CV (2025)

 Here is an updated version of my CV.

Please let me know if you need any of the papers listed there.

CV (2025)

Concept Map of Intellectual Development (18 to 24 years)

Here is a concept map of the essential ingredients of my intellectual development and how they converged on syntax. 

Remembering Andrew Radford

Andrew Radford passed away on December 16, 2024. 

I first met Andrew Radford in China. We were both invited speakers for the 5th International Conference on Formal Linguistics, held in Guangzhou, China (December 2011). When we met, we hit it off right away, and the four of us (me and my wife, Andrew and his), spent most of our time outside of the conference together. The conference organizers had assigned to us two young Chinese linguistics students as guides, one male one female. So that was our little group of six. We went to lunch and dinner together, and had fantastic feasts of Chinese food, in styles from all over the country. We asked our Chinese guides endless questions about China and Chinese food and the local region. We also did some sightseeing, going to various scenic regions and a zoo, where there were pandas. It was without a doubt one of the best conference travel experiences of my life, due in large part to meeting Andrew and his wife there (and of course, the hospitality of our Chinese hosts).

While at the conference, Andrew and I gabbed pretty much non-stop about syntax. This was when ‘Imposters’ was just about to come out, so that was on my mind. As for Andrew, he was working a lot on spoken corpus data that he had put together. He was finding all kinds of interesting syntactic patterns that he told me about. After intensive discussions for a few days, we decided to collaborate on a paper, which lay at the intersection of our research domains.

Collins, Chris and Andrew Radford. 2015. Gaps, Ghosts and Gapless Relatives in Spoken English. Studia Linguistica 69.2, 191-235.

From that time onward, I valued him greatly as a colleague. He was a real syntactician’s syntactician, brilliant and deeply committed to the scientific research agenda of generative syntax. After China, I wrote to him often about all kinds of issues. For example, he gave me extensive written feedback on various versions of my 2024 monograph (‘Principles of Argument Structure’), and helped me to clarify a thorny issue concerning exempt anaphora. 

I was so happy to meet Andrew in China, because I owed him a special debt. In the summer of 1984 (nearly thirty years before I met him in-person), I read through his Transformational Syntax (Cambridge University Press, 1981) in its entirety and worked through the exercises with a friend. I still remember how clearly the textbook was written and how captivating it was. It literally drew me in so that I became excited about generative syntax. Then the next academic year, I took a number of graduate level syntax courses (with Hale, Rizzi, Ross), with Andrew’s textbook as my background. It is quite possible that my career would have turned out differently if I had not found and studied his textbook.

I believe through his syntax textbooks he has probably done as much as any other individual to promote the scientific study of generative syntax in the world.

Concept Map of My Work (Some Reflections)

Concept Map

This concept map represents the intellectual work of my entire career as a syntactician. It is grouped into five areas: Foundations/Formalization, African Fieldwork (Ewe and Khoisan), Natural Language Logic, Argument Structure and Imposters. In this post, I will sketch briefly the intellectual origin of each of these areas of interest.

My interest in Ewe started when I was in the Peace Corps in Togo (1985-1987). I had taken enough syntax by then (as an MIT undergraduate) to start to look at Ewe through the eyes of a syntactician.  One of the topics that caught my eye, when I was trying to learn to speak Ewe, was the serial verb construction (SVC). In fact, my writing sample on SVCs for the MIT Department of Linguistics was something I had written during the Peace Corps.

The Khoisan portion of the concept map is ultimately due solely to my encounters with Jeff Gruber while I was in graduate school at MIT. At that time, he was a visiting scholar, so we overlapped. We had long talks about his work on theta-theory, and especially about his fieldwork in Botswana on the Khoisan languages. He graciously made available to me all of his Khoisan fieldwork materials (including reel to reel tapes). Because of Jeff, I became a Khoisanist.

The Negation and Imposters subareas of the concept map originated during my time at NYU, after I left Cornell in 2006. I became interested in working on these topics because of conversations with Paul Postal, who was affiliated with NYU at the time. We worked together extensively for over a decade. I have often reflected that my collaboration with him was a second graduate school education in syntax because I learned so much.

We first got interested in the word ‘ass’ in expressions like ‘Your ass is crazy.’ We started talking about it in early 2006 (just after I was hired). Our first paper together was Collins, Moody and Postal (2008) published just a few years later. That topic naturally led into imposters, and culminated in an MIT Press monograph Collins and Postal (2012). For Paul, those works were just a hiatus from his true obsession, which was negation. So after we finished working on camouflage and imposters, he invited me to help him with his project on negation, which ultimately led to the MIT Press monograph Collins and Postal (2014).

A hypothetical question is what would have happened if I had remained at Cornell, and not met Paul Postal. It seems unlikely that I would have ever worked on camouflage or imposters or negation. But I might have looked at some other problems in anaphora or the syntax/semantics interface. After all, Molly Diesing was at Cornell, and I studied her work very closely while I was there. Furthermore, logic and formal semantics have been interests of mine for a long time.

As for argument structure, that was one of the big topics in the intellectual atmosphere when I got to graduate school in 1988. One of my first graduate courses was Richard Larson’s seminar on VP shells, which had a deep impact on me. Soon after his paper on double object constructions appeared, Hale and Keyser started writing about argument structure (developing Larson’s framework, and modifying it) and so did Noam Chomsky, David Pesetsky and Howard Lasnik (in effect, all of the syntacticians at MIT were working intensely on argument structure around then). Almost overnight, the subfield of ‘argument structure’ transformed from a collection of odd statements about conceptual structure and subcategorization frames and mapping principles, to discussions with highly ramified syntactic structures!

In that climate, I also started working on argument structure, including my thesis work on serial verb constructions, a fairly influential paper on double object constructions in Icelandic (in collaboration with Hoski Thrainsson) and a paper on quotative inversion (in collaboration with Phil Branigan). My basic operating procedure in those years was to see how syntactic principles of locality of movement interact with assumptions about the projection of arguments. That kind of methodology eventually led to my theory of smuggling, which has played an important role throughout my career.

My work on negation, imposters, ellipsis and the interpretation of implicit arguments are all core topics in the syntax/semantics interface, which has occupied much of my career. My attraction to these issues is probably related to my long-time interest in the relation between language and mind (see my graduate school statement of purpose on my blog). 

It is without a doubt that my courses and meetings with Noam Chomsky led to my interest in the foundations of minimalism. In almost all the cases, my innovations have built on his ideas in some way or the other. Chomsky’s lectures taught me what it is to build a theory of natural language syntax, in part by subjecting standard assumptions to intense criticism in a way that I found to be exciting and liberating.

The one area in the foundations section of the concept map which is not directly related to Noam Chomsky’s work is the theory of Morphology as Syntax (Mas), which I created together with Richard Kayne of NYU. After decades of living in the epicenter of Distributed Morphology, I decided to stop grumbling to myself. Rather, I wanted to state clearly what I found to be the problematic aspects of that framework, proposing an alternative framework. Somewhat unexpectedly, I learned that Richard Kayne at NYU had ideas similar to my own, so we decided to collaborate around January 2012. After over a decade of discussions and correspondence, we finally published our foundational paper in 2023. Once again, had I not moved to NYU, it is doubtful that I would have worked on MaS.

Concept Map of my Work (Lucid version)

Concept Map

This is my attempt (third version, the first two were handwritten) at organizing my life's work on the syntax of natural language in a kind of concept map. I just indicate constructions and concepts and topics, not concrete physical things like paper, books, grants, databases, talks, grammars, dictionaries, courses, people, students, colleagues, places or times. In two very important cases, I indicate language (Ewe and Khoisan) because they are crucial to organizing my work. 

Not every syntactic topic that I have worked on is represented, but most of them are.The small amount of work that I have done outside of syntax, semantics and morphology (e.g., phonology, phonetics, historical) is not included.

The general areas are organized around the perimeter, and are circled. The sold lines are topics in a given area. The dotted lines are connections between nodes in the network. For example, Spanish Ustedes supports Morphology as Syntax, and that connection is indicated with a dotted line. I am very intrigued to see how the dotted lines took shape! And I am noticing missing dotted lines even as I write.

Concept Map of My Work

This is my first try at organizing my life's work on the syntax of natural language in a kind of concept graph. I just indicate constructions and concepts and topics, not concrete physical things like paper titles, grants, databases, talks, grammars, dictionaries, courses, people, students, colleagues, places or times. In two very important cases, I indicate language (Ewe and Khoisan) because they are crucial to understanding my work. 

Not every syntactic topic that I have worked on is represented. The small amount of work that I have done outside of syntax, semantics and morphology (e.g., phonology, historical) is not included.

The general areas are organized around the perimeter, and are circled in red. The sold lines are topics in a given area. The dotted lines are connections between nodes in the network. For example, Spanish Ustedes supports Morphology as Syntax, and that connection is indicated with a dotted line. Similarly, simplest Merge is the foundation of my theory of argument structure, so there is a dotted line for that connection too. I am very intrigued to see how the dotted lines took shape! And I am noticing missing dotted lines even as I write.

I will probably try again later once I understand the connections better. I also need to work on the photo quality. 

Here is a second try that I made the next day. It is basically the same content, but I grouped together the topics a little better.

Biographical Notes (Technology Review, Class Notes, March/April 2025)

I wrote this for the Technology Review, Class Notes. It should appear in the March/April 2025 issue. There are also some pictures to accompany the text. They are pictures of me in the field. But I do not post them here.

Back to Cornell (September 25-27 2024)

In this post, I write down some of my thoughts and observations on returning to Cornell to give a talk, after almost two decades away. It is loosely based on my Facebook posts.

My Second Saturn Return

Saturn takes approximately 29.4 years to orbit the sun. 

Astrologers believe that when Saturn returns to its position at the time you were born, you reach a new stage of life. As one astrologer explained it to my friend ZW, when Saturn returns, it is like entering a narrow door, and you can only carry so many things with you. The metaphor indicates a time of change from one stage to another, with significant consequences.

My Five Year Research/Writing Plan (2024-2029)

In the next five years, I will accomplish the following research and writing projects. There are many other issues that I am interested in, but these are the ones for which I have been able to write up concrete proposals. Surprisingly all of these projects have the flavor of returning to my roots.

1. A comprehensive grammar of the Kpele dialect of Ewe. This is the language that I know best, other than English. I want to combine my years of experience writing Khoisan grammars with my knowledge of Ewe and Kpelegbe, and write a comprehensive grammar. Doing this project will involve fieldwork in Togo during the summers of 2025, 2026 and 2027. It will also require applying for a research permit for Togo during the academic year 2024-2025. I should have a complete draft by Fall 2027.

Grammar of the Kpele Dialect of Ewe

2. An interactive map of Ewe dialects. This is a sister project to the Kpelegbe grammar. Both projects aim to increase knowledge of syntactic variation between Ewe dialects. As opposed to the Kpelegbe grammar, the Ewe dialect map will require a large international team, and significant funding. Therefore, I will have to write up and submit a grant proposal during Fall 2024. Once I get funding, the project will take four years to complete.

Ewe Dialect Map

3. Autobiography. For the last several years I have been assembling materials and writing excerpts of my autobiography. I am interested in how my life fits together, and why I choose the path I did, and what that path has led to. I am also interested in presenting my discoveries for a general audience. It will take me at least two or three more years to complete the writing. Then I need to find a publisher.

The Autobiography of Christopher Thad Collins

4. Quotative Inversion. One of my first syntactic loves was quotative inversion. I discovered many things about it early on in my career. Now, I would like to return to it, and see what more can be said. I will give a seminar on quotative inversion during academic year 2025-2026. It should take two years to write.

Quotative Inversion Monograph

Book Proposal: In Search of the Roots of Human Language

In Search of the Roots of Human Language: 

The Autobiography of Christopher Thad Collins

Synopsis/Back Cover:

Follow the life journey of a mild-mannered professor from modest beginnings, deep into the heart of Africa in search of the meaning of life and the secrets of human language.

Chomsky and Me Too: Review of Stohl 2023

(https://www.orbooks.com/catalog/chomsky-and-me/)

In this blog post, I review Bev Stohl’s memoir ‘Chomsky and Me’ (2023, OR Books) from my personal point of view, as a graduate student who attended the MIT Department of Linguistics from 1988 to 1993. To complement Stohl’s perspective, I describe some of my own experiences in the department, studying with Chomsky.

Harvard Society of Fellows Application (September 2 1992)

Application (September 2 1992)

At the end of graduate school, I applied for Harvard’s Society of Fellows. It was basically a three-year period where one could do any research one wanted, and interact with all kinds of very smart people. I knew Chomsky had been a fellow nearly forty years earlier, and that this fellowship allowed him the intellectual room to write his master piece the Language Structure of Linguistic Theory (LSLT, of which his dissertation is a chapter). I would have loved following in his footsteps. My application was all about economy of derivation and trying to develop it in various ways. I applied for the position, and told Morris Halle, who said to me something like: “No, you will never get it.” I was hurt by that comment, but he was just being realistic. I did not get the fellowship. 

Several MIT linguistics students subsequently went on to get the fellowship.

Biography: On the River

 When I was around eight, my family’s standard of living shot upward dramatically. John Todd, a senior partner in my father’s law firm, settled a case involving a person who became a paraplegic as the result of an auto accident. The liability in the case was clear, so the only question was ‘how much.’ My father used his portion of the substantial settlement for the mortgage on a house on the banks of the St. Croix river in Prescott Wisconsin, which is approximately half hour drive from the Twin Cities in Minnesota. That house was by far the most beautiful house I have ever lived in, and perhaps the most beautiful house I have ever set foot into.

Chapter 1: Early Years

This is the first page of my autobiography, for which I have now written about 31 pages. If there is interest, I will post further installments as time goes on.