Dr. Jim Wood

Biography

Jim Wood received his Ph.D. from New York University in 2012. His research revolves around issues in syntactic theory and the interactions between semantics and morphology, with a special empirical focus on Icelandic dialect variation in English. His work on Icelandic covers a wide range of phenomena and revolves around issues of case marking and verb phrase structure. This includes causatives, passives, middles, argument structure, and dative-nominative constructions, as well as the structure of noun phrases and the interpretation of pronouns and syntax of clitics. In 2012, he came to Yale, taking a leading role in the Yale Grammatical Diversity Project, which focuses on 'syntactic microvariation' across English dialects. His area of expertise has led to numerous publications on syntax, developing new ways of investigating, mapping, and quantitatively analyzing syntactic dialect variation. He has served as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics and has published research in a wide range of journals, including Linguistic Inquiry, Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, and Syntax. He is an ongoing member of the Linguistic Society of America and the American Dialect Society.

Research Interests