Education

PhD, UCLA, 1977

Specialization

   • Theory of language change
   • Historical syntax
   • Historical phonology
   • Indo-European linguistics, culture, religion, and prehistory
   • Old and Middle Irish syntax
   • Contemporary English grammar

Courses

ENGL 450/LING 421    English Grammar
ENGL 453/LING 431    Development of the English Language
LING 530                       Language Change
LING 730                       Historical Linguistics

Research

I am finishing a long-term book project on the development of infinitival subordination in early Irish. It is based upon data collected from all available edited manuscripts of Old and Middle Irish (roughly 650-1200 CE). It incorporates several themes which I have been exploring for some time: what do speakers think they are doing as they introduce linguistic innovations? How do such innovations show up in texts? What are the limits of language - specifically syntactic - change?

Publications

BOOKS
   • The Syntactic Development of the Infinitive in Indo-European. Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Press. 220 pages (1980).
   • Studies in Honor of Jaan Puhvel, Part One: Ancient Languages and Philology, edited with Martin Huld and John Greppin. Washington D.C: Institute for the Study of Man. (Indo-European Studies Monograph, vol. 20) 250 pages (1997).
   • Advanced grammar: A manual for students. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. 480 pages (2003).
   • Chapter, "Subordination" (with Carlotta Viti). Continuum Companion to Historical Linguistics, edited by Silvia Luraghi and Vit Bubenik. London/New York Continuum (to appear, 2010).

ARTICLES
   • "Purpose and consecutive in Irish." ériu 36.107-23 (1985).
   • "The structure and diachrony of consecutives." Diachronica 3.1-14 (1986).
   • "The diachronic relationship of morphology and syntax." Papers from the Seventh International Conference on Historical Linguistics, ed. by A.Giacalone Ramat, O. Carruba and G. Bernini, 211-20. Amsterdam: John Benjamins (1987).
   • "The role of adaptive rules in language change." Diachronica 7:181-98 (1990).
   • "Parameter resetting." Historical Linguistics 1991, ed. by Jaap van Marle, 87-97. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins (1993).