Where are they now? (written for Peace Corps Togo)

Where Are They Now?

Chris Collins, January 14, 2026

1. Where did you serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer?

I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Togo from 1985 to 1987. I taught math at the Lycée level, for one year in Notsé and then for a second year in Danyi-Apéyémé.

2. What are you doing now (professionally or personally)?

I am professor of linguistics at New York University. My research interests include linguistic fieldwork in Africa. In particular, I study Ewe, a language spoken in Ghana, Togo and Benin.

3. How did your Peace Corps Togo experience prepare you for success in your current role or life path? 

My Peace Corps experience laid the foundation for my career as a linguist doing fieldwork in Africa. I learned to speak Ewe, which I have continued working on for my whole career.

If you are curious, here is a picture of my cohort in the Peace Corps:

https://ordinaryworkinggrammarian.blogspot.com/2021/04/peace-corps-togo-1985.html

Here is a summary of my career:

https://ordinaryworkinggrammarian.blogspot.com/2024/11/biographical-notes-technology-review.html#more

Here are some notes on my recent trip to Togo (summer 2025):

https://ordinaryworkinggrammarian.blogspot.com/2025/06/togo-diary-june-july-2025.html#more

4. What is one skill or lesson from service that you still use today?

The Peace Corps taught me basic life skills about working in a foreign country and thinking outside of the box in order to get things done. I also learned to appreciate the people of Togo who showed me so much support, even when their lives were materially much more difficult than mine.

Some other smaller skills are listed here:

https://ordinaryworkinggrammarian.blogspot.com/2019/10/ten-things-i-learned-in-peace-corps.html

5. Any advice you’d give to current or future Volunteers?

Your time in Togo might be the most interesting and intense period in your entire life. Keep a journal, and send regular letters home. You will love to look back at them later. 

Syllabus: Inversion Seminar, Spring 2026 (near final draft)

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, Branigan 2011, Bruening 2016, Gärtner and Gyuris 2014, Matos 2013, Murphy 2022, Richards 2010, Suñer 2000, Storment 2024, 2025a, de Vries 2006, 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, presentatives (“Here comes John!”), Austronesian VSO and VOS word order, Austronesian voice systems, Heavy XP Shift, there-expletive constructions, the dative alternation, and related inversion phenomena from a cross-linguistic perspective.

Seminar Syllabus