Inversion in Russian, Smuggling, and Leapfrogging (Storment and Collins)

Abstract: Russian is a canonically-SVO language with relatively free word order (Bailyn 1995). As others have shown, OVS word orders for transitive clauses involve A-movement of the preverbal object (Bailyn 2004; Pereltsvaig 2021, a.o), while the fronted object of OSV sentences lacks A-properties and is derived via Ā-movement. In this squib, we account for these facts under a Minimalist analysis of inversion as smuggling (Collins 2024; Storment 2025b), showing that smuggling accounts for the OVS word order and the A-properties of the fronted object. We contrast the smuggling analysis with an alternative, leapfrogging, which we show fails to account for the OVS-OSV asymmetries regarding A-movement, as well as introducing a general theoretical issue of unrestrictiveness.

Inversion in Russian, Smuggling, and Leapfrogging

Inversion in Russian, Smuggling, and Leapfrogging (Lingbuzz)

Verb Movement (Class Exercise -- Graduate Syntax I)

Syntax I Fall 2025

Classroom Exercise: Verb Movement in French

Objective: To learn how to draw tree diagrams of well-known examples from French in order to discuss theoretical issues involving head movement.

Instructions: Students take 20-25 minutes to draw the trees below. Students are not allowed to use any outside sources in drawing these trees. 

Topics to Discuss: head adjunction, Mirror Principle, HMC, Extension Condition, c-command.

Source: Pollock, Jean-Yves. 1989. Verb Movement, Universal Grammar, and the Structure of

IP. Linguistic Inquiry 20.3: 365-424.

1. Jean (n’)     aime     pas   Marie.

Jean (NEG) likes   NEG Marie

‘Jean doesn’t like Marie.’

2. Aime-t-il        Marie?

like-t-3M.SG Marie

‘Does he like Marie?’

3. a. Jean embrasse souvent  Marie.

Jean kisses       often   Marie

‘Jean often kisses Marie.’

b. *Jean souvent embrasse Marie.

c. Jean a souvent embrassé Marie. (ChatGPT)

Jean has often  kissed     Marie.

“Jean has often kissed Marie.’

4. a. Mes amis  aiment tous Marie

my friends like    all    Marie

‘My friends all like Marie.’

b. *Mes amis tous aiment Marie

5. a. Pierre n      ’a       rien      mangé

Pierre NEG have nothing eaten

‘Pierre has eaten nothing.’

b. *Pierre n’a         mangé    rien

6. a. Pierre ne   mange       rien

Pierre NEG eats nothing

‘Pierre doesn’t eat anything.’

b. *Pierre ne rien mange

7. a. Ne    pas    regarder la   télévision… (subject infinitival clause)

NEG NEG watch    the television…

‘Not to watch TV…’

b. *Ne regarder pas la télévision…

Class Exercises for Graduate Level Syntax (pedagogy)

In my attempt to get away from lecture based learning, and get more into hands-on fieldwork based learning, I have written a few class exercises for graduate level Syntax and II. These exercises are meant to be done by the students during the class period. The students then show their work, and the class discusses the results.

I will add more exercises as I write them up. I will also be happy to post exercises written by other people.

Syntax I

Practice Tree Drawing

Unergatives versus Unaccusatives

Nominalizations and Implicit Arguments

Antisymmetry and Cinque 2005

Head Movement

Syntax II

A-Movement versus A'-Movement

Cinque 2005 (class exercise -- graduate Syntax I)

 Syntax I                 Fall 2025

Classroom Exercise: Cinque 2005

1. Read Cinque 2005:

Cinque, Guglielmo 2005. Deriving Greenberg’s Universal 20 and Its Exceptions. Linguistic Inquiry 36, 315-332.

2. Choose a language other than English for which you will investigate DP structure. You can use your own native language. If needed, you can do some fieldwork and consult a native speaker. Alternatively, you can find the relevant information in a good grammar. We have nine students in the class, there should be nine different languages chosen for the assignment. I want to see an interesting range of languages!

3. Provide some examples illustrating the order of the following elements (all appearing in the same phrase): Demonstrative (Dem), Numeral (Num), Adjective (Adj) and Noun (N). If possible, your set of examples should include both grammatical and ungrammatical orderings. Examples from English include: ‘those three new cars’, or ‘these four brown dogs’.

4. State the generalization governing the order of these elements in the DP. If there is flexibility in word order, describe the possible orders (and what triggers those alternative orders).

5. Using the theory in Cinque 2005, give the tree diagram for one of the examples that you found in (3). You will present your tree diagram in class on the white board on Wednesday, November 5, 2025.

6. Write up your results, including a discussion of any issues that came up in steps (4) and (5). The length of the write-up, including the tree diagram, should be about three pages double-spaced. It is due before class on Monday, November 10, 2025.

Note: Your language may involve classifiers, case markers and/or other elements internal to a DP in addition to Dem, Num, Adj and N.  Such additional elements are not the focus of this exercise, so just do your best to incorporate them into the tree.

Note: For part (3), your examples should be glossed and translated. Each example should have three lines (the example, the gloss and the translation, in that order). You should follow the Leipzig glossing conventions (which are standard for the field of linguistics): http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/resources/glossing-rules.php. If you follow the Leipzig glossing rules, it will make it much easier for us to understand your data.

Guidelines for Final Papers in Syntax I (Graduate)

The students have written their proposals, and have gotten lots of feedback. Now it is time to write a final paper. These are very basic guidelines (the nuts and bolts) to help students write a research paper for Syntax I.

1. The paper should be around 15-20 pages (double-spaced) long, including references, trees and footnotes.

2. The paper is due on the last day of class, Wednesday, December 10, 2025.

3. Use Linguistic Inquiry style sheet (online). In other words, references, citations, margins and example numbering should all conform to the LI style sheet. No creative formatting allowed.

4. Your paper should be double-spaced, 12-point font, preferably Times New Roman. 

5. Avoid using footnotes. If some point is important, work it into the text. If it is not important, drop it. But if you must use footnotes, they should also be 12-point font (otherwise, I cannot read them when I print the papers off). 

6. Pages must be numbered, otherwise it is very hard to comment on the paper.

7. Your paper should have a title, author, date, institution (NYU).

8. It should also have an abstract and keywords. Writing an abstract is an excellent way to clear up your thinking on a complex topic, and to distill it into its most important points. Make it look as close as possible to a real paper that you would find posted on Lingbuzz.

9. For all non-English examples, use Leipzig glossing conventions:

https://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/resources/glossing-rules.php

10. In particular, all examples in languages other than English should consist of three lines:

Line 1: Sentence in target language

Line 2: English gloss

Line 3: English translation

11. Your paper should include a paragraph on your source of data. It should be possible for me to know where every single sentence in your paper came from. You might say: The data in this paper are the native speaker acceptability judgments of the author.

12. Write your paper for an audience that has had basic syntax (e.g., a one semester graduate introduction to syntax, or a yearlong basic undergraduate course). All concepts, terminology and principles you use should be carefully defined. For example, if you invoke Principle A of the binding theory, you need to give the definition in the paper (and the source of the definition). Don’t just assume that we all know it.

13. The basic syntactic framework for your paper should be Principles and Parameters/Minimalist Syntax. Of course, it is possible to discuss innovations and additions to this theoretical framework.

14. Please try to write a syntax paper. You will have plenty of opportunity in other classes to write phonology, phonetics, semantics, pragmatics, sociolinguistic or morphology papers. For example, if your analysis crucially involves the phrase ‘post-syntactic’, then you are on the wrong track. In this class, I want to see you do some syntax!

15. Your paper should include at least one syntax tree diagram, more if needed. 

16.  If you give examples illustrating your data, make sure to give minimal pairs whenever possible (whenever the data is available and a minimal pair is relevant). For example, if you claim that a sentence is unacceptable because of X, and you give an example of the unacceptable sentence, then also give the minimal pair where X is not violated.

17. Is your argumentation sound? Does C follow from A and B, or is it just wishful thinking? No handwaving allowed.

18. Golden Rule: Do not assume we can read your mind! Explain your argumentation to us. Explain your background assumptions to us. Explain individual sentences to us. Make it cognitively easy on the reader to read your paper.

Leonard Bloomfield Book Award Finalist (links)

LSA Update #319

Leonard Bloomfield Book Award Finalist

The Bloomfield Book Award Committee congratulates Chris Collins as an award finalist on his book Principles of argument structure, published by MIT Press in 2024.

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The LSA Bloomfield Book Award Committee is pleased to announce two finalists for the award. Congratulations to Chris Collins for his work, Principles of Argument Structure: A Merge-Based Approach and to George Aaron Broadwell for his work, The Timucua Language: A Text-Based Reference Grammar! 

Congratulations: Bloomfield Award Finalist (notification letter)

[with Jason's permission]

Dear Chris,

It is my great pleasure to inform you that your book, Principles of argument structure (MIT Press, 2024), has been designated a Finalist for the Linguistic Society of America's 2026 Leonard Bloomfield Book Award. On behalf of the entire Bloomfield Book Award Committee, congratulations!

You will be recognized at the Awards Ceremony at the next LSA Annual Meeting in January. This the first year that finalists are selected and honored alongside the winner, a change to the award that was proposed by this committee and enthusiastically approved by the LSA Executive Committee to go into effect immediately.

I’m cc’ing Jay Keyser as the series editor to solicit the 50-word citation that will be read at the award ceremony. Jay, you can send or arrange to have sent the citation to me, and I’ll review and edit it for the EC; we’d like to have it before November 1. (I’m cc’ing also Philip Laughlin and Angela Schmidt, who are listed in our materials as nominators from the MIT Press.)

As you know, the Bloomfield Award is the highest honor for a single work that our field possess, and its recipients, and finalists, are those works that make the most significant contributions to our science, exhibiting exemplary scholarship, empirical import, and theoretical acumen. Your book’s being named a Finalist for this award is in recognition of its excellence.

On behalf of the LSA, congratulations on this signal recognition for your contribution to our field!

With best wishes,

Jason

Jason Merchant

Vice Provost for Academic Affairs

Faculty Director, UChicagoGRAD

Lorna Puttkammer Straus Distinguished Service Professor, Department of Linguistics and the College

University of Chicago

A Singular Note on Singular-They/Them (Snippets)

Abstract: In this short snippet, I investigate verbal agreement with singular-they/them.

A Singular Note on Singular-They/Them    

Snippets

Smuggling and Labeling Theory (with Andreas Blümel)

Abstract: This paper draws a deep connection between smuggling (Collins, 2005) and labeling (Collins, 2002; Chomsky, 2013, 2015), showing that the movement of the smuggler in a smuggling derivation can be triggered by the labeling algorithm.

https://bioling.psychopen.eu/index.php/bioling/article/view/17229

Reading Group: Foundations of Minimalist Syntax (Spring 2026) (near final draft)

Reading Group Announcement: Foundations of Minimalist Syntax

Spring 2026

Coordinator: Professor Chris Collins

Level: Graduate students and advanced undergraduate students.

Time: Thursday 2:00pm - 4:00pm

Place: 10 WP 103

Note: There is a credit optional available: directed reading for grads, independent study for undergrads.

Description:

The reading group will focus on reading and discussing as much of Marcolli et. al. 2025 (henceforth MSSM) as possible in one semester.

Marcolli, Matilde, Noam Chomsky and Robert Berwick. 2025.

Mathematical Structure of Syntactic Merge:An Algebraic Model for Generative Linguistics.

MIT Press, Cambridge. [389 pages]

MSSM proposes to formalize minimalist syntax using Hopf algebras. However, it is written in a framework that is unfamiliar and inaccessible to most generative syntacticians. The purpose of the reading group is to provide a space where we can help each other understand the formalism.

Some of the leading questions of the reading group will be the following (in part depending on the interests of the participants):

1. Which papers are important background for understanding MSSM?

2. How do the proposals in MSSM fit into the general evolution of the concept of Merge?

3. Are the proposals of MSSM an integral block, or are some of them better than others?

4. How can the theoretical proposals of MSSM be evaluated empirically?

5. What are the consequences of MSSM for the Ordinary Working Grammarian?

Contact me if you are interested in attending. Participation by Zoom is allowed.

Selected Background Readings:

Andrews, Avery. 2025. Some Prerequisites for Hopf Algebras in Syntax. Ms., ANU.

Blasiak, Paswel. 2010. Combinatorial Route to Algebra: The Art of Composition and Decomposition. Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science 12, 381-400.

Chomsky, Noam. 2019. Some Puzzling Foundational Issues: The Reading Program. Catalan Journal of Linguistics Special Issue, 263-285.

Chomsky, Noam. 2019. The UCLA Lectures. (https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/005485)

Chomsky, Noam. 2021. Minimalism: Where Are We Now, and Where Can We Hope to Go. Gengo Kenkyu 160, 1-41.

Chomsky, Noam. 2023. The Miracle Creed and the Strong Minimalist Thesis. In Matteo Greco and Davide Mocci (eds.), A Cartesian Dream: A Geometrical Account of Syntax. In Honor of Andrea Moro, 17-40. Lingbuzz Press.

Chomsky, Noam, T. Daniel Seely, Robert C. Berwick, Sandiway Fong, M.A.C. Huybregts, Histsugu Kitahara, Andrew McInnerney, Yushi Sugimoto. 2023. Merge and the Strong Minimalist Thesis. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Collins, Chris. 2017. Merge(X,Y) = {X,Y}. In Leah Bauke, Andreas Blümel, and Erich Groat

(eds.), Labels and Roots, 47-68. De Gruyter Mouton.

Collins, Chris. 2002. Eliminating Labels. In Samuel Epstein and Daniel Seely (eds.), Derivation and Explanation in the Minimalist Program, 43-64. Blackwell.

Collins, Chris and Erich Groat. To Appear. Copies and Repetitions. The Cambridge Handbook of Minimalism. (http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003809)

Collins, Chris and Edward Stabler. 2016. A Formalization of Minimalist Syntax. Syntax 19, 43-78. 

 

NYU Syntax Seminar: Inversion (Spring 2026) (near final draft)

 Seminar Announcement: Inversion

Spring 2026

(Ling GA-3320)

Instructor: Professor Chris Collins

Level: Graduate students and advanced undergraduate students.

Time: T 9:30-12:15

Place: 10 WP 103

Course Description: 

Collins and Branigan 1997 (see also Collins 1997) inaugurated the study of quotative inversion into generative syntax. In the interim, there have been many studies engaging with various aspects of their analysis in different languages, including Alexiadou and Anagnostopolou 2001, 2007, Bruening 2016, Gärtner and Gyuris 2014, Murphy 2022, Richards 2010, Suñer 2000, Storment 2024, 2025a, amongst others.

This course will review the existing literature on quotative inversion, and explore a new analysis in the framework of Collins 2024 (‘Principles of Argument Structure’ MIT Press, Cambridge) taking into account the insights of previous work.

Along the way, we will discuss the relation of quotative inversion to other inversion constructions. The choice of topics will depend on the interests of the participants.  Some possible topics include (but are not limited to): predicate inversion in copular constructions, subject-object inversion in Bantu, locative inversion in Bantu, French stylistic inversion, presentational inversion (“Here comes John!”), Austronesian VSO and VOS word order, Austronesian voice systems, Heavy XP Shift, there-expletive constructions, word order variation in double object constructions, and related inversion phenomena from a cross-linguistic perspective.

General Theoretical Issues:

Some of the general theoretical issues that will take center stage during the seminar include:

a. Locality of movement (leapfrogging, smuggling, freezing),

b. The nature of Agree (optional Agree in inversion constructions, see Storment 2025),

c. Types of movement (beyond the trichotomy: A, A’, head movement),

d. Principles of argument structure,

e. The syntax of voice.

Students will be given the opportunity to do fieldwork with a consultant during the course of the semester in order to develop their final project. 

Auditors are welcome (either in-person or via Zoom). Please contact me if you are interested in attending.

Selected References

Alexiadou, Artemis and Elena Anagnostopoulou. 2001. The Subject-in-Situ Generalization and the Role of Case in Driving Computations. Linguistic Inquiry 32, 193-231.

Alexiadou, Artemis and Elena Anagnostopoulou. 2007. The Subject-in-Situ Gener¬alization Revisited. In Uli Sauerland and Hans-Martin Gärtner (eds.), Interfaces + Recursion = Language?: Chomsky’s Minimalism and the View from Syntax-Semantics, 31–59. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin.

Bruening, Benjamin. 2016. Alignment in Syntax: Quotative Inversion in English. Syntax 19, 111-155.

Collins, Chris and Phil Branigan. 1997. Quotative Inversion. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 15, 1-41. (https://ordinaryworkinggrammarian.blogspot.com/2020/12/quotative-inversion-collins-and.html#more)

Collins, Chris. 1997. Local Economy. MIT Press, Cambridge.

Collins, Chris. 2024. Principles of Argument Structure: A Merge-Based Approach. MIT Press, Cambridge.

Gartner, Hans-Martin and Beáta Gyuris. 2014. A Note on Quotative Inversion in Hungarian. Finno-Ugric Languages and Linguistics 3, 2-30.

Murphy, Andrew. 2022. Parasitic Gaps Diagnose A-Movement in Quotative and Locative Inversion. Snippets 43.

Richards, Norvin. 2010. Uttering Trees. MIT Press, Cambridge.

Storment, John David. 2024. Quotative Inversion as Smuggling: Evidence from Setswana and English. Presented May 3, 2024 at the 55th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, Montreal, Québec.

Storment, John David. 2025a. Predicate Nominals in Tshila. Linguistic Variation 25, 375-416.

Storment, John David. 2025b. Projecting (Your) Voice: A Theory of Inversion and Circumvention. Doctoral Dissertation, Stony Brook, New York.

Suñer, Margarita. 2000. The Syntax of Direct Quotes with Special Reference to Spanish and English. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 18, 525-578.

Unaccusatives versus Unergatives in English (Class Exercise -- graduate Syntax I)

Objective: To learn the syntax of unacusative and unergative verbs in English through a hands-on fieldwork activity, conducted during one class period. The material in this exercise comes from Levin and Rappaport 1995.

Methodology: To do this exercise, you should use Google to search the internet for example sentences. But you cannot consult any linguistic sources (e.g., papers, books, websites), nor can you search linguistic terms like “unaccusative” or “secondary predicate”, nor can you use Chatgpt to ask analytical questions. For background on the method, see:

https://ordinaryworkinggrammarian.blogspot.com/2023/03/internet-searches-as-tool-in-syntactic.html

Format: Students break up into small groups of three to four people. All groups will do part 1. Some groups will do parts 2-3, and other groups will do parts 4-6. Each group should designate a scribe to collect their example sentences, which they will send to me after class (include URLs for your examples). When the groups finish, they present their results to the class.

Part 1: Each small group should find three to five example sentences containing depictive secondary predicates and three to five example sentences containing resultative secondary predicates. Each example should have a different secondary predicate. What kinds of generalizations can be made about the secondary predicates found?

Part 2: Find at least one example sentence of each of the following types. What kinds of generalizations can be made?

a. depictive modifying object of transitive verb

b. depictive modifying subject of transitive verb

c. resultative modifying object of transitive verb

d. resultative modifying subject of transitive verb

Part 3: Draw tree diagrams for the sentences from part 2 (four sentences).

Part 4: Come up with a list of 5 unaccusative verbs and 5 unergative verbs. On what basis did you classify the verbs? What kinds of generalizations distinguish the two verb classes?

Part 5: Using some of the verbs from part 4, find at least one example sentence of each of the following types. What kinds of generalizations can be made?

a. depictive modifying subject of unergative verb

b. resultative modifying subject of unergative verb

c. depictive modifying subject of unaccusative verb

d. resultative modifying subject of unaccusative verb

Part 6: Draw a tree diagram for the sentences from part 5 (four sentences).

Phonology as Syntax (first draft)

Phonology as Syntax (PaS) is the program that aims to show that phonological phenomenon can be accounted for by purely by syntactic principles. 

The basis of the program is Merge, where phonological features are combined to form phonological segments, and phonological segments are combined to form syllables, and larger prosodic constituents (feet, prosodic words, etc.) (see also Kayne 2016). All the usual syntactic properties of Merge hold, including binary branching and the No Tampering Condition.

For example, the vowel [i] merges with [g]: Merge([i], [g]) = {i, g}. Then that constituent merges with [d]: Merge([d], [ig]) = {d, {i, g}}. The order of Merge operations naturally gives rise the syllable structure (e.g., the onset-rime distinction). 

Merge in phonology has two different subcases, internal Merge and external Merge. External Merge combines two different phonological objects into one. Internal Merge combines a phonological object with some internal part of that phonological object. Internal Merge is responsible for tonal spreading, vowel harmony, nasal spreading, reduplication and methathesis. 

For example, when a DP undergoes internal Merge, it occupies two positions (occurrences, copies). Similarly, if a tone H is linked to a syllable C1V1, and then spreads to the right linking to C2V2 it comes to occupy two positions.

For convenience, I will refer to the creation of phonological objects by Merge as the ‘phonological derivation’. The creation of phrases from words and affixes by Merge will be simply be called ‘narrow syntax’. 

Phonological derivations are subject to third factor economy conditions. For example, the binary branching property of Merge can be seen as the result of an economy condition. Locality effects on tonal spreading, vowel harmony and nasal spreading are analogous to minimality effects in syntax, and should be analyzed in terms of third factor principles such as minimal search.

The prediction of this approach is that any economy condition found to operate in the narrow syntax will also operate on the phonological derivation. For example, assuming phonological derivations are phase based, phasal boundaries should block internal Merge in phonology (e.g., tonal spread, vowel harmony and nasal spreading). Furthermore, it should be possible to distinguish between phase based and minimality based locality effects in phonological derivations.

The phonological objects formed are interpreted at the PF (sensorimotor) interface as commands to the vocal tract or hands to produce certain auditory or visual signals. Unlike derivations in the narrow syntax, phonological objects are not interpreted at the LF (Conceptual-Intentional) interface.

From this point of view, there are two connected derivations: the phonological derivation and the narrow syntactic derivation. The connection between these derivations is bridged by Merge. Phonological objects are merged into the syntactic derivation in various positions. The extent to which the two derivations are interwoven needs to be investigated.

In this framework, differences between phonology and narrow syntax cannot be attributed to different operations, since there is only Merge, constrained by third factor economy conditions.  Rather, such differences must be attributed to the basic elements being combined. For syntax, the basic elements are syntactic features and lexical items. For phonology, the basic elements are phonological features and phonological segments. 

Another related difference between two systems is that the narrow syntactic derivation produces syntactic objects interpreted at the LF (Conceptual-Intentional) interface, whereas the phonological derivation produces objects that are only interpreted at the PF (Sensori-Motor) interface. 

A research goal in this framework is to show that all apparent differences between the two systems can be reduced to these two sources (basic elements, interfaces).

Blog Squibs

Here is a list of squibs that I have written specifically for my blog, meeting the following criteria:

a. They have not appeared elsewhere.

b. They have not been submitted anywhere.

c. They are not old papers written before my blog started.

d. They are syntactic analyses, not reviews or commentary.

e. They are short.

How to Syntax IV: Not that I know of

This is the fourth in a series of blog posts showing how I think about a syntax problem when I first notice it. It is not the purpose of this series to present polished answers. Rather the intention is to present the process at it very beginning to show the kinds of initial steps that a syntactician goes through. 

For these posts, I typically constrain myself to less than three hours of time to maintain the newness of the experience. Furthermore, I also try to restrain the amount of rewriting that I do, so the whole thing has a stream of consciousness feel to it.

Thinking Syntactically (for non-linguists)

What does it mean to be a syntactician? 

The vast majority of people are not even aware that being a syntactician is an actual profession. The purpose of this blog post, and a few others that I have planned, is to familiarize the general public with the work that a syntactician does.

Without going into any specific theoretical concepts or principles, I sketch here for a general non-linguist audience the broad outlines of how a syntactician thinks about natural language.

Brainstorming: Possible Seminar Topics (Spring 2026)

As usual, I post a few of the ideas I have for a seminar in order to get feedback. That is, each of the following topics is a possible topic for my Spring 2026 seminar, and I need to choose one of them. The default is ‘Inversion’, but I could be persuaded to do one of the others, if there is enough interest.

1. Inversion

This course will look at a wide variety of inversion constructions cross-linguistically, including: quotative inversion, locative inversion, inverse copular constructions, subject-object inversion in Bantu, as well as other related constructions. The goal will be to show how these constructions fit into the theory of argument structure and voice of Collins (2024) (‘Principles of Argument Structure’, MIT Press) (see also Storment 2025 ‘Projection (your) Voice: A Theory of Inversion and Defective Circumvention’, Doctoral dissertation, Stony Brook). Students will be given the opportunity to do fieldwork with a consultant during the course of the semester.

2. Foundations of Minimalism

This course will discuss foundational issues in syntactic theory, including the notion of Merge, copies versus repetitions and workspaces. Discussion will focus on Marcolli (2025) (‘Mathematical Structure of Syntactic Merge’, MIT Press) and related papers (e.g., Chomsky et. al. ‘Merge and the Strong Minimalist Thesis’ CUP). By the end of the semester, students will write papers in the framework of Marcolli (2025), or write papers critiquing that framework.

3. Large Language Models and Generative Syntax

This course will review literature concerning the relationship between Large Language Models and linguistic theory. Some of the topics of interest include: (a) What is the basic architecture of a LLM? (e.g., How are vectors used for lexical representation?) (b) How are LLMs able to produce fluent and natural English text? (c) Can LLMs be taken as a possible theory of the human language faculty? (d) If not, can LLMs contribute anything useful to the study of human language? (d) Can generative syntax contribute anything useful to the creation of LLMs? Students will be expected to do projects directly investigating these issues. 

Morphology as Syntax (MaS) I-III

Here are the links to the first three Morphology as Syntax workshops.  Hopefully, the fourth will be held soon. Keep your eyes open for announcements:

MaS I

MaS II

MaS III

MaS IV (TBA)

For convenience, I also include a link to Collins and Kayne 2023, which is the philosophical foundation of the MaS workshop series:

Collins and Kayne 2023

Creating a Syntax Syllabus at the Graduate Level

How do you write a syllabus for the introduction to syntax at the graduate level (Syntax I, II)? This blog post poses some basic questions, and provides some preliminary suggestions, based on my experience in writing such syllabi over the last thirty years. I got my PhD 1993, and have been teaching Syntax I and II regularly ever since. 

Although the framework I teach is Minimalism, most of the suggestions I make below could be used for a course based on a different syntactic framework. Most of them could also be used for an introductory course in a different subfield (e.g., phonology, semantics, acquisition, etc.).

Syllabus for Graduate Level Syntax I (Fall 2025) (Rough Draft)

 Here is a rough draft for my graduate level course Syntax I (Fall 2025) at NYU. 

Comments welcome!

Syllabus Syntax I (Fall 2025) (Rough Draft)