Jeff Runner

Associate Professor, Linguistics and Brain & Cognitive Sciences
Director, Center for Language Sciences

Contact

Linguistics Office: 511a Lattimore Hall, (585) 275-2626 (or 275-8053)
E-mail: firstname.lastname@rochester.edu (firstname = jeffrey, lastname = runner)
Office hours (Fall 2012): TBA, and by appointment

Curriculum Vitae

Courses

Fall 2012

LIN 260/460 Syntactic Theory
LIN 501 Methods in Linguistic Research

Spring 2013

LIN 220/420 Introduction to Grammatical Systems

Research Interests

I am interested in the role that syntactic structural information plays in language processing, and also in how experimental psycholinguistic tools can be applied to classic problems within formal linguistics. The former means that much of my research examines the syntax/semantics/discourse interfaces; the latter means I use experimental methodologies to examine these questions. We currently have projects going investigating the constraints on reference resolution of various sorts, including the binding of reflexives and pronouns, as well as VP ellipsis, using an array of methodologies, such as visual world eye-tracking, scene verification, magnitude estimation, self-paced reading and various other questionnaire and web-based methods. I welcome students interested in these and other questions. To get an idea of some of the specific projects, please see the descriptions and some of the resulting presentations and publications on the eye tracking lab page.

Go to Jeff's eye tracking lab page

Research

Professor Runner's research has focused on the relationship between syntactic structure and noun phrase interpretation, pursuing both traditional linguistic methodologies as well as developing novel eye-tracking methodologies. His research has been supported by National Science Foundation since 2002. He has collaborated with theoretical syntacticians as well as experimental psycholinguists, including Michael Tanenhaus, Rachel Sussman, Elsi Kaiser, Raul Aranovich, Eric Potsdam and Judith Aissen. He has published in the journals Linguistic Inquiry, Cognition, Syntax and Cognitive Science; he has contributed a chapter to The Blackwell Companion to Syntax. He has presented his work and/or published in the proceedings of a number of Linguistics and Psycholinguistics conferences, such as the North Eastern Linguistic Society, Chicago Linguistic Society, International Conference on HPSG, West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, CUNY Human Sentence Processing Conference, Architectures and Mechanisms of Language Processing, Formal Linguistic Society of Mid-America, International Conference on Linguistic Evidence, Colloquium on Generative Grammar, Linguistic Society of America.

Teaching

Professor Runner has been teaching at the University of Rochester since 1994. During that time he has taught both undergraduate and graduate students in a variety of courses, from introductory courses targeting freshmen to graduate seminars in theoretical syntax. In particular he regularly teaches Introduction to Linguistic Analysis, Introduction to Grammatical Systems, a novel course he developed called Language & Sexuality, as well as more advanced courses on Syntactic Theory (both minimalism and Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar). He has taught graduate seminars on various topics in syntax and semantics. He has also taught several other core linguistics courses including Morphology and Lexical Semantics. Besides undergraduate courses, he has taught graduate seminars on various topics in syntax and semantics. He has supervised many undergraduate and graduate Independent Studies. He has been the thesis adviser for six BA students and one PhD student, and has been a member of nine PhD qualifying exam committees, and 16 PhD thesis committees.

Academic Service

Professor Runner recently served on the search committee for the Vice Provost and Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Sciences and Engineering at the University of Rochester. He has served as the Linguistics Department Undergraduate Adviser since 1996. He is a Freshman Adviser for 23 students in the class of 2009 and Sophomore Adviser for 15 students in the class of 2008. He has been a Faculty Associate of the Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender and Women’s Studies for two years. He has also been a member of the University of Rochester Faculty Council for two years and currently serves as Chair of the Faculty Council Bookstore Committee. He regularly reviews grant proposals for NSF and articles for journals such as Language, Linguistic Inquiry, and Journal of Memory and Language.

Selected Publications

"The Acceptability Cline in VP Ellipsis," (with Chris Kim, Greg Kobele and John Hale), to appear in Syntax.
"Picturing the Syntax/Semantics Interface During On-line Processing," (with Elsi Kaiser, Rachel Sussman and Michael Tanenhaus), to appear in R. Folli & C. Ulbrich (Eds.), Selected papers from the On Linguistic Interfaces conference, Oxford University Press.
"Structural and Semantic Constraints on the Resolution of Pronouns and Reflexives," (with Elsi Kaiser, Rachel Sussman and Michael Tanenhaus), Cognition, 2009.
"Discourse Structure and Parallelism in VP Ellipsis," (with Chris Kim), in Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory 19 (2009).
"Intensifiers in German and Dutch Anaphor Resolution," (with Elsi Kaiser), in Proceedings of the 27th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (2008).
"Freeing Possessed NPs from Binding Theory," in L. Wolter & J. Thorson, eds., University of Rochester Working Papers in the Language Sciences, 3(1), 57-90 (2007). pdf
"Lingering Challenges to the Raising-to-Object and Object-Control Constructions," Syntax 9:2 (2006). pdf
"Processing Reflexives and Pronouns in Picture Noun Phrases," (with Rachel S. Sussman & Michael K. Tanenhaus), Cognitive Science (2006). pdf
"The Accusative Plus Infinitive Construction in English," in M. Everaert & H. van Reimsdijk, eds., The Blackwell Companion to Syntax, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, UK (2006). pdf
"Reflexives and Pronouns in Picture Noun Phrases: Using Eye Movements as a Source of Linguistic Evidence," (with Rachel S. Sussman & Michael K. Tanenhaus), in Stephan Kepser and Marga Reis (eds.) Linguistic Evidence: Empirical, Theoretical, and Computational Perspectives, Studies in Generative Grammar 85. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter (2005). pdf
"Binding in Picture Noun Phrases: Implications for Binding Theory," (with Elsi Kaiser) in Stefan Muller (ed.) The Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Department of Informatics, University of Lisbon. 594-613. Stanford: CSLI Publications (2005). pdf
"Coreferential Interpretations of Reflexives in Picture Noun Phrases: an Experimental Approach," (with Micah Goldwater), in Pascal Denis et al. (eds.) Proceedings of the 2004 Texas Linguistics Society (2006). Proceedings; slides also available in the University of Rochester's dspace
"Assignment of Reference to Reflexives and Pronouns in Picture Noun Phrases: Evidence from Eye Movements," (with Rachel S. Sussman & Michael K. Tanenhaus), Cognition 81.1, B1-B13 (2003).
"The Influence of Binding Theory on the On-Line Reference Resolution of Pronouns," (with Rachel S. Sussman & Michael K. Tanenhaus), Proceedings of North Eastern Linguistic Society 34 (2003). pdf
"Noun Incorporation and Constraint Interaction in the Lexicon," (with Raul Aranovich), in S. Mueller (ed.), The Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Stanford: CLSI Publications (2003). Proceedings
"Insights into Binding and Ellipsis from Head-mounted Eye-tracking Experiments," in CLS 39 Proceedings (2003). pdf
"When Minimalism isn't Enough: an Argument for Argument Structure," Linguistic Inquiry 33.1 (2002).
"Logophors in Picture Noun Phrases," (with Rachel S. Sussman & Michael K. Tanenhaus), in WCCFL 21 Proceedings, Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press (2002). pdf
"Review of The Syntax of Sluicing by Jason Merchant," in Linguist List 13.1210 (2002).

Selected Presentations

"Structural Parallelism Aids Ellipsis and Anaphor Resolution: Evidence from Eye Movements to Semantic and Phonological Neighbors," (with Neal Snider), talk presented at 16th Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing, York, UK (2010). slides
"Discourse Structure and Parallelism in VP Ellipsis," (with Chris Kim), in Proceedings of SALT 19.
"Reference Transfer and Reflexive Interpretation in Representational Noun Phrases," (with Micah Goldwater), paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Anaheim (2007). slides
"Reflexive Interpretation in Representational Noun Phrases," invited talk, Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, Syracuse University (November 2006). slides
"The Role of Representation in the Interpretation of Representational Noun Phrases," invited talk, Department of Linguistics, University of Texas at Austin (March 2006). slides
"The Representational Nature of Representational Noun Phrases," (with Micah Goldwater), poster presented at CUNY 2006. poster
"Coreferential and Bound Variable Interpretations: an Experimental Investigation," invited talk at HPSG 2005, Lisbon. slides
"In Search of Gay Language," keynote paper presented at the Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender and Women's Studies 11th Annual Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY (2004). Available in the university of Rochester's slides

Older publications and presentations