| LINGUISTICS. I am a cognitive scientist, interested in the atomic elements of linguistic structure (features) and their connections to other human, and non-human, cognitive domains. My primary research applies morphological methods to problems of syntactic and semantic theory. But basically I go wherever my interests and the data take me: predicate clefts in Haitian Creole, configurationality in Kiowa, verb movement in Classical Hebrew, double objects in Hawaiian, consonant clusters in Georgian… EXTRA-LINGUISTICS. Beyond such theoretical topics, I collaborate with speakers of endangered languages to document and preserve their knowledge, with researchers from other domains of cognitive and behavioral science to understand general principles of behavior and thought, and with non-academics to promote public understanding of science and related topics. PERIPATETICS. I am an Australian who came to Britain to study. My initial degree was in Mathematics and Philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford, and after an MPhil in linguistics (also at Oxford), I moved to Cambridge, MA, for a PhD at MIT. I’ve been at Queen Mary since 2003. |
Please contact me if you are a linguist interested in my work, a member of one of the groups whose languages I’ve worked on (especially re preservation/revitalization), a speaker/student of an un(der)studied language interested in linguistics, a cognitive scientist or game theorist with interests that border on language, a journalist interested in any of these topics. I don’t always check my Queen Mary mailbox regularly. Please email me before sending any important papers (e.g., dissertations, proofs, course work).
Department of Linguistics, Queen Mary University of London. Queen Mary’s OPALs. the “because” charade (my blog).
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| Publications |
The linguistic genius of Parker McKenzie’s Kiowa alphabet (Watkins, Harbour, in press: 2010) (International Journal of American Linguistics) (pdf)
The universal basis of local linguistic exceptionality (2009) (Behavioral and Brain Sciences) (bibtex) (a brief counter-response to Evans and Levinson’s response—coming soon)
Mirrors and Microparameters: Phrase Structure Beyond Free Word Order (Adger, Harbour, Watkins, 2009) (CUP) (bibtex)
On homophony and methodology in morphology (2009) (Morphology) (bibtex)
Phi Theory: Phi-Features across Modules and Interfaces (Harbour, Adger, Béjar, eds 2008) (OUP) (bibtex)
Why phi? (Adger, Harbour, 2008) (OUP) (bibtex)
Discontinuous agreement and the Morphology−Syntax interface (2008) (OUP) (bibtex)
Klivaj predika, or predicate clefts in Haitian (2008) (Lingua) (bibtex)
Morphosemantic Number: From Kiowa Noun Classes to UG Number Features (2007) (Springer) (bibtex)
Against PersonP (2007) (Syntax) (bibtex)
Syntax and syncretisms of the Person Case Constraint (Adger, Harbour, 2007) (Syntax) (bibtex)
[Family values] (2007) (Continuum) (Google books) (bibtex)
The Kiowa case for feature insertion (2003) (NLLT) (bibtex)
Some outstanding problems of Yimas (2003) (TPhS) (bibtex)
Directionality in allomorphy: A reply to Carstairs-McCarthy (Adger, Béjar, Harbour, 2003) (TPhS) (bibtex)
An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Atheism (2001) (Duckworth) (Reviews: The Economist, Harbus (Harvard Business School Weekly), The Tablet, about.com) (Wikipedia—not by me, thanks to the contributors!—: main entry, other mention) (bibtex)
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| Drafts and handouts |
Contextual allomorphy (Bonet, Harbour, 2009; invited submission to Trommer, ed., The Handbook of Exponence) (pdf)
Kiowa-Tanoan agreement and agreement restrictions. Five handouts. (I) (II) (III) (IV) (V)
Ditransitives in Hawaiian (Adger, Harbour, Nilsen, Parker Jones, 2009) (pdf)
The semantics, and generality, of features: or, how not to construct a theory of cognitive evolution (handout in French 2009) (pdf)
Descriptive and explanatory markedness (2008) (pdf)
Cognitive primitives of collective intentions: Linguistic evidence of our mental ontology (Gold, Harbour, 2008) (pdf)
Information structure, discourse structure, and noun phrase position in Kiowa (Harbour, Watkins, Adger 2008) (pdf)
Mass, non-singularity, and augmentation (2008) (pdf)
Morpheme order in person agreement (handout in French 2008) (pdf)
The syntactic basis of phi−case interaction (handout 2008) (pdf)
A feature calculus for Silverstein Hierarchies (2007; updated handout 2008) (pdf)
A program for case features (handout 2007) (pdf)
Valence and atomic number (2006) (pdf)
The elimination of geometry (2006; updated handout 2006) (pdf)
Person hierarchies and geometries without hierarchies or geometries (2006; updated handout 2006) (pdf)
Number: Morphological use of semantic means (handout in German 2006) (pdf)
The feature structure of oblique case (2006; updated handout 2007) (pdf)
The two types of predicate cleft: Evidence from Classical Hebrew and beyond (1999) (pdf)
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| CV, blog, teaching, other |
Curriculum Vitæ (pdf)
My blog (the “because” charade)
Bibtexliography (html)
Unfamiliar Languages. Autumn 2009. Target language: Byak (Austronesian, Western Papua). A third-year module combining fieldwork-like elicitation and hands-on syntactic analysis. Previous target languages: Hawaiian (2008), Georgian (2007). Graduate (and external) attendance welcome. If you have a target language to offer, please contact me.
Writing Systems. Autumn 2009. A second-year module (open also to third-years) on the linguistic, cognitive, and neurological basis of writing systems. Auditors welcome. Registered students with particular interests (Arabic, Devanagari, ...) are welcome to email me.
Kiowa-Tanoan agreement and agreement restrictions. Summer 2009. An ad hoc, one-off lecture series on a related set of superrich, superfusional agreement systems. (I) (II) (III) (IV) (V)
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