Colin P. B Davis | Linguist
I am a theoretical linguist, working as Associate Professor of English Language and Linguistics at Nord University in Norway. I research linguistic theory with a focus on syntax, morphology, and the general principles of language that they reveal. I do this using data from English, and many other languages of the world. All my projects and papers are documented below. My contact information, and a full list of my activities, can be found on my CV.
► Synthetic superlative adjectives reveal the Final-Over-Final Condition in morphology [Presented at: University of Potsdam colloquium, SinFonIJA 16, GLOW 48]
► Linearizing Germanic R-pronouns: On the correlation between linear order and extractability [Presented at: University of Pavia]
Handout coming soon
► Diminutives of English irregular plurals: Morpho-phonological evidence for late merge within the word [Presented at: MFM 29, LSA 98, OLINCO 2023, SLE 56, University of Leipzig colloquium, Tromsø phonology workshop]
► What parasitic gaps reveal about overlapping paths and multiple specifier formation [Presented at: NELS 50, WCCFL 38, University of Konstanz]
Paper (to appear)
► The syntax and semantics of parasitic gaps in relative clauses licensed by extraction from noun phrases [Presented at: NELS 51, LSA 95]
Article published 2025 in Glossa 10
► Doubling by movement within and from PP in Lustenau Alemannic: On the structure of PP and the realization of copies (With David Diem) [Presented at: IGG 48, GLOW 46, WCCFL 41, SLE 56]
Article published 2025 in Glossa 10
► A theoretical and experimental investigation of the morpho-syntax of an anti-honorific prefix in Korean (With Hyewon Jang) [Presented at: ICKL 2023, SICOGG 25, SinFonIJA 16, Social Meaning and Grammar (Zurich)]
► Punctuated movement facilitates (multi-)clausal pied-piping in Albanian [Presented at: WECOL 2023, GLOW 47, FLiNC workshop at NTNU, OLINCO 2025]
► The unextractability of English possessive pronouns [Presented at: NELS 52, BCGL 14]
► Cross-clausal scrambling and subject case in Balkar: On multiple specifiers and the locality of overt and covert movement (With Tanya Bondarenko) [Presented at: WCCFL 38, LSA 95]
► Anti-locality explains the restricted interaction of subjects and parasitic gaps [Presented at: 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) [Presented at: LSA 96, CLS 58, WCCFL 40]
► Extraposition and word order: Evidence from Wolof [Presented at: Accepted to the cancelled ACAL 51]
Paper published 2024 In Pushing the boundaries: Selected papers from the 51–52 Annual Conference on African Linguistics
► The morphology of case and possession in Balkar: Evidence that oblique cases contain accusative [Presented at: WCCFL 39, WAFL 16]
► Concealed pied-piping in Russian: On left branch extraction, parasitic gaps, and discontinuous nominal phrases (With Tanya Bondarenko) [Presented at: FASL 27, NELS 49, LSA 93]
► On the role of Agree in unlocking phrases for extraction (With Kenyon Branan [Presented at: ACAL 49, WCCFL 36, LSA 93]
► The morpho-phonology of accusative and genitive case in Barguzin Buryat [Presented at: MFM 28, AMP 2021]
► Mismatched suppletion in Azeri as morphology/phonology competition [Presented at: Tu+4]
► The free distribution of parasitic gaps and radical successive-cyclicity (With Patrick Elliott) [Presented at: LSA 95]
► Further insights and inquiries into possessor extraction in English [Presented at: University of Southern California colloquium]
► Case-sensitive plural suppletion in Barguzin Buryat: Case containment, suppletion typology, and competition in morphology [Presented at: AIMM 4, CLS 55]
► Possessor extraction in colloquial English: Evidence for successive-cyclicity and cyclic linearization [Presented at: LSA 93, NELS 49]
► Sub-extraction asymmetries and linearization in Russian (With Tanya Bondarenko) [Presented at: FASL 28, CLS 55, LSA 94]
► Crossing and stranding at edges: On intermediate stranding and phase theory [Presented at: 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) [Presented at: LSA 94]
► On the restricted distribution of subject heavy NP shift (With Justin Colley) [Presented at: LSA 94]
► Phase extension and case/agreement marking in Turkish nominalized clauses (With Justin Colley) [Presented at: WAFL 12, Tu+2]
► Auxiliaries, locality, and copular allomorphy in North Azeri [Presented at: LSA 89, Tu+1, WAFL 12]