Julie Anne Legate

Julie Anne Legate

Professor of Linguistics

What are the limits on possible human languages?

Professor Julie Anne Legate is a linguist who engages in consultant work with speakers of endangered/understudied/typologically interesting languages.

Some of the fundamental questions that Professor Legate is interested in include:

  • What are the structural limits on possible sentences in human language?
  • What can we learn from the structure of sentences in endangered/understudied/typologically interesting languages?
  • How is the structure of sentences related to the structure of words?
  • How are languages acquired?

She has explored these questions through collaborations with other ILST faculty, such as Charles Yang and Don Ringe.

Professor Legate is currently Editor in Chief of Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, one of the leading journals in theoretical linguistics. 

Julie Anne Legate

Julie Anne Legate

Professor of Linguistics

Selected Publications

Legate, J. A. (2014). Voice and v: Lessons from Acehnese (Vol. 69). MIT Press.
 
Legate, J. A., Pesetsky, D., & Yang, C. (2014). Recursive misrepresentations: A reply to Levinson (2013). Language, 90(2), 515-528.
 
Legate, J. A. (2012). Subjects in Acehnese and the nature of the passive. Language, 495-525.
 
Legate, J. A. (2008). Morphological and abstract case. Linguistic Inquiry, 39(1), 55-101.
 
Legate, J. A. (2003). Some interface properties of the phase. Linguistic inquiry, 34(3), 506-515.