Two Abstracts for: The Cambridge Handbook of the Minimalist Program (forthcoming, Grohmann and Leivada eds.)

I am very proud of both of these little squibs, which are both foundational. Erich Groat and Daniel Seely are two of the deepest thinkers about the foundations of minimalist syntax out there, and I am honored to have been able to work with them. Both of these papers follow closely on earlier results of mine, including Collins 2002 ('Eliminating Labels') and Collins and Stabler 2016 ('A Formaliation of Minimalist Syntax'). I am glad that they are finally going to see the light of day in Grohmann and Leivada's eagerly anticipated handbook.

Two Abstracts for ACAL55 on Kalahari Khoe

Here are two related abstracts that I submitted for ACAL55 with co-authors. ACAL stands for Annual Conference on African Linguistics.

They both concern the classification of Khoe-Kwadi languages (Central Khoisan). The first deals specifically with Tshila, which has not been very well classified before. The second deals with the structure of the Kalahari Khoe subgroup of Khoe-Kwadi, arguing that it should be divided into northern and southern Kalahari Khoe. The methodology of the second paper is based on the Bantu linguistics paper by Marten, Kula and Thwala 2007. 

As of the posting date (November 6, 2023), neither abstract has been either accepted or rejected.

Batchelder-Schwab, Andre and Chris Collins. 2023. Classification of Tshila. 

Abstract submitted to ACAL55. Abstract.

Collins, Chris and Anne-Maria Fehn. 2023. Parameters of Morphosyntactic Variation in Kalahari Khoe.

Abstract submitted to ACAL55. Abstract.

On implicit arguments and logophoricity (NELS abstract, Angelopoulos and Collins 2023)

This abstract was accepted as a poster at NELS 54 (2024). Empirically, it documents differences between exempt anaphora in Greek and English. It accounts for those differences by postulating a deep connection between logophoricity and implicit arguments in the sense of Collins 2023 (forthcoming, MIT Press). 

If you are unable to download the abstract, let me know.

Abstract: On implicit arguments and logophoricity