Togo Diary (June July 2026)

This diary is the record of my stay in Togo during June and July of 2026.

Aspects of Tone in Cua (Zachary Wellstood)

Zachary Wellstood's doctoral dissertation (Berkeley) on Cua tone. Below is the eScholarship link to the thesis:

Aspects of Tone in Cua

Abstract (abridged):

This dissertation constitutes the first description and analysis of the tone system of Cua, a highly endangered and underdocumented Kalahari Khoe language of the Tshwa subgroup spoken in southeastern Botswana. This dissertation includes (i) an updated phonological sketch of Cua, including evidence of segmental contrasts and phonotactic constraints, (ii) an empirical overview of Cua’s tonal inventory, tonal phenomena, and tonal morphophonology, (iii) the results of a phonetic study on lexical tone in Cua conducted with 6 Cua speakers, and (iv) a phonological analysis of Cua tone which proposes phonological representations of Cua’s lexical tonal categories and derivations of tonal phenomena noted throughout the preceding chapters.

Conversations with Noam Chomsky (2021-2022)

Here are two lengthy conversations that I had with Noam Chomsky on the topics of language, thought and formal semantics. I was very honored to have been able to have these conversations with Noam, who has been a guiding light for me throughout my career.

A Conversation with Noam Chomsky about Formal Semantics (June 25, 2021)

A Conversation with Noam Chomsky about Language and Thought (March 27, 2022)

How to Turn Your QP into a Journal Publication (in Syntax)

You have spent a grueling year writing up your Qualifying Paper (QP) for your Ph.D. program. You have read and carefully studied dozens of papers preparing your QP. You have been having weekly, sometimes tense, meetings with your supervisor, and somewhat less frequent meetings with the other committee members. Now, you have a 70-page double-spaced QP, containing your analysis of X, resulting in a successful defense. 

What are the next steps?

How to Cite This Blog

Doing syntactic research includes acknowledging ideas that you get from informal sources, such as blog posts, talks, conversations, etc. If you find ideas on this blog useful in your own work, please cite the relevant blog post. 

Minimalist Syntax and the Many Faces of Recursion

This blog post summarizes the confusing web of concepts associated with recursion, and comments on how they are related to each other. In particular, I will show how each of the concepts relates to the minimalist structure building operation Merge.

Ghanaian versus Togolese Ewe (prepublication draft May 21 2026)

Abstract

Based on a survey of some Ghanaian and Togolese dialects of Ewe, this paper shows that there are features that distinguish dialects of Ewe spoken in Ghana from dialects of Ewe spoken in Togo. These features include lexical items, syntactic constructions, pragmatic uses of certain expressions and a hand gesture. Because of these systematic differences, Ewe dialects spoken in Ghana are collectively referred to as Ghanaian Ewe, and those in Togo are collectively referred to as Togolese Ewe. 

Edits to Preliminary Kpelegbe Dictionary

The original version of the Kpelegbe dictionary was a set of hand-written fieldnotes from the early 90s, meant to provide me with a tool for my syntactic analyses at the time. It was arranged by tonal category (e.g., L.LH).  During this last academic year (2025-2026), I wrote up those notes into a word file, and gave it to Zach to translate into a FLEx project, which is much easier to work with in creating dictionaries. That initial process is outlined here:

Fieldwork Starter Kit

This blog post is for people who are heading off on their first big fieldwork expedition, and just want a few pointers to get started. The advice is oriented toward syntactic fieldwork, but in most cases is more general.

The First Field Trip: 10 Pieces of Advice.

Worksheet for Syntactic Fieldwork

Audio Recording a Fieldwork Session

Recording onto Your Computer

Capturing Oral Texts

Basic Consultant Skills for Linguistic Fieldwork

Backup Workflow for Linguistic Fieldwork

Blog Posts on ELAN

Basic Skills in Syntax (Part 1): Working with Syntactic Data

There are many different concrete skills that students learn in an undergraduate syntax course. We can divide them into (at least) four groups.

a. Skills involving working with syntactic data. 

b. Skills involving tree drawing. 

c. Skills involving formulating and testing hypotheses.

d. Skills involving applying theoretical principles to data (e.g., the Binding Theory). 

Of course, there is not always a clear line between these categories, but they are a good starting point for the discussion. In this blog post, I take up the first category, skills involving working with syntactic data. In future blog posts, I will take up the other categories.

Managing Stress at Work

 Stress is a person’s physical and psychological response to challenging or difficult circumstances. For example, you may be experiencing a professional or personal conflict on the job. Or perhaps you have been turned down for a job or promotion. Or perhaps you have a huge deadline approaching, and feel you cannot manage. We all encounter such stressful situations. Here are a few tips, based on my own experience, to help you manage your reactions to them.

Inversion Seminar: Questions and Answers (Spring 2026)

Quotative Inversion

1. What is the status of the external argument in quotative inversion?

The external argument is in-situ in Spec vP.

2. What is the status of the quote in quotative inversion?

The quotative operator (not the quote) undergoes movement to Spec TP, and is co-indexed with the quote.

3. What is the status of the verb in quotative inversion?

The VP moves to a position higher than the in-situ subject: VP-S.

4. What is the role of smuggling in quotative inversion?

The movement of the VP smuggles the quotative operator over the in-situ subject so that the quotative operator can undergo A-movement to Spec TP.

5. What is the status of the transitivity constraint in quotative inversion?

The transitivity constraint follows without stipulation from minimal search.

6. What sort of variation is found in quotative inversion cross-linguistically?

Different languages use different constructions for the task, depending on what is available. Setswana uses a post-verbal focus construction. German and Dutch use a verb-second construction.

Inversion

7. What other kinds of inversion are found in English?

Quotative inversion, locative inversion, presentatives, inverse copular constructions, existential there constructions, so-inversion and as-inversion.

8. How does quotative inversion relate to the other kinds of inversion in English?

They have exactly the same derivation involving VP movement, smuggling and A-movement to Spec TP.

9. What properties do inversion constructions in English have in common?

(a) The transitivity constraint, (b) resisting post-verb nominative subjects, (c) agreement alternations, (d) [V prt DP] word order (where applicable).

Passive

10. What is the relationship between quotative inversion and the passive?

Both involve smuggling the object over the in-situ subject. 

11. What is the status of VoiceP in syntactic theory?

VoiceP mediates between theta-positions and A-positions. VoiceP does not introduce the external argument, contrary to popular opinion.

12. What are the smugglers in quotative inversion and the passive?

The quotative inversion involves VP movement, whereas passive involves PartP movement.

13. If implicit arguments are possible in the passive, why not in quotative inversion?

The post-verbal subject in quotative inversion needs Case, but in Collins 2024 implicit arguments do not get assigned case (caseless pro).

Heavy DP Shift

14. Does Heavy DP Shift give evidence for rightward movement?

No, c-command tests show clearly that it is not rightward movement.

15. Is movement of the DP in Heavy DP Shift A- or A’-movement?

Heavy DP Shift is A’-movement, since it licenses parasitic gaps.

16. What is the analysis of Heavy DP Shift?

Heavy DP Shift involves vP movement smuggling the subject over the element in Spec FocP.

17. What is the theoretical importance of Heavy DP Shift in quotative inversion?

Normally the subject of a finite clause cannot undergo Heavy DP Shift, but in quotative inversion it can. 

General

18. What does inversion tell us about the status of rightward movement in UG?

Neither inversion nor Heavy DP Shift provide any evidence for rightward movement in UG.

19. What is the status of smuggling in UG?

Smuggling is made freely available by UG, since it involves a sequence of two permissible operations of internal Merge. 

20. How can the different types of smuggling be classified?

Smuggling can be classified by the kind of movement of the smuggler. For example, there is A’-smuggling (tough-movement). We have not seen any example of A-smuggling yet (the smuggler is a DP undergoing A-movement). Smuggling can also be classified by the size and category of the smuggler (e.g., VP, vP versus PartP).

21. What is the status of freezing in UG?

There is no general freezing constraint in UG, as shown by the ubiquity of smuggling. 

22. What are the implications of smuggling for the theory of locality?

Smuggling is the only way of avoiding a locality constraint (such as RM, MLC or PIC). Other approaches, such as leapfrogging, involve unnecessary complications (such as equidistance).

23. What are the implications of inversion phenomena for the A/A’-distinction?

VP/PartP movement is neither A- nor A’-movement. It is its own category with its own properties.

24. What does inversion in English tell us about the theory of argument structure?

Inversion phenomena are analyzed as movement, not the alternative projection of arguments. The projection of arguments is determined by the theta-criterion, not simply by the formal mechanisms of formal semantics, which is unrestrictive.

25. What are the implications of inversion phenomena for the theory of voice?

Voice can be defined as the mapping of arguments to A-positions. Voice phenomena such as the middle, passive and inverse voice all involve inversion and smuggling in the same sense as quotative inversion, locative inversion and presentatives.

Preliminary Book Proposal: Morphology as Syntax, volumes 1 and 2

 Preliminary Proposal: Morphology as Syntax, Volumes 1 and 2.

Abstract: The proposal is for a two-volume set dedicated to defining and exploring Morphology as Syntax, a new theory about the relationship between morphology and syntax.

My Wegovy Journey

I am in general very slow to start worrying about my health. I tend to think that the medical establishment is a bunch of money hungry hustlers, prone to administering expensive procedures and to robotically writing out prescriptions in order to quickly solve problems. I try to stay away from them as much as possible.

The Syntax of Verb Focus in Kabiye

Abstract: This paper explores the syntax of verb focus in Kabiye, a Gur language spoken in Togo.

Collins, Chris and Komlan Essizewa. 2007. Syntax of Verb Focus in Kabiye. In Doris L. Payne and Jaime Peña (eds.), Selected Proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, 191-203. Cascadilla Proceedings Project, Somerville, MA. 

The Syntax of Verb Focus in Kabiye

Syntactic Fieldwork for a Field Methods Course

In this blog post, I will lay out some general guidelines on how to elicit syntactic information in a Field Methods course. 

Worksheet for Syntactic Fieldwork

The purpose of this blog post is to present a general template for a syntactic fieldwork session. I will not talk specifically about syntactic elicitation, or methodology or particular constructions that you could investigate. 

Blog Posts on ELAN

I post here a series of introductory blog posts on the use of ELAN in fieldwork. 

ELAN for Field Methods

The purpose of this blog post is to give the simplest possible instructions for setting up an ELAN project. They are based on a Field Methods course taught at NYU on Setswana, a language of southern Africa. Replace “Setswana” with the name of the language you are studying.

Audio Interview: Fieldwork in My Career (April 3, 2026)

Abstract: This is an interview that I gave on fieldwork in my career. The interviewer is Essivi Collins, my daugther. The venue was a stroll on the busy streets of New York City. We were walking from Washington Square Village to the Hudson, and then we turned right and walked up the Hudson.

Interview

Guidelines on Grading Undergraduate Syntax Assignments

Grading assignments is an essential part of the teaching process. But professors and TAs are expected to figure out how to do it on their own. This post outlines some guidelines that I have found to be useful when grading undergraduate syntax assignments.

The First Field Trip: 10 Pieces of Advice

You are a scholar at the beginning of your career, planning to do linguistic fieldwork in a distant location on a little-known language. By some miracle, you have obtained adequate funding, and you are now getting ready to go. Fieldwork is all about meeting your research objectives in less-than-ideal circumstances. This blog post outlines some essential advice for you on the eve of your first major expedition.

First Steps: Writing the Kpelegbe (Ewe) Dictionary

Kpelegbe is a dialect of Ewe spoken in Togo on the road from Kpalime to Atakpame. I started learning Ewe in Togo the Peace Corps (1985-1987). Then, I wrote my thesis on the syntax of Kpelegbe (MIT, 1993):

Book Notice: The Laws of Thought (2026)

Griffiths, Tom. 2026. The Laws of Thought. Henry Holt and Company.

Griffiths 2026 traces three distinct traditions in cognitive science, and tries to show how they can be woven together in a single theory. It characterizes the contributions in terms of Marr's famous theory of levels of analysis: computational, algorithmic, and implementation. Logic (symbolic rule systems) and Bayes rule constitute the computational level. Neural networks constitute the implementation level. As an overview, I enjoyed the book. I think it did a fair job at presenting early generative syntax (before Aspects). I also appreciated the historical overview of artificial neural networks, starting from the work of Mclelland and Rumelhart all the way through modern LLMs. It did a good job of presenting Bayes' rule for beginners, and why it might be useful for cognitive scientists, with some pointers to recent work in this area.

Reconstruction and the New Minimalism

Abstract: In this brief note, I discuss a problem that arises within the theoretical framework for natural language syntax based on Hopf algebra (Marcolli et. al. 2024). The framework does not capture reconstruction effects that are the main empirical motivation for the copy theory of movement, and a cornerstone of minimalist syntax.

Keywords: reconstruction, internal Merge, copies, No Tampering Condition

Reconstruction and the New Minimalism

Comparison of COCA and Google for Syntactic Research

Inversion Seminar

March 10, 2026

Comparison of COCA and Google for Syntactic Research

In this blog post, I give a brief comparison of searching for syntactic data on COCA (Corpus of American English) and searching for syntactic data on the internet using Google (for a detailed discussion of the latter, see the appendix of Collins 2024).

Internet COCA

Size vast 1 billion words

Note: The difference in size means that that there are many more kinds of interesting examples that are accessible on the internet than on COCA. 

Punctuation not sensitive very sensitive

Note: Google ignores all punctuation in doing searches. COCA does searches of strings including punctuation (including the period and quotation marks). For certain syntactic topics, e.g., quotative inversion, this is a very useful feature.

Statistics very rough precise

Note: If I search for two variants of a construction (e.g., inversion versus no inversion in a quotative construction), I might want to compare the frequency of the two variants. COCA allows very precise comparison of numbers over the corpus. But for Google, the best one can do is zero versus few versus many. The exact numbers seem to be less meaningful for Google.

Tagged Data no yes

Note: The COCA corpus has a rich system of tagging for part of speech, so these categories can be used in syntactic searches. The internet is not tagged for part of search, so no such categories can be used.

Class Exercise on Using Online Tools in Syntactic Research

Class Exercise

Inversion Seminar

March 10, 2026

Class Exercise on Using Online Tools in Syntactic Research

In the first half of the class, I will present some data that I have gathered from COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English) on quotative inversion. In the second half of the class (starting from around 10:30am), we will do the following exercise.

Objective: Using the internet, online corpora and chatbots have become important methodologies in syntactic research. The exercise below explores various aspects of these methodologies, using the topics discussed in the seminar as a test case.

Instructions: Choose some property of quotative inversion (or another inversion construction in English) that you would like to investigate. For example, you could study the transitivity constraint, or the distribution of particles, or any other property that interests you. Then choose one of the projects below (or design your own project). Take about 20-30 minutes to carry out the project in class. You can work in small groups, if you prefer. When you finish, we will have mini-presentations (around 5 minutes each) of the results. After class, please send me a very short summary of what you discovered, including the data that you obtained. I will put these summaries in a Google Drive folder. 

Possible Projects:

1. Use COCA (https://www.english-corpora.org/coca/, or one of the other English corpora) to investigate some property of quotative inversion (or another inversion construction). Can the corpus be used to find interesting new data? Can it be used to give accurate statistical information? What challenges does the corpus pose? What benefits does it bring? What prompts did you use?

2. Use Google (or another search engine) to investigate some property of quotative inversion (or another inversion construction). Can the search engine be used to find interesting new data? Can it be used to give accurate statistical information? What challenges does the search engine pose? What benefits does it bring? What prompts did you use?

3. Use a chatbot (such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini) to investigate some property of quotative inversion (or another inversion construction). Can the chatbot be used to find interesting new data? Can it be used to give accurate statistical information? What challenges does the chatbot pose? What benefits does it bring? What prompts did you use?

4. Compare two of the corpora on english-corpora.org for their use in syntactic research. What are the pros and cons of each corpus for syntactic research?

5. Compare two different search engines (e.g., Google versus Bing or others) for their use in syntactic research. What are the pros and cons of each search engine for syntactic research?

6. Compare two different chatbots for their use in syntactic research. What are the pros and cons of each chatbot for syntactic research?

7. Compare two of the three methodologies above (corpora, search engines, chatbots). What are the pros and cons of each method for syntactic research?

400,000 Visits for Ordinary Working Grammarian

As of today, March 6, 2026, my blog Ordinary Working Grammarian has reached a total of 400,000 visits. The blog began on March 14, 2017, and it reached the 200,000 mark on October 19, 2024 (over seven years). The second 200,000 took about a year and a half. Currently the blog is visited by around 10,000 people per month. I feel that is a very large number for a blog whose content concerns natural language syntax and linguistic fieldwork.

In celebration of this milestone, I am posting a list of my most popular blog posts over the last year (in order of popularity). I have a broad readership throughout the world, so if you want to post as a guest, please let me know! I welcome different points of view, even those very different from my own, as long as the subject matter is syntax or fieldwork.

1. Writing a Statement of Purpose for Linguistics Graduate School

2. Togo Diary (June-July 2025)

3. On Foundational Work in Syntactic Theory

4. Undergraduate Introduction to Syntax (Lectures, Spring 2026)

5. Statement of Purpose Examples

6. Some Scribblings on Nasal Gobbling

7. Giving a Talk – Some Practical Advice

8. Statement of Objectives

9. Reading Group: Foundations of Minimalist Syntax (Spring 2026) (near final draft)

10. An Interview with Paul Postal

Top Twenty Field Defining Papers for Generative Syntax

Which works define the field of generative syntax?

The following list is the set of the top twenty books, theses, book chapters and journal articles in generative syntax ordered in terms of total citations from Google Scholar. I have left out the following:

a. Works by Noam Chomsky, which have much higher citation rates than the works below.

b. Textbooks.

c. Edited books containing different authors.

1. Citations: 12,844

Fillmore, Charles J. 1968. The Case for Case. In Emmon Back and Robert T. Harms (eds.), Universals in Linguistic Theory, 1-88. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York.

2. Citations: 10,627

Kayne, Richard. 1994. The Antisymmetry of Syntax. MIT Press, Cambridge.

3. Citations: 10,299

Jackendoff, Ray. 1972. Semantic Interpretation in Generative Grammar. MIT Press, Cambridge.

4. Citations: 10,257

Rizzi, Luigi. 1997. The Fine Structure of the Left Periphery. In Liliane Haegeman (ed.), Elements of Grammar: Handbook of Generative Syntax. Springer.

5. Citations: 10,202

Levin, Beth. 1993. English Verb Classes and Alternations: A Preliminary Investigation. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

6. Citations: 9,250 

Ross, John Robert. 1967. Constraints on Variables in Syntax. Doctoral dissertation, MIT. Cambridge.

7. Citations: 9,244

Baker, Mark. 1988. Incorporation: A Theory of Grammatical Function Changing. Chicago University Press, Chicago.

8. Citations: 8,019

Abney, Steven. 1987. The English Noun Phrase in its Sentential Aspect. Doctoral dissertation, MIT. Cambridge.

9. Citations: 7,912

Cinque, Guglielmo. 1999. Adverbs and Functional Heads: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

10. Citations: 7,204

Pollock, Jean-Yves. 1989. Verb Movement, Universal Grammar and the Structure of IP. Linguistic Inquiry 20, 366-424.

11. Citations: 6,962

Grimshaw, Jane. 1990. Argument Structure. MIT Press, Cambridge.

12. Citations: 6,404

Rizzi, Luigi. 1990. Relativized Minimality. MIT Press, Cambridge.

13. Citations: 5,821

Burzio, Luigi. Italian Syntax: A Government-Binding Approach. Springer.

14. Citations: 5,792

Huang, James. 1998. Logical Relations in Chinese and the Theory of Grammar. Garland publishing, New York.

15. Citations: 5,677

Larson, Richard K. 1988. On the Double Object Constructions. Linguistic Inquiry 19, 335-391.

16. Citations: 4,556

Stowell, Tim. 1981. Origins of Phrase Structure. Doctoral dissertation, MIT. Cambridge.

17. Citations: 4,537

Levin, Beth and Malka Rappaport Hovav. 1994. Unaccusativity: At the Syntax-Lexical Sematics Interface. MIT Press, Cambridge.

18. Citations: 4,523

Jackendoff, Ray. 1977. X’-Syntax: A Study of Phrase Structure. MIT Press, Cambridge.

19. Citations: 4,221

Kratzer, Angelika. 1996. Severing the external argument from its verb. In Johann Rooryck and Laurie Zaring (eds.), Phrase Structure and the Lexicon (pp. 109–137). Kluwer Academic Publishers.

20. Citations: 3,902

Perlmutter, David. 1978. Impersonal Passives and the Unaccusative Hypothesis. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 4, 157-189.

Top Ten Field Defining Papers for Generative Syntax

Which works define the field of generative syntax?

The following list is the set of the top ten books, theses, book chapters and journal articles in generative syntax ordered in terms of total citations from Google Scholar. I have left out the following:

a. Works by Noam Chomsky, which have much higher citation rates than the works below.

b. Textbooks.

c. Edited books containing different authors.

d. Works in adjacent subdisciplines, such as semantics or phonology.

Summary:

I would roughly divide these into three classes:

A. Classic

Ross 1967

B. Argument Structure

Fillmore 1968, Levin 1993, Baker 1988, Grimshaw 1990

C. Cartography

Kayne 1994, Rizzi 1997, Abney 1987, Cinque 1999, Pollock 1989

1. Citations: 12,843

Fillmore, Charles J. 1968. The Case for Case. In Emmon Back and Robert T. Harms (eds.), Universals in Linguistic Theory, 1-88. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York.

2. Citations: 10,610

Kayne, Richard. 1994. The Antisymmetry of Syntax. MIT Press, Cambridge.

3. Citations: 10,253

Rizzi, Luigi. 1997. The Fine Structure of the Left Periphery. In Liliane Haegeman (ed.), Elements of Grammar: Handbook of Generative Syntax. Springer.

4. Citations: 10,199

Levin, Beth. 1993. English Verb Classes and Alternations: A Preliminary Investigation. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

5. Citations: 9,244

Ross, John Robert. 1967. Constraints on Variables in Syntax. Doctoral dissertation, MIT. Cambridge.

6. Citations: 9,242

Baker, Mark. 1988. Incorporation: A Theory of Grammatical Function Changing. Chicago University Press, Chicago.

7. Citations: 8,018

Abney, Steven. 1987. The English Noun Phrase in its Sentential Aspect. Doctoral dissertation, MIT. Cambridge.

8. Citations: 7,910

Cinque, Guglielmo. 1999. Adverbs and Functional Heads: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

9. Citations: 7,204

Pollock, Jean-Yves. 1989. Verb Movement, Universal Grammar and the Structure of IP. Linguistic Inquiry 20, 366-424.

10. Citations: 6,962

Grimshaw, Jane. 1990. Argument Structure. MIT Press, Cambridge.

New York Stories: Space Market

Space Market was buzzing. Students circled the buffet scooping food into their dishes. It was 12:30pm, time for lunch. There were at least 10 customers just at the buffet alone.

The little old guy was rutting into the vegetables with his bare fingers, scraping to get one or two more pieces into his hand. He clenched his hand into a fist to hide them, but I caught the white edge of a piece of cauliflower peeking out between his thumb and forefinger. He held his fist to down his side, and when he thought nobody was looking, popped a vegetable into his mouth, chewing it with as little motion as possible. Then he shuffled down a few feet and started the same process with another one of the food trays that had been displayed in the buffet.

The man was short with a bushy grey beard framing his pink lips. He was obviously homeless, by the clothing his was wearing. But I have seen much worse, and by New York standards, he was actually in pretty good shape. Most likely he was one of the many homeless hanging out in Washington Square Park, just across the street, and had made his way over for his lunchtime routine. As he was rutting around, he had a blank expression on his face, which I now believe was part of his way of hiding his activities. The other odd detail was that he did not carry a food tray in his circuit around the buffet. So if you were willing to put two and two together, it was pretty obvious what he was up to.

At the time I was trying to fill my disposable food dish, carefully selecting my proteins, fats, fibers and carbohydrates into a well-balanced meal, which I would take to the front of the store and pay 20 dollars for. When I realized what he was up to, a great wave of nausea passed through me. I felt like I was going to throw up. But I had already filled half of the food dish, so I could not really abandon my task. Instead, I started staring at the old guy trying to get his attention.

When he looked up, our eyes locked. He did not look away, but rather stared back at me, once again with no expression on his face. I was hoping that just by staring at him, he would become dissuaded and leave, but no such luck. He seemed to be saying to me “What are you going to do about it?” The nausea just got worse and worse.

I packed my little meal, putting on a plastic lid, and bending the tinfoil to clamp down on the lid. Then I went to the front of the store to pay. As I left, I said to the cashier, with whom I had a friendly relationship, “There is a little old guy digging into the food with his fingers and eating it.” She looked exasperated and glanced to the back of the store, but did not make any move to call the manager or any other worker at the store. Because I left as quickly as possible, I am not sure how the situation played out. The typical New York response would definitely be to ignore it, hoping it would go away.

I am pretty sure that is the last time I will eat at Space Market.

Implicit Arguments versus Implicit Predicates

Abstract: Much has been written in the syntax literature about implicit arguments. In this squib, I introduce the term ‘implicit predicate’. I define implicit predicates and argue that they are syntactically projected, exactly like Collins 2024 argues for implicit arguments.  

Keywords: implicit arguments, implicit predicates, serial verb constructions

Implicit Arguments versus Implicit Predicates

Tips on Answering Questions at a Talk

After giving an academic talk, there is usually a question period. At a conference, it can be as short as 10 minutes. At a departmental talk, it can be as long as 30 minutes. Many people, including both graduate students and faculty, find this period stressful and difficult. In this blog post, I outline some strategies for managing the question period successfully.

1. Practice makes perfect. The most important thing to realize is that answering questions is a skill (going beyond the knowledge you have of the topic), and that you can work on it. The more you give presentations at conferences and smaller workshops, and at invited talks and in the department, the better and more confident you will get. Just keep working on the skill!

2. If somebody asks a difficult question during the question period, and you do not know the answer, say “Thank you very much. I will have to think about that.” 

There is no shame in not knowing how to answer a question. Just be respectful and polite toward the person who asked the question. You might even want to bend down and write some notes on the handout, to show that you are taking the question seriously. 

3. If somebody asks a complicated multi-part question (difficult to understand and remember), say “Please, which part should I answer first? Could you break it down a bit?” The questioner will have to repeat their question in a simplified form. This process will allow you to focus on a single question.

4. If somebody asks a long complicated question outlining a complex data paradigm from a language that you are unfamiliar with, just thank the questioner, and say “That is really interesting, can you send me the data by e-mail so I can look at it more closely.”

Syntacticians are often deeply immersed in very complicated data from their favorite language, and they honestly do not understand how difficult it is for other people understand it. So without any thought, they will launch into a long tirade on some set of data, expecting you to comment on it. There is no way that you can do a decent analysis of that data (or even understand it) under the hot lights of a conference room, with 30 people looking on, and very limited time, so don’t even try. Just get the person to agree to correspond with you after the talk, and move on.

5. One of the most powerful tools is to turn the question on the questioner.

This allows you to understand the question more, and gives you time to sort out a response. For example, suppose the question is: 

Q: Can that phenomenon be handled with logophoricity?

You can then ask:

Q’: How would that work exactly? Can you please elaborate a bit?

Or you could ask:

Q’’: Why do you think logophoricity is relevant here?

There are lots and lots of such follow up questions. By asking them, you get clarification and a bit more time to answer. Once you get the hang of this, it is a very powerful tool. And it does not make you look weak. Rather it makes you look confident.

6. You may not be able to answer a question, but you may have interesting related ideas that you can speak confidently about. So you can deflect the question a tiny bit with a comment like, “I have not explored that yet, but a closely related issue is…” or “That issue is related to another that I have been thinking about…”.

7. Plant possible questions during the talk.

There are certain parts of your research that you will not have time to present in the talk. You could plant little flags here and there in the talk, encouraging people to ask questions in the question period. For example, you could say during the talk:

“If anybody wants to hear what happens with reflexives, I could address that during the question period.” 

This will prime the audience to ask questions which you have already prepared for.

8. Think ahead of time about possible questions and answers. 

You have been working on the material for a while. That is why you are giving a talk. What kinds of questions have come up before in talking with your advisor and your colleagues. You can even write down some of the most common ones, and plan out your answers to these questions. In other words, just like you give a practice talk to prepare, you can also entertain possible questions and answers ahead of time. In fact, if you give a practice talk to some linguist friends, you can have them ask a few questions just to get you going.

9. If you have the option, take minor clarificational questions during the talk, but all other questions should be reserved for the question period following the talk.

There is nothing worse than an over-zealous faculty member dominating your talk with questions concerning their own research program and how it relates to the talk you are giving. On many occasions, I have seen a question period talked ruined by this kind of person. This happens much more frequently than people are willing to acknowledge.

10. Often times, one person will insist on asking a lot of questions, taking up all the time in the question session. They ask a question, you answer it, then they ask a follow up, as if the whole question session were a discussion between the two of you. Just say the following: “Please, let’s talk later after the talk. I would like to give a few other people a chance to ask questions.” If you are polite and professional, nobody will take this as being rude (not even the questioner themselves).

11. It can also help to keep in mind why the question period is important to you, the researcher.

Here are some reasons: First, the questions asked at a talk can often give you important tips on how to deepen your analysis, bringing to light: further predictions, interesting examples, related generalizations about other languages, and important references. Second, sometimes after a talk you can strike up a great discussion with the question asker. This correspondence can lead in all kinds of interesting directions. Third, the question period is an additional way to help clarify your positions by going into the topic a little more deeply than was possible in the talk itself. 

So if you can learn to manage the question period successfully, it can be a great way to further your research objectives.

Facebook Etiquette

Welcome to my Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/christhadcollins

I want to keep things lively and interesting and intellectual. To that end, here are a few simple ‘rules’ to keep in mind. There are no concrete consequences to violating these rules. I rarely block or unfriend people, and I almost never delete Facebook material once it is posted. I just want you to keep these guidelines in mind when you post on my page. 

1.

I love honest posts, even posts that are a little rough around the edges. But please don’t write  anything snarky (or sarcastic or abrasive) on my Facebook threads. There is already enough stress in the world, let’s avoid that here.

2.

Short and sweet. Please don’t write two-page long posts on my Facebook threads. Facebook is not a great medium for that kind of response. I prefer shorter insightful posts (e.g., one or two short paragraphs). If you have something longer to say, feel free write me an e-mail message (cc116@nyu.edu). I would be happy to correspond with you.

3.

If we disagree, that is OK. Intellectual engagement is great. And people are passionate about their ideas, which leads to a healthy dialectic. But let’s keep it courteous and friendly!

4.

Please don’t repeat some comment three or four times if you think I have not understood it. Repeating the same comment with slightly different wording and from slightly different angles is not going to make me agree with you. If I don’t respond, or if we just happen to disagree, please accept that and move on.

5.

When you post on my thread, please stay reasonably close to the original spirt of the thread. If you have another topic to discuss, you can post on your own page. You can even give the link to your thread in my thread. For example, if I start a thread about LLMs and generative syntax, do not start to post about how evil OpenAI is. That would be a different topic.

6.

Facebook is not the venue for every sort of act of communication. Please take that into account, when you decide to respond to one of my threads. There are many other ways that two people can communicate: in-person, phone, Zoom and e-mail. In some instances, one of the other modalities might be more appropriate.

7.

If you have a personal grievance (e.g., I have offended you, or I have not cited you), please do not air that grievance on Facebook. Facebook is not the venue for that sort of thing. Rather, let’s talk about it in-person or on the phone, and try to work things out privately without the whole world looking on.

Morphology as Syntax Workshop: Past, Present and Future

Goal: The purpose of this conference is to investigate the relationship between morphology and syntax, and in particular to investigate the extent to which morphological generalizations can be accounted for in terms of purely syntactic operations and conditions. 

MaS 6

ELTE Research Center for Linguistics, Budapest (Spring 2028)

Organizers: Marcel Den Dikken and Éva Dékány

MaS 5

University of Delaware (Spring 2027)

Organizer: Benjamin Bruening

MaS 4

Queens College and Stony Brook University (April 17, 2026)

Organizer: Francisco Ordoñez

MaS 3

UQAM (September 15-16, 2023)

Organizers: Tom Leu and Heather Newell

MaS2

UCLA (June 10-11, 2022)

Organizers: Stefan Keine, Hilda Koopman and Harold Torrence

MaS1

NYU (December 4-5, 2020)

Organizers: Chris Collins and Richard Kayne

The Ubiquity of Smuggling in Syntax

In 2005, I coined the term smuggling (‘A Smuggling Approach to the Passive in English’. Syntax 8, 81-120.)

The Ubiquity of Smuggling in Syntax (.pdf version 3)

The Ubiquity of Smuggling in Syntax (.pdf version 2)

The Ubiquity of Smuggling in Syntax (.pdf version 1)

Undergraduate Introduction to Syntax (Lectures, Spring 2026)

I will use this blog post to distribute my lectures for 'Grammatical Analysis I' which is the undergraduate introduction to syntax at NYU. This course uses Merge as a pedagogical tool to teach students the basics of syntax. I will try to post all my weekly lectures here this year.

Syllabus

Lecture 1 (Syntactic Data)

Lecture 2 (UG and I-Language)

Lecture 3 (Syntactic Categories)

Assignment 1

Lecture 4 (Merge)

Lecture 5 (Constituent Structure Tests)

Lecture 6 (Functional Projections TP)

Lecture 6 (Supplementary Example)

Lecture 7 (Complementizers, CP and Recursion)

Assignment 2

Lecture 8 (DP Structure)

Lecture 8 (Pronominal Possessors)

Lecture 8 (Supplementary Exercises)

Lecture 9 (Complements versus Adjuncts)

Lecture 9 (Supplement on Coordination)

Lecture 10 (Theta-Roles)

Lecture 10 (Supplementary Exercises)

Assignment 3

Lecture 11 (Binding Theory)

Mid-Term Review

Lecture 12 (English Auxiliary Verbs)

Lecture 13 (V to T)

Lecture 13 (Supplement on Negation)

Lecture 14 (Do-Support)

Assignment 4

Lecture 15 (Structure Dependence)

Lecture 15 (T to C)

Lecture 15 (Supplementary Exercises)

Lecture 16 (Internal Merge)

Lecture 16 (Supplement on Relative Clauses)

Lecture 16 (Supplementary Exercises)

Lecture 17 (Passive and Case Theory)

Assignment 5

Lecture 18 (VP-Internal Subjects)

Lecture 19 (Raising versus Control)

Lecture 20 (DOCs and VP-Shells)

Assignment 6

Tree Drawing Contest

Lecture 21 (Principles and Parameters)

Final Review

Being a Syntactician (Some Preliminary Posts)

I am trying to convey to a non-linguist audience what it means to be a syntactician. The goal is to write something completely non-technical that nevertheless gives the reader with absolutely no background a pretty good idea of what we do when we do syntax. I have written several blog posts on this topic already, which I list below. But I am interested in writing something more substantive. So consider these posts as a kind of scratch pad with my notes. The first and the third posts are a bit redundant.

The Personality of a Syntactician (December 24, 2025)

Thinking Syntactically (for Non-Linguists) (September 18 2025)

You Know You are a Syntactician When (April 17, 2017)

What Kind of Syntactician are You? (March 25, 2017)

Basic Skills in Syntax (Part I): Working with Syntactic Data (April 30, 2026)

Some Challenging Issues in Teaching Graduate Level Syntax

1. Grad: Does X (a hypothesis) really work? My professor as an undergrad said it does not. I agree with them.

Implication: Everything I learned at previously as an undergraduate (or Masters student) needs to be rigorously and systematically disproven before I will accept anything else.

Response: I call this phenomenon ‘imprinting’. Whatever theory a student first learns, they take that is the right theory. As a graduate student, you should consider what you have already learned to be a preliminary step, not the final word set in stone. It is likely that most things that you have learned will need to be revised or replaced in some way. Try to have an open mind!

2. Grad: I do not agree with those acceptability judgments. So my English is not characterized by the relevant principle. 

Implication: If I do not agree with the data, I am not going to read any papers on the subject, or look into it. And if you bring up that principle again, I will not fail to remind you that my judgments do not conform to it. In my opinion, it is a total waste of time.

Response: Acceptability judgements are complicated. Even if you disagree with them, it is worthwhile finding out what the range of judgments is, and how that range can be accounted for. Nowadays, it is also possible to explore acceptability judgements experimentally.

3. Grad: Is X a consensus point of view? How many people adopt it?

Implication: Please, I just want to know the most popular theory, the one most people accept. That is the one I want to use to write my paper, so I can get abstracts accepted at conferences.

Response: Consensus has nothing to do with truth. If society in general believes the sun revolves around the earth, that does not thereby make it true. For many issues (e.g., obligatory control, head movement, case) there are several approaches, and understanding those approaches is an important part of learning the subject matter, and making scientific progress on the issues.

4. Grad: Do we really need syntax to explain X? It could just be semantics, right?

Implication: Even without formulating any alternative analysis, we should just take it as a null hypothesis that an explanation not involving any syntactic principle is preferable. 

Response: Neither a syntactic nor semantic analysis can be taken as the null hypothesis. Every hypothesis must be argued for with the same rigor. Disentangling alternative analyses can be quite difficult, and takes a lot of effort.

5. Grad: I thought of an interesting idea, but I already see a paper about that topic published in LI. Oh well, somebody has beaten me to it. I will look for a different topic.

Implication: What makes an idea interesting to me is that I thought of it first. If somebody else has also thought of it, I am no longer interested.

Response: Doing research is engaging in a process involving lots of different people looking at topics from different angles. Your contribution to a particular topic might be completely different from what is already out there. You should try to develop your own ideas, even if there are other papers published on the topic.

6. Grad: I just thought of some interesting data. Let me search the internet intensely for a few days (or even weeks) to see if anything interesting has been written on it.

Implication: I need to find a model in the syntax literature, and apply that to my data. That is the way to do research.

Response: You should get used to doing these things on your own, without always having the crutch of somebody else’s analysis. Sit down in front of a blank piece of paper, and write! Of course, at some step in the process of doing research you need to add references, and a discussion of other approaches.

Inversion Seminar: The Scope of Inversion in English (Spring 2026)

Inversion Seminar

January 20th, 2026

Lecture 1:

I. Overview of Inversion in English

II. Analyses of Quotative Inversion

III. Presentatives as Inversion (contra Wood and Zanuttini 2023)

Lecture (January 20th, 2026)

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

Where Are They Now?

Chris Collins, January 14, 2026

See: Post on Peace Corps Togo

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