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From fieldwork to linguistic theory: A tribute to Dan Everett
Synopsis
Dan Everett is a renowned linguist with an unparalleled breadth of contributions, ranging from fieldwork to linguistic theory, including phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, historical linguistics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of linguistics. Born on the U.S. Mexican border, Daniel Everett faced much adversity growing up and was sent as a missionary to convert the Pirahã in the Amazonian jungle, a group of people who speak a language that no outsider had been able to become proficient in. Although no Pirahã person was successfully converted, Everett successfully learned and studied Pirahã, as well as multiple other languages in the Americas. Ever steadfast in pursuing data-driven language science, Everett debunked generativist claims about syntactic recursion, for which he was repeatedly attacked. In addition to conducting fieldwork with many understudied languages and revolutionizing linguistics, Everett has published multiple works for the general public: "Don’t sleep, there are snakes, Language: The cultural tool, and how language began". This book is a collection of 15 articles that are related to Everett’s work over the years, released after a tribute event for Dan Everett that was held at MIT on June 8th 2023.
Chapters
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Anarchy, power, festschrifts and universals
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Composition, not infinityThe irrelevance of recursion to theories of language
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Daniel Everett on Pirahã syntax
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How language beganA theoretical interpretation
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Cohesive rhythmsChoral narrative in Ega
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Why is UG such a hard question?
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Just where are the universals?Complexities of place
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A Peircean turn in linguisticsSyntactic-semantic composition as logical inference
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Hierarchical syntactic structure in Malay/Indonesian, between Pirahã and Had Gadya
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The first-person perspective and second-order desires
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The causative alternation in ItalianA case study in the parallel architecture of grammar
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Transitivity in Séliš-Ql’ispé
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Contextualizing typologically remarkable sound patterns in PirahãA quantitative approach
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What is the simplest semantics imaginable?
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Investigating grammatical borrowing in Mosetén through historical sources
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Modern language models refute Chomsky’s approach to language