For a full CV, please follow the link from my NTNU webpage.

I specialize in generative syntax and semantics, and in general I am interested in the interfaces between the three ‘core’ areas of linguistics (syntax, semantics, phonology). Ellipsis—where a hearer interprets semantic meaning, and apparently also syntactic structure, even in the absence of any phonological signal—is the ‘interface’ topic par excellence, and a lot of my research investigates the properties of ellipsis, particularly clausal ellipsis (‘sluicing’ and fragment answers).

I am also interested in microvariation—particularly syntactic and semantic features of dialects of English, especially Scottish English, and of ‘reduced written register’ such as diaries, text messages, headlines etc.

Below are some publications of mine on these (and other) topics. I’ve tried to classify them by topic, although some of the papers overlap two or more of these areas (in particular, I’ve put Weir 2024 Nominal VP anaphora in Scandinavian and English under ‘microvariation’, but it could as easily have gone under ‘ellipsis’). I have also included some conference handouts, if I haven’t (yet) written the material up in that handout in a more formal venue such as a proceedings paper or journal article.

Ellipsis (and similar)

Spanish gapping, adjunct antecedents, and No Embedding (with Marie-Luise Schwarzer and Antonio Fábregas). 2024. Presentation at workshop on ‘Form and Meaning of Coordination’, University of Göttingen. (Handout.)

John and possibly Mary: a reduced free relative analysis. 2023. Presentation at NELS 53, University of Göttingen. (Slides. Was unable to submit to proceedings volume due to illness.)

Optionality in auxiliary contraction deletion in English: an interface account. 2023. Presentation at Workshop on Multilectal Minds, Tromsø. (Slides in PPT.)

Fragments and left-edge ellipsis: the division of labour between syntax, semantics, and prosody. 2022. In The derivational timing of ellipsis, eds. Anikó Lipták & Güliz Güneş, 253–290, OUP. (Link to accepted ms. in NTNU archive.)

Negative fragment answers. 2020. In The Oxford handbook of negation, eds. Viviane Déprez & M. Teresa Espinal, 441-57, OUP. (Link to accepted ms. in NTNU archive.)

Antecedentless fragments: a middle way between sententialism and nonsententialism. 2020. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 52(2), 151-179. (Open access.)

Cointensional questions, fragment answers, and structured meanings. 2018. In Truswell, Robert, Chris Cummins, Caroline Heycock, Brian Rabern & Hannah Rohde (eds.), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 21. 1289-1306.

But write what? 2017. In A Schrift to Fest Kyle Johnson [UMass Amherst Linguistics Open Access Publications 1], eds. Nicholas LaCara, Keir Moulton & Anne-Michelle Tessier. 401-408. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts.

Sentential and possibly subsentential modification: the ambiguity of Collins constructions (with Elizabeth Bogal-Allbritten). 2017. Proceedings of NELS 47 (pre-publication draft).

‘DP be CP’ constructions and the licensing of clausal ellipsis. 2017. Proceedings of NELS 47 (pre-publication draft).

Fragment answers and ‘exceptional movement under ellipsis’: A PF-movement account. 2015. In Bui, Thuy and Deniz Özyıldız (eds.), Proceedings of NELS 45. 175-188.

Fragments and clausal ellipsis. 2014. Doctoral dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst.

• The analysis in Chapter 3 of the dissertation, on the semantic condition on clausal ellipsis, is largely superseded by my 2017 paper ‘Cointensional questions and their implications for fragment answers’. Doubt is cast on the analysis in chapter 4 by the 2022 paper ‘Fragments and left edge ellipsis…’. The analysis in chapter 5, on embedded fragments, is developed in ‘‘DP be CP’ constructions and the licensing of clausal ellipsis’, but is (maybe) called somewhat into question by my 2023 NELS talk John and possibly Mary: a reduced free relative analysis. The jury’s still out, I think!

Fragment answers and the Question under Discussion. 2014. In Iyer, Jyoti & Leland Kusmer (eds.), Proceedings of NELS 44. 255-266.

• The analysis in this paper is largely superseded by my 2017 paper ‘Cointensional questions and their implications for fragment answers’.

Why-stripping targets Voice Phrase. 2014. In Huang, Hsin-lun, Ethan Poole & Amanda Rysling (eds.), Proceedings of NELS 43. 235-248.

‘Reduced written register’

Diary null subjects: an analogy with imperatives? 2019. In Mapping linguistic data: essays in honour of Liliane Haegeman, eds. Metin Bağrıaçık, Anne Breitbarth & Karen De Clercq.

Object drop and article drop in reduced written register. 2017. Linguistic Variation 17(2): 157–85.

Article drop in headlines and truncation of CP. 2013. LSA Annual Meeting Extended Abstracts.

Left edge deletion in English and subject omission in diaries. 2012. English Language and Linguistics 16(1):105–29. (Unfortunately not an open-access link, and the submitted ms seems to have disappeared a few hard drives ago.)

Article drop in headlines: failure of CP-level Agree. 2012. Ms.

• Presents, in detail, an analysis of article drop which is similar to but distinct from that presented in the LSA abstract linked to above. I’m actually now convinced by Lipták & Sybesma 2024 that null-article NPs in headlines radically lack D (rather than there being a silent article); I have a new ms in the works that considers this for English headlines, stay tuned.

Article drop in English headlinese. 2009. MA thesis, University College London.

Subject pronoun drop in informal English. 2009. Richard M. Hogg Prize winning essay.

• This is a retouched and generally better version of my (2008) undergraduate thesis, with the same title; you can download that here if you want, but really, if you’re interested you’re better off with what appeared in EL&L, above.

(Micro)variation

Nominal VP anaphora in Scandinavian and English. 2024. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 27(8). Open access.

Resultatives, goal PPs, and postverbal subjects: From Scotland to Belfast. 2022. Journal of Linguistics 58(1): 111-155. Open access.

Edited journal issue (with Kristin Melum Eide): Morphosyntactic variation within the individual language user. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 43(3)

That’s that construction analysed: that be ‘resultatives’ in Scottish English. 2016. Presentation at the LAGB Annual Meeting, University of York.

Finiteness and response particles in West Flemish (with Liliane Haegeman). 2016. In Finiteness matters: finiteness-related phenomena in natural language [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 231], ed. Kristin Melum Eide. 211-254. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (Link to pre-publication draft—please check the final version for citation purposes.)

The cartography of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in West Flemish (with Liliane Haegeman). 2015. In Discourse-oriented syntax [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 226], eds. Josef Bayer, Roland Hinterhölzl & Andreas Trotzke. 175-210. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (Link to pre-publication draft on LingBuzz—please check the final version for citation purposes.)

Against the root analysis of subject contact relatives in English (with Liliane Haegeman, Lieven Danckaert, Tijs D’Hulster, and Liisa Buelens). 2015. Lingua 163:61–74.

The syntax of imperatives in Scots. 2013. In Cruickshank, Janet & Millar, Robert M. (eds.), After the Storm: Papers from the Forum for Research on the Languages of Scotland and Ulster triennial meeting, Aberdeen 2012. 261–85.

• Here is a direct link to the proceedings version, which has the right pagination and the like; but something went wrong in the production process with the placement of the trees. The above is a link to the submitted version which doesn’t have those problems.

Scots –na: clitic or affix? 2007. Ms.

• On the status of the -na(e) negation marker in Scots. Be gentle with this one; it’s an undergraduate term paper, and my thinking (and how I would express certain things) has changed a bit since then. I’ve made it available because it’s referred to in some other places. Eventually I’ll revise this.

Other

Again’s many readings again: ‘chaining’ again and the semantics of change-of-state predicates. 2023. Invited colloquium, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (Taiwan, presented online. Slides).

Structurally ambiguous again without lexical decomposition: a Function Composition approach. 2018. In Hucklebridge, Sherry & Max Nelson (eds.), Proceedings of NELS 48. 197-206. (Pre-publication draft in NTNU archive.)

• The approaches in the 2023 presentation and the 2018 presentation/proceedings paper are quite different. As of this writing (2024) I don’t think either of the approaches to restitutive or degree-modifying again (Bergen is bigger than Trondheim, but Oslo is bigger again) is quite right. But maybe one of them is, or might be to some extent, so I’ve uploaded them here; a fuller ms is in the works!

Some, speaker knowledge, and subkinds. 2012. In Rendsvig, Rasmus K. and Sophia Katenko (eds.), Proceedings of the ESSLLI 2012 Student Session.

And: I presented a couple of general-interest talks at the British Esperanto Congress, 19-21 May 2017. For anyone interested, here are the slides (though they’re in Esperanto, of course) / Mi prezentis du prelegojn ĉe la Brita Esperanto-Kongreso, de la 19a ĝis la 21a de majo 2017. Se vi interesiĝas, jen la lumbildoj: Lingvo: kio distingas nin de la bestoj (?) [Language: what distinguishes us from animals (?)]; and/kaj La lingva situacio en Norvegio: ĉu lecionoj por la skota lingvo? [The language situation in Norway: lessons for Scots?]