Fall is Here

Dennis Ott

I'm a third-year graduate student in the Department of Linguistics at Harvard University.

E-mail: dott [at] fas.harvard.edu

Postal address:

Department of Linguistics
Harvard University
Boylston Hall, 3rd floor
Cambridge, MA 02138

Research areas

  • Theoretical syntax: movement
    • A-bar movement, extraction
    • Remnant movement
    • Locality, paths, cyclicity
  • Comparative Germanic syntax
  • Morphology and phonology of German

Education and honors
Ph.D. in linguistics, Harvard University, in progress
M.A. in linguistics, Harvard University, 2008
B.A. (equiv.) in philosophy and linguistics, University of Cologne, 2006

EGG summer school, Debrecen, 2008
LSA Summer Institute, MIT, 2005

Fellow of the German National Academic Foundation, 2006--2008.
Douglas Dillon Fellowship, Harvard, 2008.

Publications and manuscripts

  • Forthcoming. Diminutive-formation in German: Spelling out the classifier analysis. Provisionally accepted, Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics (revisions pending). [LingBuzz]
  • 2009. A note on free relative clauses in the theory of phases. Ms., Harvard University (submitted). [LingBuzz]
  • 2009. Stylistic fronting as remnant movement. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 83, pp. 141-178. [PDF]
  • 2009. Multiple NP split. A Distributed Deletion analysis. Groninger Arbeiten zur germanistischen Linguistik 48, pp. 65-80. [PDF]
  • 2009. The evolution of I-Language: Lexicalization as the key evolutionary novelty. Biolinguistics 3(2), pp. 255-269. [PDF]
  • 2009. The conceptual necessity of phases: Some remarks on the minimalist enterprise. In K. K. Grohmann (ed.), Explorations of Phase Theory: Interpretation at the Interfaces, Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 253-275.
  • 2008. Aspects of Fijian noun-phrase structure. Ms., Harvard University. [PDF]
  • 2007. Reverse-engineering the language faculty: Origins and implications of the Minimalist Program. In J. Rau et al. (eds.), Harvard Working Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 12, pp. 77-90. [LingBuzz]

Presentations

  • Remnant movement (in German) revisited. NYU Syntax Brown Bag (New York University, 10/30/09) [HO]
  • Remnant movement without remnants. 30th TABU Dag 2009 (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands, 5/11--12/09)
  • Stylistic fronting as remnant movement. 24th Comparative Germanic Syntax Workshop (HUB Brussels, Belgium, 5/28--29/09)
  • Stylistic fronting as remnant movement. UIC TiL (invited talk, University of Illinois at Chicago, 4/10/09)
  • Stylistic fronting as remnant movement. The Seventh GLOW in Asia (EFL-U Hyderabad, India, 2/25--27/09)
  • Reverse-engineering the language faculty. 2007 Mind/Brain/Behavior Graduate Student Conference (Harvard University, 2/16/07)

Teaching

  • 2009/10: on leave
  • Spring 2009
    • Phrase structure (Ling 97r, tutorial)
    • TA for SA 34 (Knowledge of Language)
  • Fall 2008
    • German syntax (Ling 98a, tutorial)
    • TA for Ling 88 (Language and Cognition)

Some links