People

Department of Linguistics

(O) (212)-998-7959

New York University

(Fax) (212)-995-4707

719 Broadway, #501

New York, NY 10003

singler@is2.nyu.edu

Education

1984

Ph.D.

University of California, Los Angeles: Linguistics

Dissertation: Variation in Tense-Aspect-Modality in Liberian English

1979

M.A.

University of California, Los Angeles: Linguistics

Thesis: The Segmental Phonology of Verb Suffixes in Talo Klao (Kru)

1976

M.A.

School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London: African Studies

Thesis: Language and the Liberian Government: Philosophy, Policy, and

Practice, 1821-1976

1969

A.B.

Dartmouth College

Major: History, with distinction

Teaching and Research Positions

1996-

Professor of Linguistics, NYU

1990-96

Associate Professor of Linguistics, NYU

1984-90

Assistant Professor of Linguistics, NYU

1986-

Faculty Affiliate, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, NYU

1995-

Faculty Affiliate, Africana Studies Program, NYU

1991-92

Research Fellow, Projet de recherche sur la genèse du créole haïtien, Université du Québec à Montréal

1988-89

Research Fellow, Institute of Research, University of Liberia

1986

Faculty Member, Linguistic Society of America Institute, City University of New York

1981-83

Teaching Assistant, UCLA, Phonology, Introductory Bambara, Introduction to Language

1982

Research Assistant, UCLA, Metrical Phonology and Rhythm in English Verse

1980

Research Assistant, Michigan State University, Liberian Languages Project

1971-75

Teacher and Librarian, Episcopal High School, Robertsport, Liberia

1969-70

Teacher Trainer and Teacher, St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Elementary and Junior High School, Greenville, Liberia

Administrative Positions

1995-

Chair, Department of Linguistics, NYU

1995

Interim Director, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, NYU

1992-95

Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Linguistics, NYU

1984-86

Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of Linguistics, NYU

Grants and Fellowships

1996

NYU Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies Summer Grant. "The character of early plantation life in the Caribbean: Evidence from Jean Goupy des Marets's manuscript."

1990-95

NSF. "An African-American linguistic enclave: The Settler English of Sinoe County, Liberia."

1994

[with Prof. Bambi B. Schieffelin] NYU Curricular Development Challenge Fund Grant and New York Council of the Humanities Mini-Grant. "Language in the city: Perspectives on urban sociolinguistics."

1988-89

Fulbright U.S. Senior Research Scholar, African Region. "Syntactic innovation in the Liberian English of Monrovia."

1988

NEH Summer Stipend. "The study of Liberian Settler English."

1985-86

NYU Research Challenge Fund Grant. "The phonology of Liberian English: A sociolinguistic analysis."

NDEA (Title VI) Fellowships:

1981-84, Bambara; 1979-80, Yoruba; 1976-77, Klao (declined)

1976-79

NSF Graduate Fellowship

Books

In preparation

Black English over yonder: The study of Liberian Settler English. New York: Oxford University Press.

1993

The African presence in Caribbean French colonies in the seventeenth century: Documentary evidence. Montreal: Université du Québec à Montréal, Travaux de recherche sur le créole haïtien.

1981

An introduction to Liberian English. with J. Gbehwalahyee Mason, David K. Peewee, Lucia T. Massalee, and J. Boima Barclay, Jr. East Lansing: Michigan State University, African Studies Center.

Edited Volume

1990

Pidgin and creole tense-mood-aspect systems. (Creole Language Library, 6.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Articles and Chapters

In press

"What's not new in AAVE". American Speech.

1997

"The configuration of Liberia's Englishes". World Englishes 16.205-31.

1996a

"An OT account of pidgin phonology: Coda consonants in Vernacular Liberian English". in Proceedings of the twenty-second annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, ed. by Jan Johnson, Matthew L. Juge, and Jeri L. Moxley, 375-86. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.

1996b

"Theories of creole genesis, sociohistorical considerations, and the evaluation of evidence: The case of Haitian Creole and the Relexification Hypothesis". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 11:185-230.

1995a

"The demographics of creole genesis in the Caribbean: A comparison of Martinique and Haiti." in Creolization: The early years, ed. by Jacques Arends, 203-32. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

1995b

"Indigenous West African writing systems". in The world's writing systems, ed. by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright, 593-8. New York: Oxford University Press.

1993a

"An African-American linguistic enclave: Tense, mood, and aspect in Liberian Settler English". in Historical linguistics 1989: Papers from the proceedings of the IXth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, ed. by Henk Aertsen and Robert J. Jeffers, 457-65. (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 102.)

1993b

"African influence upon Afro-American language varieties: A consideration of sociohistorical factors". In Africanisms in Afro-American language varieties, ed. by Salikoko S. Mufwene, 235-53. Athens: University of Georgia Press.

1992a

"Nativization and pidgin/creole genesis: A reply to Bickerton". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 7.319-333.

1992b

"Review of Melanesian Pidgin and the Oceanic substrate", by Roger M. Keesing. Language 68.176-82.

1991a

"Copula variation in Liberian Settler English and American Black English". in Verb phrase patterns in Black English and Creole, ed. by Walter F. Edwards and Donald Winford, 129-64. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

1991b

"Liberian Settler English and the ex-slave recordings." in The emergence of Black English: Texts and commentary, ed. by Guy Bailey, Natalie Maynor, and Patricia Cukor-Avila, 249-74. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

1991c

[appeared in 1995] "Phonology in the basilect: The fate of final consonants in Liberian English". Studies in African Linguistics 22.1-44.

1991d

"Social and linguistic constraints on plural marking in Liberian English". in English around the world: Sociolinguistic perspectives, ed. by Jenny Cheshire, 545-62. Cambridge: University Press.

1990a

"Introduction: Pidgins and creoles and tense-mood-aspect." in Pidgin and creole tense-mood-aspect systems, ed. by John Victor Singler, vii-xvi. (Creole Language Library, 6.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

1990b

"The impact of decreolization upon TMA: Tenselessness, mood, and aspect in Kru Pidgin English." in Pidgin and creole tense-mood-aspect systems, ed. by John Victor Singler, 203-30. (Creole Language Library, 6.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

1990c

"Linguistics and Liberian languages in the 1970's and 1980's: A bibliography." Liberian Studies Journal 15.1-26.

1990d

"On the use of sociohistorical criteria in the comparison of creoles." Linguistics 28.645-69.

1990e

"The day will come: J. J. Walters and Guanya Pau." Liberian Studies Journal 15(2).125-34.

1989a

"Plural marking in Liberian Settler English", 1820-1980. American Speech 64.40-64.

1989b

"Topics in Liberian English modality." in Current approaches to African linguistics, Vol. 5, ed. by Robert Botne and Paul Newman, 253-66. Dordrecht: Foris.

1989c

"The Liberian Guanya Pau: Africa's first novel in English". Daily Observer. Monrovia: June 20, 1989, 5.

1988a

"The homogeneity of the substrate as a factor in pidgin/creole genesis." Language 64.27-51.

1988b

"Hypercorrection and the creole continuum: -s and -d in Liberian English." in On Language: Rhetorica phonologica syntactica, a festschrift for Robert P. Stockwell from his friends and colleagues, ed. by Caroline Duncan Rose and Theo Vennemann, 116-27. London: Routledge.

1988c

"The place of variation in the formal expression of inflectional processes: Evidence from Kru Pidgin English." in Linguistic change & contact: Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Conference on New Ways of Analyzing Variation in Language, ed. by Kathleen Ferrara, Becky Brown, Keith Walters, and John Baugh, 345-53. (Texas Linguistics Forum, 30.) Austin: University of Texas, Department of Linguistics.

1988d

"The story of o." Studies in Language 12.123-44.

1987a

"The city, the mesolect, and innovation". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 2.119-47.

1987b

"On Liberian English". in Geolinguistic perspectives, ed. by Jesse Levitt, Leonard R. N. Ashley, and Kenneth H. Rogers, 267-80. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

1987c

"Where did Liberian English na come from?" English World-Wide 8.69-95.

1986

"Short note. [A response to Bickerton.]" Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 1.141-5.

1985

"The status of lexical associations and the Obligatory Contour Principle in the analysis of tone languages". in African linguistics: Essays in memory of M. W. K. Semikenke, ed. by Didier L. Goyvaerts, 491-5. (Studies in the Sciences of Language, 6.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (Originally appeared in Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. 1980, 442-56.)

1984a

Etat et littérature au Liberia. Politique Africaine 13.33-50.

1984b

"The influence of African languages on pidgins and creoles." in Current approaches to African linguistics, Vol. 2, ed. by Jonathan Kaye et al., 65-77. Dordrecht: Foris.

1984c

"On the underlying representation of contour tones in Wobe." Studies in African Linguistics 15.59-75.

1983a

"Review article, The psychology of literacy", by Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole. Language 59.893-901.

1983b

"Vowel harmony in Klao: Linear and nonlinear analyses." Studies in African Linguistics 14.1-33.

1981

"Tone and intonation in Liberian English negation." Studies in African Linguistics, Supplement 8: Précis from the 12th Conference on African Linguistics 124-8.

1980

"The role of the state in the development of literature: The Liberian government and creative fiction." Research in African Literatures 11.511-28.

1979a

"Notes on the use of African novels in secondary schools." Kuman Ju 6(1).22-6.

1979b

"Verb suffixes in Klao." Cahiers Ivoiriens de Recherche Linguistique 6.9-33.

1977

[appeared in 1981] "Language in Liberia in the nineteenth century: The Settlers' perspective." Liberian Studies Journal 7.73-85.

1997a

On the genesis, evolution, and diversity of African American English: Evidence from verbal -s in the Liberian Settler English of Sinoe. Annual meeting of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, London

1997b

Optimality Theory, minimal-word constraints, and the historical sequencing of substrate influence in pidgin/creole genesis. Meeting of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, Chicago

1996a

Creoles and second language learning. Workshop presented at the Conference on Learning Second Languages in a Multicultural Society. NYU School of Education.

1996b

An OT account of pidgin phonology: Coda consonants in Vernacular Liberian English. Berkeley Linguistics Society.

1995

What's not new in African American Vernacular English: Evidence from Liberian Settler English. Annual meeting of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, New Orleans.

1994a

Basilects, standard, and in between: It's all Liberian, and it's all English. First International Conference on World Englishes, University of Illinois.

1994b

Creole genesis in the French Caribbean: The agents and their experiences. The MIT Symposium on the Role of Relexification in Creole Genesis: The case of Haitian Creole.

1994c

Plural marking in Sinoe Settler English. Joint meeting of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics and the Society for Caribbean Linguistics, University of Guyana.

1993a

The Liberian Settler English copula revisited. Annual meeting, New Ways of Analyzing Variation in English, University of Ottawa.

1993b

Primary source evidence as to the character of early plantation life in the Caribbean: Goupy des Marets's manuscript. Annual meeting of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, Amsterdam.

1993c

The status of word-final consonants in Liberian Settler English. Meeting for the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, Los Angeles.

1992a

The sociolinguistic interview as speech event: Liberian perceptions and Liberian strategies. Annual meeting, New Ways of Analyzing Variation in English, University of Michigan.

1992b

Looking early, looking late: Sociohistorical factors in the development of French-lexifier creoles in the Caribbean. Workshop on Creolization: The Early Years, University of Amsterdam.

1992c

The sources of substratal input into French-lexifier creole in the Caribbean in the seventeenth century: Some demographic evidence. Ninth Biennial Meeting of the Society for Caribbean Linguistics, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados.

1992d

Which African languages were present during the period of creole genesis in the Caribbean? Documentary evidence from seventeenth-century Guadeloupe and Martinique. Annual Conference on African Linguistics, Michigan State University.

1990

Civilization and pleasure. Annual meeting of the Liberian Studies Association, Marlboro College.

1989a

D_, de, and be in Settler and Non-Settler Liberian English: Who gave what to whom? Annual meeting, New Ways of Analyzing Variation in English and Other Languages, Duke University.

1989b

On the formal representation of variation: Plural marking in Liberian English. Workshop on Creole Morphology, University of Amsterdam.

Word-final consonants in Liberian Interior English. Annual meeting of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, Washington, D.C.

1987

Tense-modality-aspect in Liberian Interior English. Annual Conference on African Linguistics, Université du Québec à Montréal.

1986

Historical Black English: Evidence from Liberian Settler English and Sea Island Creole (Gullah). Annual meeting of the Mid-Hudson MLA, Marist College.

1985

Liberian English: An overview. Annual meeting of the Liberian Studies Association, Beloit College.

1984

Creoles and Universal Grammar: The unmarked case? Participant in colloquium organized by Derek Bickerton, Annual meeting of the LSA, Baltimore.

1983

Liberian English feni: AUX and ADV. Annual meeting of the LSA, Minneapolis.

1979

The impact of vowel mergers on vowel harmony in Talo Klao. First International Symposium on Kru Languages, Abidjan.

1978

Language and Liberia in the nineteenth century. Liberian Studies Association Meeting, Boston; and Liberian Research Association Meeting, Buchanan, Liberia.

1977a

Language and nationalism in South Africa. Annual meeting of the LSA, Chicago.

1977b

Political aspects of vernacular literacy in Liberia: 1822-1977. Summer meeting of the LSA, Honolulu.

Cornell University

U. of California, Los Angeles

U. of Pennsylvania

U. of Southern California

Swarthmore College

Cal State U. at Los Angeles

U. du Québec à Montréal

Cal State U. at Dominguez Hills

York University

Southern Illinois U., Carbondale

U. of Texas, Austin

U. of Wisconsin at Milwaukee

SUNY Stony Brook

U. of South Carolina

CUNY Graduate Center

Cuttington U. College, Liberia

City College of New York

U. of Liberia

Ohio State University

Liberian Association of Writers

U. of Michigan Linguistics Club

United Nations

Michigan State University

NYU Colloquium on Orality, Writing, and Culture

1996-98

Member, Executive Committee, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies

1992-94

Member, Grievance Committee, Faculty of Arts and Science

1984-

Departmental Representative, Faculty Resource Network

Community Service

1993-

Member, Board of Trustees, Friends of Liberia

1996-

Member, U. S. Support Committee, Communities Nurturing Children Program, Friends of Liberia

1992

Member, Organizing Committee, Liberia Mediation Workshop

Member, Liberia Peace Task Force

1991-

Member, Liberia Watch

Professional Activities

1997-8

Chair, Local Arrangements Committee, Linguistic Society of America, Annual Meeting

1990-

Co-Editor, Creole Language Library, John Benjamins Publishing Co.

1995-

Associate Editor, Studies in African Linguistics

1997-

Member, Executive Board, Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics

1995-97

President, Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics

1995-96

Member, Linguistic Advisory Committee, Fulbright Scholar Awards

1996-

Technical Reviewer, Fulbright Scholar Awards

1993-95

Vice President, Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics

1994

Organizer, Joint Meeting of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics with the Society for Caribbean Linguistics, University of Guyana

1993-94

Organizer, Annual Meeting of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, Boston

1989-93

Member, Executive Board, Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics

1993-94

Member, Program Committee, 1994 Annual Meeting, Linguistic Society of America

1992-

Member, Editorial Board, Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages

1984-

Member, Editorial Board, Studies in African Linguistics

1986

Member, Local Arrangements Committee, Linguistic Society of America, Annual Meeting; Co-Author, Restaurant Guide

1984-

Referee: NSF, NEH, Language, Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, Language in Society , Studies in African Linguistics, Research in African Literatures, Diachronica, Oxford University Press, Basil Blackwell, SUNY Press, University of Georgia Press

1987-

Member, Reading Committee, Travaux de recherche sur le créole haïtien Member, Linguistic Society of America, Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, Society for Caribbean Linguistics, Liberian Studies Association, African Studies Association