Glastonbury Abbey, August 1998 |
Associate Professor of Linguistics Rice University
Director of Cognitive Sciences
Office Herring Hall 209
Mailing address
|
Ling 320 Origins and
Evolution of Human Language (Spring 2012)
Cognitive Linguistics, Language Universals and Typology,
Semantics/Pragmatics, Language Change, Germanic languages,
Nilo-Saharan Languages, African Languages, Austronesian languages
The ICLA website has been based at Rice University since 2003. Martin
Hilpert (now at the University of Freiburg) is the Web Editor, and I am the
Webmaster.
See the ICLA site for
information on events, governance, and other ICLA matters.
The 6th Conceptual Structure,
Discourse and Language Conference (CSDL 6)
was held at Rice University October 12-14, 2002. Michel
Achard and I co-organized the conference. Keynote speakers: John
Lucy, Susanna Cumming, Ron Langacker.
July 2013
March 28-31, 2013, Plenary speaker, 4th International Conference on
Cognitive Semantics, Hunan University, Chengsha, China.
July 9, 2012. UK-CLA. King's College, London.
May 4, 2012. Keynote lecture,
6th Conference on Language, Discourse and Cognition (CLDC 6),
"Neuro-cognitive underpinnings of language: An evolutionary view."
April 25-May 9, 2012. Lecture series, National Taiwan University, Taipei,
"Usage-Based Linguistics".
September 2011. Workshop on Cognitive Linguistics, held at the
Japanese Cognitive Linguistics Association biennial meeting, Japan.
July 7-August 7, 2011, Visiting Professor, LSA Institute, University
of Colorado, Boulder. Taught seminar with Michael Barlow on "Usage-Based Linguistics."
June 13-17, 2011, Faculty scientist, Symposium "Exploring the Mind through Music", Shepherd
School of Music, Rice.
May 22, 2011. Lexical blends and Morphology. Department of Applied
Language Studies and Linguistics Seminar, University of Auckland, New Zealand
April 15-17, 2011, Exploring the Boundaries and Applications of Corpus
Linguistics symposium, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa AL, U.S.A.
September 2010, CSDL conference, UCSD, San Diego, CA
June 2010, Conference on Lexical Blending, Lyon, France.
May 2010, Taiwan Research Fellow. Trips to NTU (Taipei), Wenzao
University nr. Kaohsiung, National Chengkung University, Tainan.
March 2010, LAUD Conference, Landau, Germany
October 2009. AACL conference, Alberta, Canada
Jan. 2009. LSA Conference, San Francisco
Sept.-October 2008. Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Dubrovnik, Croatia
July 2008. University of Osnabrück, Germany. Summer School in
Language, Cognition and Culture
July 2008. University of Hamburg, Germany. Talk in the Typology
group
June 2008. Graduate Summer Institute on "Cognition, communication and
culture", June 16-20, 2008, Shanghai International University,
Shanghai, China
June 2008. Department of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics, University of Auckland, New Zealand
March 2008. Rice-NTU Workshop, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
July 2007. International Cognitive Linguistics Conference. Krakow,
Poland
March 2007. Keynote speaker, International Symposium on Language, Culture and
Cognition. National Taiwan University
December 2006. Keynote speaker, BAAHE conference, University of
Leuven, Belgium
November 2006. Talks in Nagoya, University of Tokyo, Tohoko University Sendai,
Japan
November 2006. CSDL, University of California, San Diego
October 2006. Helsinki, Finland. Research visit and various talks
January 2006. With Martin Hilpert. Change in Collocational Profiles as
a Process of Grammaticalization. Linguistic Society of America
winter meeting, Albuquerque, NM
December 2005. Utrecht, Netherlands. Workshop on
Causation. Constructional Grammaticalization
November 2005. Helsinki, Finland. Keynote speaker, Symposium on
Interdisciplinary Themes in Cognitive Linguistics
November 2005. Linguistics Colloquium, University of Tartu, Estonia
October 2005. Constructional Profiles as the Basis of Semantic Analysis
Link to Powerpoint presentation.
Dubrovnik, Croatia. Keynote speaker, Converging and
Diverging Trends in Cognitive Linguistics
August 2005. With Martin Hilpert. Constructional
Grammaticalization. Presented at ICHL 17, U. Wisconsin at Madison
July 2005. Keynote speaker, ICLC 9. Yonsei University. Seoul, Korea
May 2005. Keynote speaker, First FCLA meeting, Bordeaux, France
March 2005. University of Nijmegen "Pionier" Lecture Series
December 2004. Keynote speaker, University of Hamburg, Germany
November 2004. Keynote speaker, High Desert Linguistics Society,
University of Albuquerque, NM. "Causation and Grammar"
November 2004. Keynote Speaker, Conference on Passive. "Passive and
Usage". University of Oslo, Norway
June 30-July 3, 2004. LIPP Symposium on Language and Linguistics,
University of Munich
September 2003. Conference on Imagery in Language, in Honor of Ronald
W. Langacker. Lodz, Poland. (Invited Plenary Speaker)
July 20-25, 2003, 8th ICLC conference, Logrono, Spain. "Function,
Discourse, and Mind: Unifying the Perspectives"
July 25-27, 2002, Second Nilo-Saharan NSF Workshop, Max Planck
Insititute, Leipzig, Germany (Invited speaker)
July 4-6, 2002 Rhetoric, Culture and Communication Conference, Mainz,
Germany (Invited speaker)
April 2002 Global Perspectives on Human Language Conference, Stanford
University (Invited speaker)
March 2002 First Nilo-Saharan NSF Workshop, Kisumu, Kenya (invited speaker)
Summer 2011 I will be teaching at the Linguistic Society of America
Summer meeting at University of Colorado, Boulder.
In Summer 2001 I was a Visiting Professor, Linguistic Society of America Linguistic Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara.
"In the sciences, one confronts some puzzling facts and attempts to
--Noam Chomsky, "Is Peace at Hand?" Zeta magazine, p. 12, Jan. 1988
Recent courses
Ling 416: Language Universals
and Typology (Spring 2012)
Ling/Engl 215, Words in
English (Fall 2011)
FSEM/Ling 138, Writing: Origin and Evolution (Fall 2011)
Interests
Activities
International Cognitive
Linguistics Association
CSDL
Language, Culture and Mind volume
Language, Culture and Mind, ed. by Michel Achard and Suzanne
Kemmer, Stanford: CSLI Publications, 2004.
An edited selection of 35 of the 70 papers presented at
CSDL6. Two substantial keynote articles by John Lucy and
Ronald W. Langacker bookend the volume. Other contributors include Ben
Bergen, Michael Israel, Sally Rice and John Newman, Anatol
Stefanowitsch and Stefan Gries, Fay Wouk, Barbara Kelly and Christine
Halvorson, Kristin Davidse, Carol Moder, Barbara Dancygier, Joanne
Scheibman, and Grace Song and Phillip Wolff. View the Table of
Contents at LCM Contents.
Rice - U.T. Austin Workshop
I coordinated, with the help of Martin Hilpert, the first Rice -
U.T. Austin Workshop, "Language in Use", held at Rice Oct. 23-24, 2004.
Usage-Based Models of Language
The book Usage-Based Models of Language, ed. by Michael Barlow
and Suzanne Kemmer, appeared in June 2000. It contains 9 original papers
based on a wide range of methodologies and types of data, all
converging on the basic idea that the study of language structure must
be grounded in the study of language use. Contributors include Ronald
Langacker, Joan Bybee, Sydney Lamb, Brian MacWhinney, Connie Dickinson
and T. Givon, Douglas Biber, Mira Ariel, Arie Verhagen, and Michael
Barlow. The link above allows you to "Search Inside" the volume and
look at the table of contents.
Upcoming and recent trips and presentations
Past conference and talk trips (past 10 years)
Teaching at LSA Institute
CSC Fellowship
Fall semester 2000 I was a fellow of the Center for the Study of Cultures.
I was working on a research project on causation in Luo and human language
generally.
Sabbatical at Max Planck
In spring-summer 2000 I was a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck
Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, in the
Department of Psychology.
Recent courses
Ling/Engl 215 Words in English:
Structure, History, Use
Ling/Psych 315/515 Semantics:
Introduction to the Study of Meaning
Ling/Engl 395 The History
of English
Ling 403 Foundations of
Linguistics
Ling 554 Seminar in
Semantic Theory
Other courses I have taught
Ling 554, Advanced Lexical
Semantics
Ling 405: Topics in Language Change. Topic for 2005: Constructions and Language Change
Ling 551: Graduate Seminar Seminar on
Constructional Syntax
Ling 402: Syntax and Semantics
Rice Continuing Studies: The English Language, Past and Present
Ling 595LB: UC Santa Barbara: Cognitive Lexical Semantics
Ling 550: Seminar in Semantic Theory (with Michel Achard)
Ling 409: Seminar on Causation and Motion (with Michel Achard)
Univ 112: The Power of Persuasion (with M. Achard, M. Hebl, C. Funk)
Ling 408: Field Methods: The Luo Language, Part II, Morphosyntax
Other Course Pages
The Luo Database
Data elicited by my 1997-98 Field Methods class on The Luo
Language has been put into a searchable database accessible via
the web. The Luo page also includes some grammatical sketches written
by the students and some other useful links. Page design: Sue Wen
Chiao.
New Words in English
Students in Linguistics 215
put together a page called "New Words in English" for neologisms (recently coined words) and
examples of their use. These words were collected in "Word Journals"
that the students kept during Fall 1996 (Fall 1998 soon to be added). Page design: Carlos Nash.
New
Word Journal
Another collection from the Word Journals of the
Linguistics
215 class from Fall 1997. This one has a web interface
designed by Jenn Drummond. Students inputted their entries directly to
the web, and provided actual citations (context and source) as well as
comments on usage. This journal includes both neologisms and
conventional words that happened to be new to the students. (The latter
give an idea of what college-level vocabulary acquisition looks
like.)
Emoticons
A collection of shorthand iconic emotive signalizers for use in electronic mail
(ranging from the useful to the silly).
Enjoy Words
Enjoywords is my hobby
website run from my home. On it I run a language blog about English
words and a Q&A Forum about words and grammar called "Ask Dr. Eek".
Linguistics Links
The Linguistic Society of
America Homepage
The Linguist List Homepage
Ethnologue: Languages of the World
Rutgers Optimality Archive
Vocal tract images
Metaphor Databank
Canadian English
English Language and Linguistics journal contents
Mark Turner's blending page
Linguistics Association of Finland
Dictionaries, Texts, and Other Language Reference
Oxford English
Dictionary Online (Accessible to the Rice community and to
other subscribers)
YourDictionary.com Lots of dictionaries of various languages. (Formerly A Web of On-line Dictionaries.)
WordNet A
lexical database for English
Electronic Text Resources
Corpus Linguistics: Zillions of Corpora
World Wide Words
My Favorite Other Links
Famous
Paintings. WebMuseum Paris.
Cave Paintings: Ardèche
Victorian Women Writers Project
Quote Corner
Illuminating quote from a person lacking all sense of irony:
devise principles that will explain them. In ideological warfare, one
begins with Higher Truths dictated from above. The task is to select
the facts, or invent them, in such a way as to render the required
conclusions not too transparently absurd--at least for properly
disciplined minds."