Fall 2023: the Reading Group will continue in a slightly more structured format, as a substitute for `Advanced Syntax': Wed 3-4:40 pm, via zoom: everyone is welcome to join (e-mail me for the link)

Office: 
RBL 327 

ellyvangelderen at asu.edu

Or ellyvangelderen at gmail.com

Educational Background: 
McGill University, Montreal, Canada; Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Teaching Background: 

Groningen University, Queen's University, John Abbott College

Visiting scholar/fellow:
University of Arizona (S1995); University of California, Los Angeles (S2002); Centre for Advanced Study, Oslo (AY 2004-2005); Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (S2009); Center for the Study of Mind in Nature, Oslo (F2015); Goettingen University (F2022)

Curriculum Vitae; video; audio on the Linguistic Cycle

Research Areas

Elly van Gelderen is a syntactician interested in language change. Her work shows how regular syntactic change (grammaticalization and the linguistic cycle) provides insight in the Faculty of Language. Her 2011 book, The Linguistic Cycle: Language Change and the Language Faculty (Oxford University Press) shows how cyclical change can be accounted for through an economy principle. Her Clause Structure (Cambridge University Press, 2013) examines a number of current debates in theoretical syntax. The history of argument structure, e.g. how unaccusatives and unergatives change in very different directions, is explored in The Diachrony of Meaning (Routledge 2018). Related interests are the evolution of language, biolinguistics, prescriptivism, authorship debates, and code switching. Her most recent book projects are Third Factors in Language Variation and Change (CUP, 2022) and The Linguistic Cycle: Economy and Renewal in Historical Linguistics (Routledge to appear in 2024).

Elly is the author of twelve books and over a hundred articles/chapters in journals such as Linguistic Analysis, Linguistics, Studia Linguistica, Word, and Linguistic Inquiry. She is also the editor of two book series and has herself edited or co-edited eleven books/special issues. Elly has been affiliated with ASU since 1995 (emerita in May 2023).

Talks/Presentations