Spike Gildea

Associate Professor and Head
Department of Linguistics
1290 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-1290
USA

(541)346-3906 (dept. office)
(541)346-0480 (my office)
(541)346-3917 (fax)

email: spike@darkwing.uoregon.edu

Classes Taught at Oregon

F00

Ling 290

Introduction to Linguistic Analysis

S01, S02

Ling 452/552

Syntax and Semantics 2

F01

Ling 614

Theory of Phonology

W01

Ling 615

Theory of Syntax

This Year's Classes

F02

Ling 407/507

Seminar: Field Field Phonetics and Phonology (co-taught with Susan Guion)

W03

Ling 451/551

Syntax and Semantics 1

S03

Ling 426/526

Structure of the Cariban language Family

Selected Publications

Books

1998. On Reconstructing Grammar: Comparative Cariban Morphosyntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2000 (ed). Reconstructing Grammar: Comparative Linguistics and Grammaticalization. Amsterdam: John Benjamins

Articles

1993a. The rigid postverbal subject in Panare: a historical explanation. International Journal of American Linguistics (IJAL) 59.44-63.

1993b. The development of tense markers from demonstrative pronouns in Panare (Cariban). Studies in Language 17-1.53-73.

1994. Semantic and pragmatic inverse - "inverse alignment" and "inverse voice" - in Carib of Surinam. The Pragmatics of Voice: Active, Inverse, Passive . ed. by T. Givón, Typological Studies in Language, vol 30, 187-230. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

1995. A comparative description of syllable reduction in the Cariban language family. International Journal of American Linguistics 61.62-102.

1997a. Introducing ergative word order via reanalysis: Word order change in the Cariban language family. In Essays on Language Function and Language Type, ed. by Joan Bybee, John Haiman and Sandra Thompson, 145-61. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

1997b. Evolution of grammatical relations: How functional motivation precedes structural change. In Grammatical Relations: A Functionalist Perspective on Structure, ed. by T. GivÛn, 155-198. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

2000. On the genesis of the verb phrase in Cariban languages: Diversity through Reanalysis. In Reconstructing Grammar: Comparative Linguistics and Grammaticalization, ed. by Spike Gildea. Amsterdam: John Benjamins

Recent Presentations

1994. Towards a New Classification of the Cariban Languages of Northern Brazil. Presented at the International Congress of Americanists, Stockholm, Sweden.

1995. Functional versus syntactic evidence for reanalysis. Presented at the Conference on Functional Approaches to Grammar, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

1995. From biclausal coreference conditions to monoclausal alignment: the evolution of Cariban split ergativity. Workshop on Diachronic Syntax, International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Manchester, England.

1998. The Reconstruction of Imperfectives/Progressives in Proto-Cariban. Seventh Workshop on Historical Reconstruction, University of Pittsburgh.

1999. Two invited talks for the Curs de tipologia de les llengües ameríndies, Secció de Lingística General de la Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia (Spain).

  • Ergatividad bifurcada en panare (Carib)
  • La evolucion de la grammática: la autonomía de sintaxe en un modelo funcional de lingística.

1999. Two invited talks at the Centro Colombiano de Estudios de Lenguas Aborígenas (CCELA), Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia.

  • Relaciones gramaticales e introducción a la ergatividad.
  • Para explicar la ergatividad: bifurcaciones y sus orígenes.

2000. Invited discussant. Rencontre sur le grammaire des langues Tupi-Guarani, Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement (IRD) et Centre Nacional de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Cayenne, French Giuana.

2000. The Innovative Progressive in Akawaio (Cariban). Workshop on American Indian Languages, University of California, Santa Barbara.

2001. Pre-Proto-Tupí-Guaraní Main Clause grammar. I Encontro Internacional do Grupo de Trabalho de Línguas Indígenas da Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Letras e Lingüística. Belém, Brazil.

2002. An Unsuspected Asymmetry in the Evolution of Ergativity. Keynote talk, Workshop on American Indian Languages, University of California, Santa Barbara

Other Professional Activities:

Assistant Editor for the series Typological Studies in Language, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Press

Member, Comité Científico, Centro Colombiano de Estudios de Lenguas Aborigenas (CCELA),, Universidad de los Andes, Bogot·, Colombia.

Research Interests

  • Descriptive linguistics, especially of indigenous languages of South America
  • Historical linguistics, especially comparative studies of the Cariban language family
  • Diachronic Syntax, especially reconstructing grammar