Professor Dr. James Griffiths

Room 408, Brechtbau
james.griffithsspam prevention@uni-tuebingen.de

Secretary: Claudia Heberle, Room 471, Brechtbau
claudia.heberlespam prevention@uni-tuebingen.de

Office hours: by email appointment (james.griffithsspam prevention@uni-tuebingen.de)

Current availability: please see the calendar here

Teaching. I teach courses on phonology, morphology, syntax, syntax-pragmatics, dialectology, and experimental syntax methods at undergraduate and graduate level, with an emphasis on English. I am interested in advising theses on any subject within formal linguistics, in particular syntax, morphology, and discourse-structure, concerning varieties of English, or concerning cross-linguistic comparisons between English and other Germanic languages and/or Turkish.

Research. I adopt a broadly generative approach to linguistic analysis. My specialisations are, in roughly the following order: (experimental) syntax, the semantics and pragmatics of information- and discourse-structure, morphology (in particular, Distributed Morphology), and prosody. To date, my two main research interests have been the distribution of various forms of parenthesis and ellipsis, within and across languages. I am also interested in dialectal variation in English, and have conducted research into syntactic phenomena that are present in some varieties of British English (such as my own) but not others. Since October 2023, I am the Principal Investigator on the 3-year DFG-funded project Cross-linguistic Experiments on Fragmentary Sentences (CLEFs). Since October 2025, I am the Principal Investigator on the 4-year project Clarifying the Common Ground (B5), which forms part of the CRC 1718 Common Ground.

Information for students seeking supervision

I am interested in supervising theses on any subject within formal linguistics, in particular syntax, morphology, and discourse-structure, concerning varieties of English, or concerning cross-linguistic comparisons between English and other Germanic languages and/or Turkish.

A prospective candidate should have received a grade of 3,0 or above for a Hauptseminar in an area in which I specialize, preferably one of my Hauptseminars.

Some of my Haupt- and Oberseminars also functions as a Kolloquium for Master's students. If you take such a course as a Kolloquium, you are effectively committing yourself to having me as your Master's thesis supervisor (though not always). If you are interested in attending one of these classes as a Kolloquium, please email me (introducing yourself, your background, and your potential Master's thesis topic) after you enrol via ALMA but before the semester begins.

Monographs

Griffiths, J. 2015. On appositives. Doctoral dissertation, University of Groningen. Utrecht: LOT Dissertation Series, no.389. [link]

Articles

Cortés Rodríguez, Á. & J. Griffiths. 2024. Short sources, islandhood, and pronominal correlates: New experimental support from German and Spanish for a short source approach to apparent exceptions to the clausemate condition on multiple sluicing. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 9(1): 1–35. [link]

Córtes Rodríguez, Á. & J. Griffiths. 2024. An Experimental Investigation of the Clausemate Condition in German Multiple Sluicing. In J. Lu, E. Petersen, A. Zaitsu & B. Harizanov (eds.), Proceedings of the 40th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, 52-61. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. [link]

Griffiths, J., G. Güneş, & A. Lipták. 2023. Reprise fragments in English and Hungarian: Further support for an in-situ Q-equivalence approach to clausal ellipsis. Language 99: 154-191.

Griffiths, J., G. Güneş, A. Lipták & J. Merchant. 2021. Dutch preposition stranding and ellipsis: Merchant's Wrinkle ironed out. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 24: 269–318. [link]

Griffiths, J. 2019. Beyond MaxElide: An investigation of extraction out of ellipsis domains. Linguistic Inquiry 50(3): 571-607. [link]

Griffiths, J. & M. de Vries. 2019. Parenthesis: syntactic integration or orphanage? A rejoinder to Ott 2016. Linguistic Inquiry 50(3): 609-629. [link]

Griffiths, J. 2019. A Q-based approach to clausal ellipsis: Deriving the preposition stranding and island sensitivity generalisations without movement. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 4(1), 12. doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.653. [link]

Griffiths, J. 2019. Revisiting rebinding: An alternative to MaxElide. Nordlyd 43(1): 31-43. GLOW Short Report Proceedings. [link]

Griffiths, J. & C. Sailor. 2015. Prepositional object gaps in British English. Linguistics in the Netherlands 32, 63-74. [link]

Griffiths, J. 2015. Parenthetical verb constructions, fragment answers, and constituent modification. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 33(1): 191-229. [link]

Griffiths, J. 2015. Reformulative appositions and clausal ellipsis. Lingua 165: 70-91. [pre-zombification] [link]

Griffiths, J. & A. Lipták. 2014. Contrast and island sensitivity in clausal ellipsis. Syntax 17(3): 189-234. [link]

Griffiths, J. & M. de Vries. 2014. Parenthesis and presupposition in discourse. Linguistics in the Netherlands 31: 39-52. [link]

Griffiths, J. & M. de Vries. 2013. The syntactic integration of appositives: evidence from fragments and ellipsis. Linguistic Inquiry 44(2): 332-344. [link]

Chapters in edited volumes

Griffiths, J. & S. Beck. 2024. Morphosyntactic cues of non-canonical questions: wh-in-situ questions. To appear in N. Dehé, R. Eckardt & G. Walkden (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Non-Canonical Questions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Griffiths, J. 2022. Questions underpin deletion: A response to Barros and Kotek 2019. To appear in A. Konietzko & S. Winkler (eds.), Information structure and ambiguity (Studies in Generative Grammar). Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton. [link]

Griffiths, J. & M. Den Dikken. 2022. English VP ellipsis in Unusual Subject configurations: Reviving the Spec-Head agreement approach. In G. Güneş & A. Lipták (eds.), The derivational timing of ellipsis (Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 97-130. [link]

Cheng, L. L.-S. & J. Griffiths. 2021. The enduring discoveries of generative syntax. In N. Allott, T. Lohndal & G. Ray (eds.), Blackwell Companion to Chomsky (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 52-73. [link]

Griffiths, J. 2015. Speaker and quote reduced parenthetical clauses. In S. Schneider, J. Glikman & M. Azanzi (eds.), Parenthetical Verbs (Linguistische Arbeiten series, no. 557). Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter, 71-102. [link]

Griffiths, J. & G. Güneş. 2014. Ki issues in Turkish: Parenthetical coordination and adjunction. In M. E. Kluck, D. Ott & M. de Vries (eds.), Parenthesis and Ellipsis: Cross-Linguistic and Theoretical Perspectives (Studies in Generative Grammar series, no. 121). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 173-217. [link]