Dr Alan Scott
Postdoctoral Research Associate (Germanic possessive -s: an empirical, historical and theoretical study)
School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures,
University of Manchester,
Oxford Road,
Manchester
M13 9PL
Phone: +44 (0)161 275 8051
Fax: +44 (0) 161 275 3031
Email: alan.k.scott@manchester.ac.uk
Research specialisation
My main areas of research are:
- Morphology - derivational and inflectional, synchronic and diachronic
- German linguistics
- historical linguistics
- the Scandinavian languages
Publications
Articles
2009. 'The marking of gender agreement using derivational affixes in German and Dutch'. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 21 (1): 37-89.
2007. 'Englische Wortfamilien im Deutschen'. Deutsche Sprache 35 (2): 119-137.
2006. 'Das Suffix -In: Eine Ergänzung zum deutschen Wortbildungssystem'. Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik 73 (2): 161-175.
2006. 'English Word Families in German'. In Scott, Alan (ed.). Proceedings of the 15th Postgraduate Conference in Linguistics, 3rd March 2006. Manchester: School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, University of Manchester, 51-62.
2006. 'Land der DichterInnen und DenkerInnen? A linguistic analysis of the controversial suffix -In'. German as a Foreign Language 2/2006: 63-80.
2006. 'Polysemy in derived nouns and its role in the lexicon'. In Chang, Charles, Esuna Dugarova, Irene Theodoropoulou, Elina Vilar Beltrán and Edward Wilford (eds.). CamLing 2006. Proceedings of the Fourth University of Cambridge Conference in Language Research held on 17 March 2006. Cambridge: Cambridge Institute of Language Research: 189-196.
Review
2005. 'Aronoff, Mark and Kirsten Fudeman. 2005. What is Morphology?'. Leuvense Bijdragen 94: 249-254.
Edited volume
2006. Proceedings of the 15th Postgraduate Conference in Linguistics, 3rd March 2006. Manchester: School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, University of Manchester.
Dissertation
2006. Productive Nominal Derivation in New High German: A Corpus-Based Investigation. PhD dissertation, University of Manchester.
Presentations
2008. 'Sex-denoting suffixes as markers of gender in Dutch and German'. Perspectives on Gender in Dutch, Gent, 21st November 2008.
2008. 'Optional gender agreement in German and Dutch: inflection or derivation?. A Germanic Sandwich: Dutch between English and German, University of Sheffield, 12th September 2008.
2008. (with David Dension and Kersti Börjars). 'Possessive constructions in English and Swedish'. Invited talk at Göteborgs universitet, 26th February 2008.
2007. (with Kersti Börjars and David Denison). 'Possessive constructions in English'. Langwidge Sandwich, University of Manchester, 2nd October 2007.
2007. (with Kersti Börjars and David Denison). 'Dimensions of clitics'. LAGB Annual Meeting 2007, King's College London, 31st August 2007.
2007. (with David Denison and Kersti Börjars). 'Is the English possessive's truly a right edge phenomenon?' The Second International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English (ICLCE2), University of Toulouse-le Mirail, 2nd July 2007
2007. (with Martin Durrell) 'Productive inseparable verb prefixes in German'. Conference of University Teachers of German in Great Britain and Ireland 70th meeting, University of Bristol, 2nd April 2007.
2007. 'Germanic possessive -s: project report'. Langwidge Sandwich, University of Manchester, 13th February 2007.
2007. 'Competition in the lexicon: a failure of blocking?'. FGLS 2007, University of Nottingham, 6th January 2007
2006. 'The role played by polysemous derived nouns in the lexicon'. LAGB Annual Meeting 2006, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2nd September 2006
2006. 'The role played by polysemous derived nouns in the lexicon'. LAEL 2006 Postgraduate Conference, Lancaster University, 15th July 2006
2006. 'The lexical role of polysemy in derivational morphology'. LangUE 2006 (The First Language at the University of Essex Postgraduate Conference), University of Essex, 30th June 2006
2006. 'Competition in the lexicon: a failure of blocking?' First Newcastle Postgraduate Conference in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 23rd June 2006
2006. 'Polysemy in Derived Nouns and its Role in the Lexicon'. CamLing Postgraduate Conference in Linguistics, University of Cambridge, 17th March 2006
2006. 'English Word Families in German'. 15th Postgraduate Conference in Linguistics, University of Manchester, 3rd March 2006
2005. 'Nominal derivation in New High German'. Postgraduate Research Seminar, University of Manchester, 16th November 2005
2005. 'Paradigms in derivational morphology'. FGLS 2005, University of Cambridge, 8th January 2005
2004. 'Dephrasal derivation. An investigation into a non-lexeme-based type of morphology'. Linguistics Departmental Seminar, University of Manchester, 7th December 2004
2002. 'Nominal derivation in Early New High German. An investigation based on a corpus of Martin Luther's writings'. MA Presentation Day, University of York, 6th June 2002
Professional biography
- BA(hons) in German and Linguistics (2000), University of York
- MA in Linguistics (by research) (2003), University of York. Supervisor: Dr Charles V. J. Russ
- PhD in German (2006), University of Manchester. Supervisor: Professor Martin Durrell
I am currently working on the project Germanic possessive -s: an empirical, historical and theoretical study.
My Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded PhD thesis Productive Nominal Derivation in New High German: A Corpus-Based Investigation examines the currently productive means of deriving nouns in German based on a corpus consisting of the first version of the Tiger corpus of texts from the Frankfurter Rundschau and a specially compiled corpus of texts from the output of the Spiegel Online. During the course of my research, I spent three months in summer 2005 at the Institut für Deutsche Sprache in Mannheim, supported by a grant from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst.
My MA thesis, Nominal Derivation in Early New High German: An Investigation Based on a Corpus of Martin Luther's Works, illustrated the means of productive derivation of nouns in 16th century German on the basis of a corpus of Martin Luther's polemical writings, which I compiled for the project.
At the University of Manchester I have given tutorials for courses dealing with German and English phonology, German syntax, morphology and semantics, and general phonology. Additionally, I have taught German grammar and given lectures (on Middle High German and Luther's German) for part of a course on the history of the German language.
Teaching
In 2008-9 (Semester 2) I am teaching LELA10142 Morphology and Syntax.