguistics programme at the University of York. Prior to that, I was a lecturer at Newcastle University, and I remain an affiliate of Newcastle's Centre for Behaviour and Evolution (CBE). Even before that, I worked for the National Science Foundation at the University of Iceland, where my collaborators and I built a syntactically parsed, diachronic corpus of Icelandic, The Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus (IcePaHC).
Before you ask if something is true, ask if it's *possible* that it's true.
--Anthony Kroch, p.c.
Current Research
Curriculum Vitae
Selected Publications
| 2019 |
A variational theory of specialization in acquisition and diachrony. In Anne Breitbarth, Miriam Bouzouita, Lieven Danckaert, and Melissa Farasyn eds., The Determinants of Diachronic Stability p. 245-262. PRE-PUB DRAFT PUBLICATION |
| 2016 |
Extraposition is Disappearing Language 92: 4, e237-e256 PRE-PUB DRAFT PUBLICATION |
| 2013 |
with Caroline Heycock
Explaining the loss of verb movement: How embedded V2 and V-in-situ conspired against V-to-T. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 16, 2-3: 127--157 DRAFT. PDF |
| 2013 |
Scrambling, LF, and Phrase Structure Change in Yiddish. Lingua 133: 289-318 DRAFT. PDF |
| To appear |
Antisymmetry and Heavy NP Shift Across Germanic, PDF
DRAFT. Syntax over Time: Lexical, Morphological and Information-Structural Interactions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Presented at DIGS 12, 2009. Slides |
| 2012 |
Language Acquisition in German and Phrase Structure Change in Yiddish, PDF
DRAFT. Parameter Theory and Linguistic Change . Oxford: Oxford University Press. Presented at DIGS 11, 2009. Slides |
| To appear |
with Josef Fruehwald and Jonathan Gress-Wright Phonological Rule Change: The Constant Rate Effect, PDF Proceedings NELS 40 Presented at NELS 40, 2009 |
| 2008 |
with Mark Dredze Further Results and Analysis of Icelandic Part of Speech Tagging, PDF Technical Report MS-CIS-08-13, Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania |
| 2008 |
with Mark Dredze Icelandic Data Driven Part of Speech Tagging, PDF Proceedings of The 46th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computation Linguistics (ACL) Presented at ACL 46 |
| 2007 |
English Weak Pronouns and Object Shift, PDF Proceedings of the 26th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, 27-29 April, 2007, University of California at Berkeley. Cascadilla Press. |
| 2006 |
Formal linguistics meets the Boojum: metrical variation in Lewis Carroll’s verse, PDF Proceedings of the 31st Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, University of California at Berkeley Presented at BLS 31 |
| 2005 |
The Story of the American –self: a case study in morphological variation, PDF Penn Working Papers in Linguistics Vol. 11.1: Proceedings of the 28th Annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium Presented at PLC 28 |
Selected Presentations
| 2019 |
How useful is information theory in predicting patterns of language use? Slides Talk presented at the Centre for Behaviour and Evolution Newcastle University May 14th, 2019 |
| 2017 |
(with Henri Kauhanen and Caroline Heycock) A theory of variational specialization across domains of the grammar Slides Talk presented at the 4th Formal Ways of Analyzing Variation (FWAV 4) University of York, York, U.K. June 29th, 2017 |
| 2016 |
A theory of variational specialization across domains of the grammar Slides Talk presented at the 7th International Conference on Formal Linguistics Nankai University, Tianjin, China December 3, 2016 |
| 2016 |
Towards a model of variational specialization in acquisition Slides Talk presented at project meeting University of Iceland October 6, 2016 |
| 2015 |
(with Betsy Sneller) Allophonic Emergence: three ways allophonic rules come to be Slides Presented at the Formal Ways of Analyzing Variation (FWAV) Workshop Háskóli Íslands May 28, 2015 |
| 2013 |
A unified theory of stable variation, syntactic optionality, and syntactic change. Slides Presented at 15th Diachronic Generative Syntax (DiGS) Conference. DiGS 15 University of Ottawa (L'Úniversité d'Ottawa). August 2, 2013 |
| 2013 |
with Josef Fruehwald Optionality is Stable Variation is Competing Grammars. Slides Presented at 25th Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics, Formal Ways of Analyzing Variation (FWAV) Workshop. SCL 25 Háskóli Íslands (University of Iceland). May 15, 2013 |
| 2012 |
with Anton Karl Ingason and Einar Freyr Sigurðsson Antisocial Syntax: Disentangling the Icelandic VO/OV parameter and its lexical remains. Slides Presented at 14th Meeting of the Diachronic Generative Syntax (DIGS) Conference DIGS 14 University of Lisboa. July 6, 2012 |
| 2012 |
Diachrony as a Laboratory for Syntactic Theory: the two Germanic
subject positions and change in English.
Slides
University of York. January 25, 2012. |
| 2011 |
with Anton Karl Ingason and Einar Freyr Sigurðsson Distinguishing change and stability – a quantitative study of Icelandic oblique subjects Slides Presented at 13th Meeting of the Diachronic Generative Syntax (DIGS) Conference DIGS 13 University of Pennsylvania. June 4, 2011 |
| 2011 |
with Caitlin Light On the use of passives across Germanic Slides Presented at 13th Meeting of the Diachronic Generative Syntax (DIGS) Conference DIGS 13 University of Pennsylvania. June 5, 2011 |
| 2011 |
Towards A Field of Comparative Quantitative Information Structure
Slides
Presented at 9th Meeting of the Symposium on Historical English Syntax (SHES) SHES 9 University of Leiden. April 17, 2011 |
| 2010 |
What Doesn’t Change, Doesn’t Change: antisymmetry and HNPS across Germanic. Handout Slides Presented at 12th Meeting of the Diachronic Generative Syntax (DIGS) Conference DIGS 12 Queens College, University of Cambridge. July 14, 2010 |
| 2010 |
Antisymmetry and the Information Structure of Heavy NP Shift Across Germanic. Slides Presented at 25th Meeting of the Comparative Germanic Syntax Workshop CGSW 25 University of Tromsø, Norway. June 11, 2010 |
| 2010 |
with Anton Karl Ingason and Einar Freyr Sigurðsson Extending the Comparative Dimension of Diachronic Syntax: A Parsed Corpus of Icelandic from the 12th Century to Modern Times. Slides Presented at University of Massachusetts, Amherst May 11, 2010 and at New York University, May 14 2010 |
| 2010 |
with Anton Karl Ingason and Einar Freyr Sigurðsson 12th Century Homilies: the cutting edge in parsing. Slides Presented at Íslensk Máltækni 2010 Háskólinn í Reykjavík (Reykjavík University) April 15, 2010 |
Dissertation
I received my Ph.D from the University of Pennsylvania, and it focused on scrambling, the Antisymmetry Hypothesis, and syntactic change (especially in Germanic). The thesis is entitled Antisymmetry and the Conservation of C-Command: Scrambling and Phrase Structure in Synchronic and Diachronic Perspective.