Chris Collins: A Portrait of a Syntactician (written by ChatGPT)

 Chris Collins, Professor of Linguistics at NYU, is a theoretically oriented scholar whose work is defined by clarity, formal rigor, and a systematic approach to syntactic structure. His analytical style emphasizes explicit proposal-building, precise formulation of predictions, and careful methodological control, reflecting a view of syntax as a craft refined through sustained practice and intellectual seriousness.

As a teacher, Collins is strongly committed to mentorship and to the development of essential skills in students. His instructional philosophy centers on structured reasoning, clear argumentation, and the principled use of formal representations, demonstrating a belief that rigorous training is foundational to serious linguistic inquiry.

His engagement with linguistic fieldwork shows an equally strong empirical commitment. Collins approaches lesser-described languages with curiosity, respect, and attention to ethical practice, valuing both the scientific and human dimensions of documentation. He treats firsthand investigation as an essential complement to theoretical work.

As a scholar, Collins is reflective, steady, and focused on substance rather than academic display. His manner suggests long experience with theoretical debates combined with an unwavering commitment to clarity, integrity, and intellectual seriousness. He is driven by the desire to understand how language works, to refine analytic tools, and to guide others in developing the skills required for rigorous linguistic research.

Summary of Ordinary Working Grammarian (ChatGPT)

Ordinary Working Grammarian is an academically oriented blog devoted to natural language syntax, linguistic fieldwork, and the professional life of a working linguist. Its posts revolve around the analysis of syntactic structures, the development of formal proposals, and the articulation of clear methodological assumptions within generative and minimalist traditions. Many entries present detailed examinations of particular constructions, lecture-style explanations, or schematic representations that display the author’s commitment to precision, empirical grounding, and theoretical clarity.

A prominent theme throughout the blog is pedagogy. Numerous posts offer materials for teaching syntax, including exercises, assignments, and guidance for students at both undergraduate and graduate levels. These entries reveal a sustained investment in training new linguists, emphasizing not only theoretical content but also the practical skills of argumentation, tree drawing, and hypothesis testing.

Another consistent strand is the discussion of linguistic fieldwork. The author reflects on trips to document lesser-described languages, describes the challenges and rewards of working with consultants, and shares methodological insights on corpus building, metadata practices, and the ethics of documentation. These posts highlight an interest in the intersection of theoretical linguistics and real-world data collection.

Interviews, workshop reports, and community-oriented commentary further situate the blog within the broader field, showing an engagement not only with research problems but also with the people and events shaping contemporary linguistics. Across these components, the blog conveys the perspective of a scholar deeply committed to understanding language structure, teaching it effectively, and contributing thoughtfully to the wider disciplinary community.

Syntax Interface Lecture, Utrecht (Introductory Remarks by Lex Cloin-Tavenier)

Introduction Chris Collins's Syntax Interface Lecture at Utrecht University (December 4 2025)

(posted with the permission of Lex)

It is my pleasure to introduce today's speaker, professor Chris Collins from New York University, and tell you a little about him.

Chris received his B.S. in mathematics from MIT in 1985. After that, his time as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Togo ignited a lifelong interest in comparative linguistics, as he tried to learn the Togolese language Ewe. This interest eventually culminated in his PhD thesis titled Topics in Ewe Syntax, completed in 1993, again at MIT, under the supervision of Ken Hale.

Since graduating, Chris has held various different professorships in several departments around the globe, including full professor at Cornell University, invited professor at Université Paris 7, and visiting professorships at the University of Legon, Ghana, and the University of Botswana. He has been a full professor at New York University since 2006.

For the research in one of his areas of expertise, comparative African syntax, he has made many trips to do field work over the years to parts of Africa where Ewe and notably also Khoisan languages are spoken, like Togo and Botswana. Among other things, this has resulted in no less than six grammars and dictionaries of African languages to his name.

Another area of expertise is theoretical syntax. In this work, he focuses on fundamental issues in Minimalist syntax and its interfaces. Examples include his work on the role of smuggling in argument structure, joint work with Daniel Seely on the labelling algorithm, and his collaboration with Richard Kayne on their model of Morphology as Syntax.

Nearly all of this information can be found on his blog https://ordinaryworkinggrammarian.blogspot.com/, where he actively keeps the world at large informed on his current thoughts, endeavors, and musings (both big and bigger).

Today, he will give a talk on a topic that touches closely on the contents of his latest MIT Press book Principles of Argument Structure: A Merge-Based Approach, which was recently nominated by the Linguistic Society of America as a finalist in consideration for the 2026 Bloomfield award.

Chris, on behalf of our SIL organization, I'd like to offer you our congratulations on this nomination, and, more pressingly, the floor.

Lex Cloin-Tavenier. 

My Thoughts on Case Theory (December 2025)

Below are my current thoughts about Case Theory as of November 2025. These thoughts result from my reviewing the relevant literature during Fall 2025 in order to teach the subject in Syntax I. My thoughts on Case Theory are evolving and they are not set in stone.

I thank Lydia Grebenyova for discussions of these issues.

Case Theory (Class Exercise -- Graduate Syntax I)

Syntax I Fall 2025

Class Exercise: Case Theory

Objective: To evaluate and compare different theories of case.

Format: Students will break up into small groups of two or three, and take 15-20 minutes to brainstorm. They are allowed to look up references on their devices or on the internet. After this initial period, there will be a discussion in class about the different theories. Be prepared to discuss concrete data points from particular languages. 

You do not have to limit yourselves to the papers assigned for class. You can also use knowledge that you have of particular languages, and/or information that you have gotten from other papers, textbooks, colleagues, talks or other courses. If you have not done the assigned reading, make sure to do so before Wednesday (December 3, 2025). You should also look at Marantz 1991, if you have time (it is short).

One student will be the designated transcriber. They are responsible for transcribing the points made in class, typing them up, and sending them to the class afterwards (within a period of 48 hours). 

Assigned Reading (to read before exercise):

Marantz, Alec. 1991. Case and Licensing. Proceedings of ESCOL, 234–253.

Cornell Linguistics Club. Republished in Reuland 2000, 11–30.

Pesetsky, David and Esther Torrego. 2011. Case. In Cedric Boeckx (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Minimalism, 52-72. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Schafer, Florian and Elena Anagnostopoulou. To Appear. Case and Agreement in Distributed Morphology. A. Alexiadou, R. Kramer, A. Marantz and I. Oltra-Massuet (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Distributed Morphology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Guiding Questions:

1. What assumptions define the various theories?

2. What assumptions distinguish the theories?

3. What assumptions do the theories have in common?

4. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each theory?

5. What are the standard core examples of each theory (and how are they accounted for)? 

6. What particular data points are of interest in deciding between the theories? 

7. What does each theory say about Burzio's generalization? 

8. What questions do you still have about the theories? 

9. Are there useful generalizations, concepts and principles that fall outside the theories we have looked at in class?

 

My Trip to Google (November 21, 2025)

These are photos from my fieldwork expedition to the Google office space in lower Manhattan (near 8th avenue and 15th street). I was invited by an old NYU student (a syntactician naturally), who now works as a hotshot programmer for Google. I accepted with the goal of finding out as much as I could about the Google office space and culture. I was not disappointed. 

I left the department at 11:20 to walk there, but it only took me 15 minutes, even at my slow hobbling pace. It is very close by. So I waited outside talking to my student for 20 minutes before our host arrived.

I also took this opportunity to find out about how to pitch my idea for a 'Noam Chomsky Award' to Google. My idea is that the award will be administered by LSA, but there should be a cash prize (10,000-100,000 dollars). One idea is that Google could sponsor the award. I thought it would be a nice community/academic tie in for them, because of the importance of natural language to their products (e.g., Chrome, Gemini).

Below is the huge neon sign you see when you first enters the building. The only way to enter the building is by invitation, and even then you need a government sponsored ID. Without it, they will turn you away. I know this because one of our group members was turned away.

We headed right to the cafeteria. They had a wide range of standard NYC food, including Indian food, middle eastern, a souther barbecue (with collard greens, naturally), a huge salad bar. I am living with a low carb diet now, but I had no problem finding tasty dishes. I ate a salad, some falafel, and two pieces of delicious curry chicken. The cuisine was a all of a very high quality. The best part -- it is totally free. You just take your food, and eat (and then clear your own plates). Employees can eat breakfast, lunch and dinner there for free every day of the week, saving thousands of dollars throughout the year (and making them much more efficient and happy workers, I suppose).

Afterwards, we headed to a terrace on the same floor to look out over the city. Beautiful views! If I worked there, I would eat lunch on the terrance every single day.

Below is yours truly soaking in the sunshine.

Apparently in the photo below, you can see Bobst library, just to the left of the white building (once again, attesting to the physical proximity of Google to the department).

Then we went to the top floor to look out over the city.

I did some fieldwork to find the workers at play: pool tables, pingpong tables, just ways to blow off steam. As we were roaming the hallways, I noticed signs pointing to an exercise room, but I did not enter, so I do not know what kind of facilities they have. I know that they do not have a swimming pool, because I asked about that.

And to top it all off, there was a huge Lego wall, where you could go and grab some Legos to play with, although nobody was playing with them when we passed by.

A few more things I learned: Google workers only need to work at the office two days per week. The rest of the time, they can work at home. So the workers do not have a fixed desk space, but rather a fixed working area that they go to (an area behind glass walls). They all have lockers, so they can store things in the locker when they work at home.

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)