Curriculum Vitae
Paul M. Postal
49 Carthage Road
Scarsdale, New York 10583
Phone: (Business) (212) 998-8692
E-mail: PP11@is4.nyu.edu
- General
Birthdate: Place of Birth: Weehawken, New Jersey Education: Majors: Anthropology and Philosophy 1963 Ph.D. Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut Department : Anthropology Thesis: Some Syntactic Rules in Mohawk II Professional Experience 9/93-Present Adjunct/Research Professor, Department of Linguistics, New York University, New York, New York 6/67 - 5/93 Research Staff Member, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York 7/74 - 8/74 Visiting Professor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 2/71 - 3/71 2/71 - 6/71 Visiting Professor, Department of Linguistics, Columbia University, New York, New York 1/70 - 6/70 9/65 - 6/67 9/63-9/1965 6/64 - 8/64 7/61-9/63
November 10, 1936
1957 B.A. Columbia College, New York, New York
Visiting Professor, Graduate Center, City University of NewYork, New York, New York
Visiting Professor, Rockefeller University, Psychology Laboratory, New York, New York
Professor, Queens College and Graduate Center, The City University of New York, New York, New York
Assistant Professor, MIT, Department of Modern Languages, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Asstistant Professor, Indiana University, Department of Linguistics, Bloomington, Indiana
Research Associate, MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics, Cambridge, Massachusetts
III Publications
A. BOOKS
(1964) Constituent Structure, A Study of Contemporary Models of Syntactic Description, Publication 30, Indiana University Publications in Anthropology, Folklore, and Linguistics, Bloomington, Indiana.
(1964) An Integrated Theory of Linguistic Descriptions (with J. J. Katz). The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
(1967) Aspects of Phonological Theory, Harper and Row, New York, New York.
(1970) Cross-Over Phenomena, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, New York.
(1974) On Raising, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
(1976) Beginning English Grammar, (with S. J. Keyser), Harper and Row, New York, New York.
(1979) Some Syntactic Rules in Mohawk, Garland Publishing Inc., New York, New York.
(1980) Arc Pair Grammar, (with D. E. Johnson), Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.
(1984) The Vastness of Natural Languages, (with D. T. Langendoen) Basil Blackwell, Oxford, England.
(1986) Studies of Passive Clauses, State University of New York Press, Albany, New York.
(1989) Masked Inversion in French, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois.
(1990) Studies in Relational Grammar 3, (editor, with B. Joseph) The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois.
B. PAPERS
(1961) "Avunculocity and Incest: The Development of Unilateral Cross-Cousin Marriage and Crow-Omaha Kinship Systems" (with D. B. Eyde), American Anthropologist 63, 747, 771.
(1962) "On the Limitations of Context-Free Phrase Structure Descriptions", Quarterly Progress Report No. 64, M.I.T., Research Laboratory of Electronics, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
(1963) "Matrilineality Versus Matrilocality Among the Siriono: A Reply to Needham", Bijdragen Tot De Taal-, Land- En Volkenkunde 119, 284-286.
(1963) "The Transformation Theory: Advantages and Disadvantages", in E.D. Woodworth and R. J. Prieto (eds.), Monograph Series on Language and Linguistics 15, Georgetown Institute of Languages and Linguistics, Washington, D.C.
(1964) "Limitations of Phrase Structure Description", in J. Katz and J. Fodor (eds.), Readings in the Philosophy of Language, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
(1964) "Mohawk Prefix Generation", in H. Lunt (ed.), Proceedings of the IXth International Congress of Linguists, Mouton and Co., The Hague.
(1964) "Boas and the Development of Phonology", International Journal of American Linguists 30 269-280. Reprinted in E. Hajicova (tr.), Celistva teorie lingvistickych popisu, Ceskoslovenska Adademie Ved, Praha (1967).
(1964) "Novy Vyoj Teorie Transformacni Gramatiky", Slovo A Slovesnost 26,1 - 13.
(1964) "Underlying and Superficial Linguistic Structure", Harvard Education Review 34, 246 - 266. Reprinted in R.C. Oldfield and J. C. Marshall (eds.), Language, Penguin Books, Baltimore, Maryland
(1968) and in J. A. Emig, J. E. Fleming and H. M. Popp (eds.), Language and Learning, Harcourt, Brace and World, New York and in D. A. Reibel and S. A. Schane (eds.), Modern Studies in English: Readings in Transformational Grammar, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey (1969).
(1966) "A Note on 'Understood Transitively'", International Journal of American Linguistics 32, 90 - 93.
(1966) "On So-Called Pronouns in English", in F. Dineen S.J. (ed.), Report of the 17th Annual Round Table Meeting on Languages and Linguistics, Georgetown University Press, Washington, D.C. Reprinted in D. A. Reibel and S. A. Schane (eds.), Modern Studies in English: Readings in Transformational Grammar. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey (1969).
(1966) "Andre Martinet, Elements of General Linguistics"; review in Foundations of Language 2, 41 - 76.
(1966) "Robert E. Longacre, Grammar Discovery Procedures"; review in International Journal of American Linguistics 32, 93 - 99.
(1966) "Robert M. W. Dixon, Linguistic Science and Logic"; review in Language 42, 84 - 93.
(1967) "On Logical and Linguistic Structures", International Social Science Journal 19, no. 1. Reprinted in the UNESCO publication, International Study on the Main Trends in the Sciences of Man, (date unknown).
(1967) "Coordination Reduction", in P. S. Rosenbaum, Specification and Utilization of a Transformational Grammar -- Final Report. IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. Rreprinted as Research Report RC-2061, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York (1968).
(1968) "Epilogue", in R. A. Jacobs and P. S. Rosenbaum (eds.) English Transformational Grammar, Blaisdell, Waltham, Massachusetts.
(1969) "A. McIntosh and M. A. K. Halliday, Patterns of Language"; review in Foundations of Language 5, 409 - 426.
(1969) "W. Chafe, Seneca Morphology and Dictionary"; review in American Anthropologist 71,
(1969) "Mohawk Vowel Doubling", International Journal of American Linguistics 35, 291 - 298.
(1969) (with S. R. Petrick and P. S. Rosenbaum), "On Coordination Reduction and Sentence Analysis", Communications ACM 12, 223- 233.
(1969) "Anaphoric Islands", in R. I. Binnick, et. Al., eds., Papers from the Fifth Regional Meeting Chicago Linguistic Society, Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, 209 - 239.
(1969) "On the Surface Verb Remind", (1970) Linguistic Inquiry 1, 37 - 120.
(1970) "The Method of Universal Grammar", in P. Garvin (ed.), On Method in Linguistics, Mouton and Co., The Hague.
(1970) "On Coreferential Complement Subject Deletion", Linguistic Inquiry 1, 439 - 500.
(1971) (with J. Grinder), "Missing Antecedents", Linguistic Inquiry 2, 269 - 312.
(1971) (with J. R. Ross) "Tough Movement Si, Tough Deletion No!", Linguistic Inquiry 2, 544 - 546.
(1972) "The Best Theory", in P. S. Peters (ed.), Goals of Linguistic Theory, Prentice Hall, Englewood-Cliffs, New Jersey.
(1972) "A Global Constraint on Pronominalization", Linguistic Inquiry 3, 35 - 59.
(1972) "Two Remarks on Dragging", Linguistic Inquiry 3, 130 - 136.
(1972) "Further Evidence for the Quantificational Nature of Conjunctions", Research Report RC - 3682, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New ork.
(1972) "On Some Rules that Are Not Successive Cyclic", Linguistic Inquiry 3, 211 - 222.
(1972) "Some Further Limitations of Interpretive Theories of Anaphora", Linguistic Inquiry 3, 349 - 371.
(1972) "An Invisible Performative Argument, Foundations of Language 9, 242 - 245.
(1972) "A Few Factive Facts", Linguistic Inquiry 3, 396 - 400.
(1972) "Pronominal Epithets and Similar Items, Foundations of Language 9, 246 - 248.
(1972) "A Remark on the Verb-Initial Hypothesis", Papers in Linguistics 5, 124 - 137.
(1973) "Whose Gorilla", (with J. Hankamer), Linguistic Inquiry 4, 261.
(1974) "On Certain Ambiguities", Linguistic Inquiry 5, 367 - 424.
(1976) "Avoiding Reference to Subject", Linguistic Inquiry 8, 141 - 154.
(1976) "Linguistic Anarchy Notes", in J. McCawley, (ed.), Syntax and Semantics: Vol. 7, Academic Press, New York.
(1977) "Antipassive in French", in J. Kegl and D. Nash, (eds.), Papers from the Seventh Regional Meeting of the North Eastern Linguistic Society, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Reprinted in Lingvisticae Investigationes I, 333 - 374 (1977)).
(1977) "About a 'Nonargument' for Raising", Linguistic Inquiry 8, 141 - 154.
(1977) "Toward a Universal Characterization of Passivization" (with D. Perlmutter) in K. Whistler et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society Berkeley, California.
(1978) "Traces and the Description of English Complementizer Contraction", (with G. K. Pullum) Linguistic Inquiry 9, 1 - 29.
(1979) "On an Inadequate Defense of Trace Theory" (with G. K. Pullum) Linguistic Inquiry 10, 689 - 706.
(1980) "Un Cas Familier de Non-Cliticisation" Lingvisticae Investigationes 4, 213 - 215.
(1981) "A Failed Analysis of the French Cohesive Infinitive Construction" Linguistic Analysis 8, 281 - 323.
(1982) "The Contraction Debate" (with G. K. Pullum) Linguistic Inquiry 13, 122 - 138.
(1982) "The Generalization 81 Follows from Trace Theory" Linguistic Analysis 9, 277 - 284.
(1982) "Some Arc Pair Grammar Descriptions" in P. Jacobson and G. K. Pullum (eds.), On the Nature of Syntactic Representation D. Reidel Publishing, Dordrecht, Holland.
(1983) "The Relational Succession Law", (with D. Perlmutter), in D. Perlmutter, (ed.), Studies in Relational Grammar: 1, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois.
(1983) "Some Proposed Laws of Basic Clause Structure" (with D. Perlmutter) in D. Perlmutter, (ed.), Studies in Relational Grammar: 1, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois.
(1983) "On Characterizing French Grammatical Structure" Linguistic Analysis 11,361-417.
(1984) "The 1 Advancement Exclusiveness Law" (with D. Perlmutter), in D. Perlmutter and C. Rosen, (eds.), Studies in Relational Grammar: 2, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois.
1984) "Impersonal Passives and Some Relational Laws" (with D. Perlmutter) in D. Perlmutter and C. Rosen, (eds.), Studies in Relational Grammar: 2, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois.
(1984) "French Indirect Object Cliticization and SSC/BT" Linguistic Analysis 14,111-172.
(1984) "English and the Class of Context-Free Languages" (with D. T. Langendoen) Computational Linguistics, 177-181.
(1984) "Comments on Pullum's Criticisms" (with D.T. Langendoen) Computational Linguistics, 187-189.
(1985) "Sets and Sentences" (with D. T. Langendoen) in J. Katz (ed.) The Philosophy of Linguistics. Oxford University Press, Oxford, England.
(1985) "La d¾ gradation de pr¾ dicat et un genre neglig¾ de mont¾ e", Recherches Linguistiques 13, 33-69.
(1986) "Misgovernment" (with G. K. Pullum) Linguistic Inquiry 17, 104-110.
(1986) "Why Irish Raising Is Not Anomalous", Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 4, 333-356.
(1987) "Expletive Noun Phrases and Movement to Subcategorized Positions" (with G.K. Pullum) in Proceedings of the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics 6, Stanford Linguistics Association, Stanford, California.
(1988) "Expletive Noun Phrases in Subcategorized Positions" (with G. K. Pullum) Linguistic Inquiry 19, 635-670.
(1988) "Advances in Linguistic Rhetoric", Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 6, 129-137.
(1990) "French Indirect Object Demotion" in P. M. Postal and B. Joseph (eds.) Studies in Relational Grammar 3, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois.
(1991) "Some Unexpected English Restrictions" in K. Dziwirek, P. Farell and E. Mejias-Bikandi (eds.) Grammatical Relations: A Cross Theoretical Perspective, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford, California.
(1991) "Phantom Successors and the French faire par Construction" in D. Brentari, G.Larson and L. MacLeod (eds.), The Joy of Grammar: A Festshrift for James D. McCawley, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, Holland.
(1991) "Realism vs. Conceptualism in Linguistics" (with J. J. Katz), Linguistics and Philosophy 14, 515-554.
(1992) "Un passif sans morphologie sp¾ cifique" in L. Tasmowski and A. Zribi-Hertz (eds.), Hommages ´ Nicolas Ruwet, Comunication and Cogniton, Ghent, Belgium.
(1993) "Some Defective Paradigms", Linguistic Inquiry 24, 347-364.
(1993) "Remarks on Weak Crossover Effects", Linguistic Inquiry 24, 539-556.
(1993) "Parasitic Gaps and the Across-the-Board Phenomenon", Linguistic Inquiry 24, 735-754.
(1994) "Parasitic and Pseudo-Parasitic Gaps", Linguistic Inquiry 25, 63-117.
(1994) "The Ungrammaticality of Subnominal en in French Object Raising Complements" Linguistic Inquiry 25, 179-185.
(1994) "Contrasting Extraction Types", Journal of Linguistics 30, 159-186.
(1996) (with Mark Baltin) "More on the Inadequacy of Reanalysis Hypotheses" Linguistic Inquiry 27, 127-0145.
(1996) "A Glance at French Pseudopassives", in C. Burgess, K. Dziwirek and D. B. Gerdts (eds.), Grammatical Relations, Theoretical Approaches to Empirical Questions, CSLI, Cambridge University Press, New York.
(In Press) Three Investigations of Extraction, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
(In Press) "Islands", in M. Baltin and C. Collins (eds.), The Handbook of Syntactic Theory, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, England.
IV Invited Talks (1991-1997)
(1991) "The Strong Crossover Phenomenon", Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute, University of California at Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California.
(1993) "The Strong Crossover Phenomenon", Annual Meeting of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, England.
(1993) "A Novel Extraction Typology", Annual Meeting of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, England.
(1993) "French Pseudopassives", Conference on Grammatical Relations, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
(1996) "Figure vs. Figure Out", Student Conference on Linguistics, New York University, New York.
(1997) "Strong Crossover Violations and Binding Principles" to be delivered at ESCOL Meeting, Yale University, November, 1997.
V Work In Progress
(a) Extraction from Selective Islands; this will detail the results of the NSF grant mentioned in VII below.
(b) "The Grammar of Non-Standard Nominal Negative Polarity Items" (with John Robert Ross); a study of the remarkably distinctive grammar of slang items like squat, zip, etc.
(c) A Handbook of Parasitic Gaps (editor with Peter Culicover), a volume of papers covering parasitic gaps in a variety of languages.
(d) "A Major Hole in the English Parasitic Gap Paradigm", to appear in (c).
(e) "Diversity in English Objects"; a work arguing that that the behavior of English nominals with respect to a wide range of phenomena can be extensively regularized by recognizing that there are at least three distinct types of prepositionally unmarked objects.
(f) "Islands", work arguing that (i) the standard search for common features of all constituents which are islands could profitably be replaced by a search for common features of those which are not; and (ii) common features of non-islands are to be found in the domain of grammatical relations.
(g) "The Strong Crossover Effect", written version of 1997 ESCOL lecture.
(h) "What is French on?"; claims, contrary to standard views past and present, that the gallicism in question is an expletive nominal and not e.g. an indefinite pronoun or something else.
VI Current Overall Research Interests
A. Grammatical Theory and English Grammar with special reference to extractions, parasitic gaps, control phenomena, coordination, pronominalization and reflexivization, passivization and the analysis of indirect objects.
B. Grammatical Theory and French Grammar with special reference to: pronominal cliticization, causative structures, passives, expletives.
C. Relationally oriented grammatical theories
D. Foundations of linguistics, with special reference to issues of psychological vs. nonpsychological character of linguistics.
VII Grants and Awards
Recipient (with Mark Baltin) as of August 1, 1995 and Principal Investigator of two year NSF Grant (SBR-9409340) entitled Extraction from Selective Islands.
VIII Current Ph. D. Supervision
Jayashree Nadahalli, Aspects of Kannada Grammar (degree expected, February, 1998). This is a study of aspects of the grammar of a Dravidian language spoken by some twenty five million people in the state of Karnataka, in southern India.
IX Courses Recently Taught
Seminar On Syntax
Anaphora and Binding
Grammatical Relations in Syntax
Syntactic Theory and Analysis
Last Modified: June 17, 2002