Julie Anne Legate
PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002
Professor
Chair of Linguistics
Editor-in-Chief,
Natural Language & Linguistic Theory.
3401-C Walnut Street, Rm 331
Department of Linguistics
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104
jlegate standard-preposition ling.upenn.edu
I direct the Penn
Syntax Lab
Research
My research is in syntactic theory, and the syntax, morphosyntax,
and syntax-semantics of
endangered/understudied/typologically interesting languages. I have
secondary research interests in language acquisition.
I am particularly interested in passives, impersonals, causatives,
and related constructions; null subjects; case; and locality domains
What I do (for non-linguists):
Mapping the Boundaries of Human Language
Current/Recent Projects
- Null subjects in Brazilian Portuguese, with Gesoel Mendes
- Passive agents and binding.
- Passives, Impersonals. The paper
On Passives of Passives won the LSA’s Best Paper in Language
Award for 2020, coauthored with Faruk Akkuş,
Milena Šereikaitė,
Don Ringe. Here is a prepublication version: On
Passives of Passives: Director's Cut , which is
slightly less terse, and has a few additional examples and
arguments (identified in the text in blue).
We provide an
analysis of passives, an analysis of impersonals (with a bonus new
analysis of pro-drop), and an analysis of
Lithuanian evidentials. We show that Turkish ``passives of
passives'' are impersonals of passives, Lithuanian
``passives of passives'' are evidentials of passives, and Sanskrit
``passives of passives'' are unaccusatives with instrumental themes.
- Noncanonical passives. The paper Noncanonical Passives: A Typology of Voices in an
Impoverished UG. appeared in 2021 in the Annual Review of
Linguistics.
- The place of case in the grammar. The paper Case Out of
Universal Grammar is in press.
- Recursion. See below 2014 Language paper, coauthored with David
Pesetsky and Charles Yang, replying to Levinson 2013.
Also, here is
the core of an argument for clausal recursion in and embedding of finite
clauses in Warlpiri: Clausal
Recursion and Embedding in Warlpiri. In a slightly different form,
it appears buried in section 3.2 of my 2011 paper in Syntax :
Warlpiri Wh-Scope Marking
- Under-Inheritance, whereby the A-features fail to be inherited by T,
versus Over-Inheritance, whereby both the A- and A'- features of C are
inherited by T. Here's a NELS talk:
Under-Inheritance. Also see the appendix to Chapter 3
of the below 2014 MIT Press monograph.
Selected Publications
- 2021. Noncanonical Passives: A Typology of Voices in an
Impoverished UG. Annual Review of
Linguistics.
- 2020. (with Faruk Akkuş, Milena
Šereikaitė, Don Ringe) On Passives of Passives.
Language 96. Winner of the LSA’s Best Paper in Language
Award! Here's a slightly less terse version, with a few
additional examples and arguments (in blue): On
Passives of Passives: Director's Cut
- 2017 The Locus of Ergative Case.
In Ergativity. Oxford University Press.
- 2015 (with Allison Ellman and
Charles Yang) Input and its Structural Description. In
50 years later: Reflections on Chomsky's Aspects.
- 2014.
Voice and v: Lessons from Acehnese. MIT Press.
- 2014. Split ergativity based
on nominal type. Lingua 148.
- 2014. (with
David Pesetsky and
Charles Yang) Recursive
misrepresentations: A reply to Levinson (2013). Language
90.
- 2012. Subjects in Acehnese and the
Nature of the Passive. Language 88.
- 2012. (with
Charles Yang) Assessing Child and Adult Grammar.
In Robert C. Berwick & Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini (eds.), Rich
Languages from Poor Inputs: In Honor of Carol Chomsky. Oxford:
Oxford University Press. (On the acquisition of stress in the
presence of exceptions.)
- 2012. Types of Ergativity. Lingua
122.
- 2011. Warlpiri Wh-Scope Marking.
Syntax 14.
- 2010. On how how is used instead
of that. Natural Language & Linguistic
Theory 28.
- 2008. Morphological and Abstract Case.
Linguistic Inquiry 39.1.
- 2008. Warlpiri and the Theory of Second
Position Clitics. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory
26.1.
- 2007. (with
Charles Yang) Morphosyntactic
Learning and the Development of Tense. Language
Acquisition 14.3:315-344.
- 2005 Split Absolutive In Alana Johns,
Diane Massam, and Juvenal Ndayiragije,
Ergativity: Emerging Issues. Kluwer. (link is to
prefinal draft)
(This is sometimes cited as 2003 Split Ergativity in Warlpiri)
- 2005. (with
Charles Yang) The richness of the
poverty of the stimulus at the LSA Institute,
Happy Golden Anniversary, Generative Syntax Workshop
- 2005 Phases and Cyclic Agreement In Martha McGinnis &
Norvin Richards (eds.), Perspectives on Phases . MITWPL.
- 2003 Some Interface Properties of the
Phase. Linguistic Inquiry 34.3.
- 2003 The Morpho-Semantics of Warlpiri
Counterfactual Conditionals. Linguistic Inquiry 34.1.
- 2003 The Configurational Structure of a
Nonconfigurational Language. Linguistic Variation Yearbook.
- 2002.(with Charles
Yang) Empirical Re-Assessment of
Stimulus Poverty Arguments. Linguistic Review 19, 151-162.
- 2002. My dissertation: Warlpiri:
Theoretical Implications
- 1999 The Morphosyntax of Irish Agreement.
In Karlos Arregi,
Benjamin Bruening, Cornelia Krause, and Vivian Lin (eds), Papers
on Morphology and Syntax, Cycle One. MITWPL. (link is to
prefinal version)
PhD Advising
- Faruk Akkuş 2021, (Implicit) Argument
Introduction, Voice and Licensing
- Milena Šereikaitė 2020, Voice and Case Phenomena in Lithuanian Morphosyntax
- Ava Irani 2019, Learning from Positive Evidence: The
Acquisition of Verb Argument Structure
- Helen Jeoung 2018, Optional Elements in Indonesian Morphosyntax
-
Einar Freyr Sigurðsson 2017, Deriving Case, Agreement and
Voice Phenomena in Syntax