Colin P. B. Davis
Linguist | CV 9/2025
I am a theoretical linguist, working as Associate Professor of English Language and Linguistics at Nord University in Norway. I received a PhD in linguistics from MIT in 2020, and came to Norway in 2024. I research linguistic theory with a focus on syntax, morphology, and the general principles of language. I do this using data from English and many other languages. All my projects and papers are listed below.
► The syntax and semantics of parasitic gaps in relative clauses licensed by extraction from noun phrases
[Presentations: NELS 51, LSA 95]
Article published 2025 in Glossa New!
► A theoretical and experimental investigation of the morpho-syntax of an anti-honorific prefix in Korean (With Hyewon Jang)
[Presentations: ICKL 2023, SICOGG 25, SinFonIJA 16]
► Doubling by movement within and from PP in Lustenau Alemannic: On the structure of PP and the realization of copies (With David Diem)
[Presentations: IGG 48, GLOW 46, WCCFL 41, SLE 56]
Article published 2025 in Glossa New!
► Punctuated movement facilitates (multi-)clausal pied-piping in Albanian
[Presentations: WECOL 2023, GLOW 47, FLiNC workshop at NTNU, OLINCO 2025]
► The morpho-phonology of English diminutives: Plural umlaut and late-merge in morphology
[Presentations: MFM 29, LSA 98, OLINCO 2023, SLE 56, University of Leipzig colloquium, Tromsø phonological domains workshop]
► The unextractability of English possessive pronouns and the nature of spell-out
[Presentations: NELS 52, BCGL 14]
► Unifying phrase-level and word-internal ordering: Synthetic superlatives and the Final-Over-Final Condition
[Presentations: University of Potsdam colloquium, SinFonIJA 16]
► Cross-clausal scrambling and subject case in Balkar: On multiple specifiers and the locality of overt and covert movement (With Tanya Bondarenko)
[Presentations: WCCFL 38, LSA 95]
► Anti-locality explains the restricted interaction of subjects and parasitic gaps
[Presentations: Colloquia at University of Minnesota and Tel Aviv University and Ben-Gurion University, IGG 48, WCCFL 41]
► The interaction of clitic pronouns and parasitic gaps in a variety of Spanish (With Luis Miguel Toquero Pérez)
[Presentations: LSA 96, CLS 58, WCCFL 40]
► Extraposition and word order: Evidence from Wolof
[Presentations: Accepted to the cancelled ACAL 51]
Paper published 2024 In Pushing the boundaries: Selected papers from the 51–52 Annual Conference on African Linguistics
► What parasitic gaps reveal about overlapping paths and multiple specifier formation
[Presentations: NELS 50, WCCFL 38]
Paper (under revision)
► The morphology of case and possession in Balkar: Evidence that oblique cases contain accusative
[Presentations: WCCFL 39, WAFL 16]
► Concealed pied-piping in Russian: On left branch extraction, parasitic gaps, and discontinuous nominal phrases (With Tanya Bondarenko)
[Presentations: FASL 27, NELS 49, LSA 93]
► On the role of Agree in unlocking phrases for extraction (With Kenyon Branan)
[Presentations: ACAL 49, WCCFL 36, LSA 93]
► The morpho-phonology of accusative and genitive case in Barguzin Buryat
[Presentations: MFM 28, AMP 2021]
► Mismatched suppletion in Azeri as morphology/phonology competition
[Presentations: Tu+4]
► The free distribution of parasitic gaps and radical successive-cyclicity (With Patrick Elliott)
[Presentations: LSA 95]
► Further insights and inquiries into possessor extraction in English
[Presentations: University of Southern California colloquium]
► Case-sensitive plural suppletion in Barguzin Buryat: Case containment, suppletion typology, and competition in morphology
[Presentations: AIMM 4, CLS 55]
► Possessor extraction in colloquial English: Evidence for successive-cyclicity and cyclic linearization
[Presentations: LSA 93, NELS 49]
► Sub-extraction asymmetries and linearization in Russian (With Tanya Bondarenko)
[Presentations: FASL 28, CLS 55, LSA 94]
► Crossing and stranding at edges: On intermediate stranding and phase theory
[Presentations: LSA 92, WCCFL 36, WAFL 14]
► The Linear Limitations of Syntactic Derivations (Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2020)
► Order preservation in the Russian nominal phrase (With Andrei Antonenko)
[Presentations: LSA 94]
► On the restricted distribution of subject heavy NP shift (With Justin Colley)
[Presentations: LSA 94]
► Phase extension and case/agreement marking in Turkish nominalized clauses (With Justin Colley)
[Presentations: WAFL 12, Tu+2]
► Auxiliaries, locality, and copular allomorphy in North Azeri
[Presentations: LSA 89, Tu+1, WAFL 12]