Professor Bob Borsley
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Email
rborsley@essex.ac.uk -
Location
Colchester Campus
Profile
Biography
He studied Linguistics and Philosophy at the University of Wales Bangor, and did his Ph.D. at the University of Edinburgh. His research interests are in syntactic theory (especially HPSG), and the syntax of Welsh and Polish. He was formerly Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales Bangor, where he worked from 1986 to 2000. He is the author of Syntactic Theory: A Unified Approach (Edward Arnold, 1991/1999), Modern Phrase Structure Grammar (Blackwell, 1996), Welsh Negation and Grammatical Theory (University of Wales Press, 2005) (with Bob Morris Jones), and The Syntax of Welsh (Cambridge University Press. 2007) (with Maggie Tallerman and David Willis). He is editor of The Nature and Function of Syntactic Categories (Academic Press, 2000) and co-editor (with Ian Roberts) of The Syntax of the Celtic Languages (Cambridge University Press, 1996), (with Adam Przepiorkowski) of Slavic in Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (CSLI, 1999),and (with Kersti Börjars) of Nontransformational Syntax: Formal and Explicit Models of Grammar (Wiley, 2011). He was also an editor of Journal of Linguistics, the journal of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain from 1994 to 2016. He retired at the end of January 2017.
Qualifications
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Ph.D. University of Edinburgh,
Research and professional activities
Research interests
Syntax (negation, coordination, unbounded dependencies, and agreement)
Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG)
Celtic/Slavonic Languages
Principles and Parameters Theory
Relevance Theory
Philosophy of Linguistics
Teaching and supervision
Previous supervision
Degree subject: Linguistics
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 6/7/2018
Degree subject: Linguistics
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 28/6/2018
Degree subject: Linguistics
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 17/1/2018
Degree subject: Linguistics
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 28/7/2015
Degree subject: Linguistics
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 9/10/2014
Degree subject: Linguistics
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 4/7/2014
Degree type: Master of Research
Awarded date: 26/11/2013
Degree subject: Linguistics
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 18/11/2013
Degree subject: Linguistics
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 14/10/2013
Degree subject: Linguistics
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 19/6/2013
Degree subject: Linguistics
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 22/4/2013
Publications
Journal articles (15)
Borsley, RD., (2015). Apparent filler–gap mismatches in Welsh. Linguistics. 53 (5), 995-1029
Borsley, RD., (2013). On the nature of Welsh unbounded dependencies. Lingua. 133, 1-29
Borsley, RD., (2012). Don't Move!. Iberia: An International Journal of Theoretical Linguistics. 4 (1), 110-139
Borsley, RD., (2011). Constructions, functional heads and comparative correlatives. Empirical Issues in Syntax and Semantics. 8, 7-26
Borsley, RD. and Newmeyer, FJ., (2009). On Subject-Auxiliary Inversion and the notion “purely formal generalization”. Cognitive Linguistics. 20 (1), 135-143
Borsley, RD., (2009). On so-called transitive expletives in Belfast English. English Language and Linguistics. 13 (03), creators-Borsley=3ARobert_D=3A=3A
Borsley, RD., (2006). On the nature of Welsh VSO clauses. Lingua. 116 (4), 462-490
Abeill�, A. and Borsley, RD., (2006). La syntaxe des corrélatives comparatives en anglais et en français. Faits de langue. 28, 21-33
Borsley, RD., (2005). Introduction - Data in Theoretical Linguistics. Lingua. 115 (11), 1475-1480
Borsley, RD., (2005). Against ConjP. Lingua. 115 (4), 461-482
Borsley, RD., (2005). Les coordinations relevant-elles de la syntaxe X-barre?. Langages. 39 (160), 25-41
Borsley, RD. and Ingham, R., (2003). More on ‘some applied linguists’: a response to Stubbs. Lingua. 113 (3), 193-196
Borsley, RD. and Ingham, R., (2002). Grow your own linguistics? On some applied linguists' views of the subject. Lingua. 112 (1), 1-6
Borsley, RD. and Jones, BM., (2001). The Development of Finiteness in Early Welsh. Journal of Celtic Language Learning. 6, 9-20
Borsley, RD., (2001). What do Prepositional Complementizers do?. Probus. 13 (2), 155-171
Books (3)
(2011). Non-Transformational Syntax. Wiley-Blackwell. 9780631209652
Borsley, RD., Tallerman, M. and Willis, D., (2007). The Syntax of Welsh. Cambridge University Press. 0521836301. 9780511486227
Borsley, RD. and Jones, BM., (2005). Welsh Negation and Grammatical Theory. University of Wales Press. 9780708318836
Book chapters (9)
Borsley, RD., (2016). HPSG and the nature of agreement in Archi. In: Archi: Complexities of Agreement in Cross-theoretical Perspective. Editors: Bond, O., Brown, D., Chumakina, M. and Corbett, GG., . Oxford University Press. 9780198747291
Alqurashi, A. and Borsley, RD., (2014). The Comparative Correlative Construction in Modern Standard Arabic. In: Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, University at Buffalo. Editors: M�ller, S., . CSLI Publications. 6- 26
Arnold, D. and Borsley, RD., (2014). On the Analysis of English Exhaustive Conditionals. In: Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, University at Buffalo. Editors: M�ller, S., . CSLI Publications. 27- 47
Alotaibi, M. and Borsley, RD., (2013). Gaps and Resumptive Pronouns in Modern Standard Arabic. In: Proceedings of the HPSG13 Conference. Editors: Muller, S., . CSLI Publications. 6- 26
Alqurashi, A. and Borsley, RD., (2012). Arabic Relative Clauses in HPSG. In: Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Editors: M�ller, S., . CSLI Publications. 26- 44
Arnold, D. and Borsley, RD., (2010). Auxiliary-Stranding Relative Clauses. In: Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Paris University Paris Diderot, France. Editors: M�ller, S., . CSLI Publications. 47- 67
Borsley, RD., (2010). An HPSG approach to Welsh unbounded dependencies. In: Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Editors: M�ller, S., . CSLI Publications. 47- 67
Arnold, D. and Borsley, RD., (2008). Non-restrictive Relative Clauses, Ellipsis and Anaphora. In: The Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, NICT, Keihanna, Japan. Editors: M�ller, S., . CSLI Publications. 325- 345
Borsley, RD., (2004). An Approach to English Comparative Correlatives. In: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Editors: Muller, S., . CSLI Publications. 70- 92
Conferences (2)
Borsley, RD., (2009). On the superficiality of Welsh agreement
Abeillé, A. and Borsley, RD., (2008). Comparative correlatives and parameters
Reports and Papers (7)
Borsley, RD. and Krer, M., (2012). An HPSG Approach to Negation in Libyan Arabic
Borsley, RD., (2011). Apparent Filler-gap Mismatches in Welsh
Borsley, RD., (2008). On Some Welsh Unbounded Dependency Constructions
Borsley, RD., (2007). Hang on again! Are we `on the right track'?
Borsley, RD., (2006). Syntactic and Lexical Approaches to Unbounded Dependencies
Borsley, RD., (2004). On the Nature of Welsh VSO Clauses
Borsley, RD., (2000). What do 'prepositional complementisers' do?
Grants and funding
2011
From Competing theories to fieldwork:the challenge of an extreme agreement system
Arts And Humanities Research Council