Dr. Molly Diesing

Biography

Molly Diesing is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Cornell University, specializing in syntax and semantics, particularly within Germanic languages such as German and Yiddish. Her research primarily focuses on the syntax/semantics interface, investigating how syntax influences the derivation of semantic interpretations in noun phrases, including issues surrounding quantification and pronominal expression. Diesing's work addresses empirical issues related to argument structure and clause structure, often exploring parameters that determine cross-linguistic word order variation. Her current projects delve into syntax/semantics interactions, including word order extraction phenomena and the impacts of syntax on semantic aspects. Diesing's contributions to the field include numerous publications that underscore her expertise, such as studies on scrambling in Yiddish and the effects of prosody on predicate-initial sentences in Serbian. Her scholarly work is highly regarded, and she has published extensively on topics related to clitics, aspect, and multiple fronting in Yiddish and Serbian languages. She is affiliated with the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University.

Research Interests

Experience