Stanley Dubinsky

Stanley Dubinsky
dubinsky at sc dot edu

Professor of Linguistics
Linguistics Program and Department of English Language & Literature
Director of Jewish Studies
Ph.D., Cornell University, 1985
Linguistic theory, syntax, semantics.

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Some extra links:

Link to LING 300/ANTH 373/PSYC 470 (Fall 2009)
Introduction to Language Sciences

Link to LING 620 (Fall 2009)
Introduction to Syntax

Link to ENGL 650 / LING 505 (Spring 2009)
Linguistic Approaches to Early Modern English: Analyzing Spenser

Link to LING 721 (Spring 2007)
Syntactic Theory

To a map of the states that Bill Davies and I have run in (separately and together): map .

To a full c.v.: here

Handout (pdf) on Mideast Peace

Why academic boycotts are wrong, by Dena Davis (CHE 4/18/03)

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Research area.

My primary research area is syntactic theory. That is, descriptions and explanations of syntactic structures in natural languages, coupled with attempts to derive from these an understanding of the universal properties of human language. Much of my research between 1985 and 1995 focused on the syntax of complex predicates in Japanese, including studies of causative, potential, and passive verbal inflections, as well as of light verb constructions. I have also investigated similar constructions in a few African languages, including causatives in Oromo, pseudopassives in Lingala (Bantu), and Chichewa (Bantu) passives and statives. My recent research involves numerous collaborative efforts and includes investigations into the relation between Case and aspect, infinitival relative clauses, extraction from NP, grammatical functions, raising and control structures, the use of adjectival and verbal -ed suffixation in 19th century poetry, the classroom applications of syntactic analyses of Japanese, and on-line processing of coordinate structures.

Teaching areas.

Syntactic theory, semantics, history of linguistic theory, and general linguistics.

Major publications.

2007

New Horizons in the Analysis of Control and Raising. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 71. Dordrecht: Springer. 354 pp. (edited with William Davies)

Review by Glyn Hicks in Journal of Linguistics 45.1

A window into the syntax of Control: Event opacity in Japanese and English. In Anastasia Conroy, Chunyuan Jing, Chizuru Nakao and Eri Takahashi (eds.), University of Maryland Working Papers in Linguistics (UMWPiL) 15.74-99. College Park MD: UMWPiL. (with Shoko Hamano).

2006

Guest edited issue (9.2) of Syntax: A journal of theoretical, experimental and interdisciplinary research 9:111-223.
A special issue featuring articles based on a symposium at the 2005 LSA annual meeting, “New Horizons in the Grammar of Raising and Control”. (edited with William Davies)

Control into Adverbial Predicate PPs. Japanese/Korean Linguistics 14.177-188. (with Shoko Hamano)

2005

Encyclopedia entry on “Control and Raising” in Keith Brown (ed.-in-chief), Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd Edition), vol. 3, 131-138. Oxford: Elsevier Ltd (ISBN 0-08-044299-4). (with William Davies).

2004

The grammar of Raising and Control: A course in syntactic argumentation. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. 383 pp. (with William Davies)

Review by Ida Toivonen in Language 84.4

Raising (and Control). State-of-the-Article. GLOT International. Volume 7, number 9/10. (with William Davies)

2003

Case checking by AspP: The syntax and semantics of predicative postpositions. Japanese/Korean Linguistics 12.231-242. (with Shoko Hamano)

On extraction from NPs. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 21.1-37 . (with William Davies)

2001

Objects and other subjects: Grammatical functions, functional categories, and configurationality . Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 52 . Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Press (now Springer). 305 pp. (edited with William Davies)

Bypassing subjacency effects: How event structure amnesties extraction out of object NPs. Proceedings of the North East Linguistics Society (NELS 31). Amherst, MA: GSLA Publications, pp. 199-214. (with William Davies)

2000

Functional projections of predicates: Experimental evidence from coordinate structure processing. Syntax 3.182-214. (with Marie Egan, René Schmauder, and Matthew Traxler)
A novel semantic rule for causee marking and its pedagogical applications. Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese 34.1-24. (with Junko Baba)

1999

Teinei/keigo hyoogen: Toogozyoo no soonyuu ni okeru goyooteki kinoo (Polite/honorific expressions: The pragmatic function of syntactic embedding). In Gengogaku to nihongo kyooiku (Linguistics and Japanese language education), Yukiko Sasaki Alam (ed.), 113-128. Tokyo: Kurosio Shuppan. (with Junko Baba)

1998

Epithets as antilogophoric pronouns. Linguistic Inquiry 29.685-693. (with Robert Hamilton)

1997

Syntactic underspecification and light verb phenomena in Japanese. Linguistics 35.627-672.
Predicate union and the syntax of Japanese passives. Journal of Linguistics 33.1-37.

1996

Passive and stative in Chichewa: Evidence for modular distinctions in grammar. Language 72.749-781. (with S. Ron Simango)

1995

Syntactic underspecification: A minimalist approach to light verbs. Formal Approaches to Japanese Linguistics 1, M. Koizumi & H. Ura (eds), MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 24. Cambridge, MA.
Recategorization of prepositions as complementizers. Linguistic Inquiry 26.125-137. (with Kemp Williams)

1994

Predicate union and the syntax of Japanese causatives. Journal of Linguistics 30.43-79.
A challenge to Burzio's generalization: Impersonal transitives in western Bantu. Linguistics 32.47-64. (with Mazemba Nzwanga)

1992

Case assignment to VP-adjoined positions: Nominative objects in Japanese. Linguistics 30.873-910.

1991

On representing and constraining lexical government of syntactic structures. Linguistics 29.1011-1051. (with William Davies)

1990

Japanese object to indirect object demotion. In Studies in relational grammar 3, Paul Postal & Brian Joseph (eds.), 49-86. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

1988

Lexical and syntactic causatives in Oromo. Language 64.485-500. (with Maria-Rosa Lloret & Paul Newman)

Presentations (from March 2006).

2009

Single and Double Modal Syntax: A Unified Account. Berkeley Linguistics Society, University of California, Berkeley. February 2009 (with Minta Elsman).

The syntax of double modal constructions in non-standard English. LSA Annual Meeting, San Francisco. January 2009(with Minta Elsman).

2008

V-initial tendencies of Bulgarian: An (EPP) V-feature Account. Poster presentation at the 17th Annual Workshop on Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics (FASL 17), Yale University. May 2008 (with Mila Tasseva-Kurktchieva).

Double modal syntactic patterns as single modal interactions. Penn Linguistics Colloquium, University of Pennsylvania. February 2008 (with Minta Elsman).

The role of strong (EPP) V-features in determining Bulgarian word-order. LSA Annual Meeting, Chicago. January 2008 (with Mila Tasseva-Kurktchieva).

2007

Business Japanese: Mediating the modalities of language use and the locus of instruction. Southern Japan Seminar. Institute for Asian Studies. Florida International University. Invited discussant presentation for panel on Teaching Business Japanese in the Southern U.S.. Miami Beach. April 2007.

Mediating the syntax and semantics of Control. UNC Department of Linguistics 2007 Spring Colloquium, Invited Speaker. Chapel Hill. March 2007.

On the syntax of exhaustive Control and the calculus of events. LSA Annual Meeting, Anaheim, CA. January 2007.

2006

On the forms and functions of Control (and Raising). Seoul International Conference on Linguistics (SICOL), invited syntax workshop lecture. The Linguistic Society of Korea. Seoul. July 2006.

On the distribution of parasitic gaps in appositive clauses and restrictive modifiers. Korean Generative Grammar Circle, invited lecture. Dongguk University, Seoul. July 2006.

Observations on Case and Control in Japanese and English. Seoul National University, invited lecture. July 2006.

Sentential (and other non-nominal) subjects. 2006 SMOG International Conference on Linguistics, invited forum lecture. The Society of Modern Grammar, Daegu Catholic University, Korea. July 2006.

Parasitic gaps in restrictive and appositive clauses. Israeli Association of Theoretical Linguistics, Jerusalem. July 2006.

Some Japanese adverbial phrases: A grammatical puzzle. Southern Japan Seminar, Coral Gables FL. March 2006. (with Shoko Hamano).

Case and Control in Japanese (and English). University of Kentucky, Department of English, invited lecture. March 2006.