John Bowers
Professor, Chair
(PhD, MIT, 1973)
Department of Linguistics, 206 Morrill Hall, jsb2@cornell.edu, 255-0732
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Research
My main areas of interest are the syntax and semantics of natural language
and the relationship between the two. I am particularly interested in the
level of logical form and the extent to which representations at this level
are determined by the principles of syntax. My recent work in syntax is
concerned with functional categories and with the development of a minimalist
approach to argument structure. I am particularly interested in the syntax and
semantics of predication and in the internal structure of nominals. I have done
some work on metrics and maintain an interest in the relationship between linguistic
theory and literature, particularly poetry.
Graduate Fields Represented: Linguistics, Cognitive Studies
Selected Publications
Bowers, J. and E. Georgala (to appear). The syntax of goals and benificiaries in Standard Modern
Greek. In
Studies in the Morpho-syntax of Greek, ed. Artemis Alexiadou, Cambridge
Scholars Publishing. [
pdf]
Bowers, J. (to appear). On reducing control to movement.
Syntax. [
pdf]
Bowers, J. (2002). Transitivity.
Linguistic Inquiry 33: 183-224.
Bowers, J. (2001). Predication. In
The handbook of contemporary syntactic theory,
ed. by Mark Baltin and Chris Collins, 299-333. Oxford: Blackwell.
Bowers, J. (1997). A binary analysis of resultatives. In
Proceedings of the 1997
Linguistics Society Conference, Texas Linguistic Forum, 38: 43-58. [
pdf]
Bowers, J. (1993). The syntax of predication.
Linguistic Inquiry 24: 591-656.
[
pdf]
Bowers, J. (1991). The syntax and semantics of nominals. In
Cornell University Working Papers in Linguistics 10: 1-30. (Proceedings of the First Semantics and Linguistic Theory Conferen
ce.) Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
Recent Conference Papers/Invited Talks
"Toward a Unified Theory of Argument Structure and Grammatical Function Changing
Morphology, " Workshop on Argument Structure, Center for Advanced Study in Theoretical
Linguistics, University of Tromsų, November 11, 2004. [
Handout]
"Participial (Non-)Agreement in Impersonal Passives," invited talk, Department of Linguistics,
Rutgers University, November 22, 2002. [
pdf]
Unpublished Papers and Manuscripts
Bowers, J. (2001).
Syntactic Relations. Ms. Department of Linguistics, Cornell University. [
pdf]
Bowers, J. (1998). On Pseudogapping. Unpublished paper. Department of Linguistics, Cornell University. [
pdf]
