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.