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Status:
2nd
Year Ph.D Student
Interests: Syntax, Morphology, Variation, Neurolinguistics Dept. of Linguistics 726 Broadway, 7th Floor New York, NY 10003 E-mail: j i m . w o o d @ n y u . e d u |
Linguistics Interests
- Syntax: Icelandic Syntax, English Syntax, Micro-comparative Syntax, Syntactic Theory
- Morphology: Compounds, Syntax-Morphology Interface, Nominal Inflectional Morphology
- Variation: Syntactic variation/optionality, Icelandic Stylistic Fronting, Short-a in English
- Neurolinguistics: Neuro-processing of the Middle Construction (these books read easily)
- Imposters in Icelandic - Studying the syntactic consequences of referring to yourself in the third person in Icelandic.
- So-inversion - Looking at the structure of so do I. Started off as a small project, but turned out to be more interesting than I would have thought. Another twist: in New England you can say so don't I as an emphatic version of so do I - that is, the n't here is not negative!
- Icelandic DPs - Studying restrictive versus non-restrictive adjectival modification. In a nutshell: Icelandic uses a suffixed definite article for restrictive modification, and a free article for non-restrictive modification.
- The Complementizer Like: Studying whether or not we want to call the like in I feel like he is wasting his time on complementizers a complementizer. I think we do.
- English Subject-Aux Inversion - Why the heck do we do this in English? For example, I think sentences like Too often have I seen someone go down that road are actually pretty common, as are examples like as are examples like this, among a lot of other non-negative, non-wh sentences. Often, these are the same words that undergo a nominal inversion as well: too big a cat, as big a fan.
- Icelandic Stylistic Fronting - Studying the structure and envelope of variation with Icelandic Stylistic Fronting, an interesting construction where a post-verbal particle, participle, negative adverb or adjective can move to the preverbal position, just in case the subject has left the building. In main clauses it alternates with expletives, it is said that vs. said is that, and in relative clauses it alternates with, well, nothing: the cat which was stolen vs the cat which stolen was. This kind of trick only works on subject relatives.
- New England Short-a - In a study I began at the University of New Hampshire a few years ago, and really intend to finish up last month, I found out that New Englanders under 30 aren't pronouncing short-a quite like their parents are. (Unless their parents are also under 30.)
- Processing Middles - Working on a project with Inna Livitz and Liina Pylkkänen in Liina's MEG lab trying to figure out what part(s) of the brain are responsible for allowing sentences like this to process so easily.
Education
| 2007 - Present | Ph.D
Student, Department of
Linguistics, New York University |
| 2006 | B.A. in Linguistics, University of New Hampshire |
| 2003 | A.A.S. in Aviation Maintenance, Community College of the Air Force |
Presentations
- 2008. So-inversion as Polarity Focus. Poster presented at the Linguistic Society of America Summer Meeting, Ohio State University, Jul. 11. Handout here.
- 2008, with Inna Livitz. English Middles Process Linguistically. Poster presented at the Linguistic Society of America Summer Meeting, Ohio State University, Jul. 11.
- 2007,
with Hélène Blondeau
and Naomi Nagy. On était
comme, "We think
‘like’ may be a COMP too.” Paper presented at
- 2007.
The Phonetic Status of Short-a
in
- 2006.
Register Variation in Modern Icelandic.
Talk given to
Grants & Fellowships
- 2007 – Present. MacCracken Fellowship,
- 2007.
Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute Fellowship, Stanford,
CA. Tuition and fees.
- 2006.
Returning Student Scholarship, Datatel
Scholars Foundation. $2,500.
- 2006.
Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF). $3,500 grant to study register variation
in modern Icelandic.
Professional Associations & Activities
- Member,
Linguistic Society of
- Treasurer, Linguistics at NYU (LANYU).
- Coordinator, NYU Syntax Brown Bag.
Teaching Experience
- English Composition II. Mandl
School, The College of Allied Health. Instructor, 2 sections, Summer
2008.
- Interpersonal Communication. Mandl School, The College of Allied Health. Instructor, 2 sections, Summer 2008.
Links
- Speculative Grammarian is the premier scholarly journal featuring research in the neglected field of satirical linguistics. This site can be downright hilarious sometimes.
- Íslenskt Mál – This site has a list of academic works, mostly linguistics, in Icelandic. Many summaries and bibliographic info available.
- Penn Linguistics Club Homepage – Lots of good resources & helpful advice on this page.
- phpSyntaxTree – Turns brackets into syntax trees.
- Chomskybot – Takes phrases from Chomsky and combines them to generate thousands of Chomskyan paragraphs. Hit "reload" for hours of fun!