Archive of LSA Presidential Addresses
Each year, the President of the LSA has the honor of delivering the Presidential Address at the Annual Meeting. Listed below are the titles and abstracts (where available) of the addresses, as well as links to the addresses that were sometimes published as articles in Language.
Conference Year | Name | Title | Abstract | Article |
2015 |
Joan Maling |
A Syntactic Rubin's Vase: The Inherent Ambiguity of Non-promotional Passives and Unspecified Subject Construction |
2015 Annual Meeting Handbook (PDF; see p. 89) | |
2014 |
Ellen Kaisse |
The dialects of Spanish and of Modern Greek – Natural laboratories for the generative phonologist |
2014 Annual Meeting Handbook (PDF; see p. 77) | |
2013 |
Keren Rice |
Variation, Phonology, and Fieldwork |
2013 Annual Meeting Handbook (PDF; see p. 84) | |
2012 |
Sandra Chung |
Bridging Methodologies: Experimental Syntax in the Pacific |
2012 Annual Meeting Handbook (PDF; see p. 88) | |
2011 |
David Lightfoot |
Linguists Leading and Lagging |
2011 Annual Meeting Handbook (PDF; see p. 93) | |
2010 |
Sarah Thomason |
Safe and Unsafe Language Contact |
2010 Annual Meeting Handbook (PDF; see p. 83) | |
2008 |
Stephen R. Anderson |
The logical structure of linguistic theory |
2008 Annual Meeting Handbook (PDF; p. 75) | Language, Vol. 84, No. 4, Dec., 2008 |
2007 |
Sally McConnell-Ginet |
Words in the World: Why and How Meanings Can Matter |
2007 Annual Meeting Handbook (PDF; see p. 69) | |
2006 |
Mark Aronoff |
In the Beginning Was the Word |
2006 Annual Meeting Handbook (PDF; see p.69) | Language, Vol. 83, No. 4, Dec., 2007 |
2005 |
Joan Bybee |
The impact of usage on representation: Grammar is usage and usage is grammar |
2005 Annual Meeting Handbook (PDF; p. 60) | Language, Vol. 82, No. 4, Dec., 2006 |
2004 |
Ray Jackendoff |
Reintegrating generative grammar |
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2003 |
Frederick J. Newmeyer |
Grammar is grammar and usage is usage |
Language, Vol. 79, No. 4, Dec., 2003 | |
2002 |
Walt Wolfram |
Constructive controversy in linguistics: The development of African American Vernacular English |
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2001 |
David Perlmutter |
Language-internal and cross-linguistic bases of explanation |
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2000 |
Joan Bresnan |
Optimality in Syntax |
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1999 |
D. Terence Langendoen |
Constraints on subordination |
Language, Vol. 84, No. 4, Dec., 2008 | |
1998 |
Janet D. Fodor |
What is a parameter? |
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1997 |
James D. McCawley |
Why surface syntactic structure reflects logical structure as much as it does, but only that much |
Language, Vol. 75, No. 1, Mar., 1999 | |
1996 |
Emmon Bach |
The politics of universal grammar |
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1995 |
Kenneth L. Hale |
Universal grammar and the necessity of linguistic diversity |
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1994 |
Lila R. Gleitman |
A picture is worth a thousand words, but that's the problem |
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1993 |
Arnold M. Zwicky |
Mapping the Ordinary into the Rare: Basic/Derived Reasoning in Theory Construction |
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1992 |
Charles J. Fillmore |
The grammar of 'home' |
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1991 |
Robert P. Austerlitz |
External Reconstruction |
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1989 |
William O. Bright |
With One Lip, With Two Lips: Parallelism in Nahautl |
Language, Vol. 66, No. 3, Sept., 1990 | |
1988 |
Calvert Watkins |
New Parameters in Historical Linguistics, Philology and Cultural History |
Language, Vol. 65, No. 4, Dec., 1989 | |
1987 |
Elizabeth C. Traugott |
The Rise of Epistemic Meanings: A Case Study in the Unidirectionality of Semantic Change |
Language, Vol. 65, No. 1, Mar., 1989 | |
1986 |
Barbara H. Partee |
Possible Worlds and Possible Languages |
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1985 |
Victoria A. Fromkin |
Grammars and Linguistic Processing |
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1984 |
Henry Kahane |
The Typology of the Prestige Language |
Language, Vol. 62, No. 3, Sept., 1986 | |
1983 |
Arthur S. Abramson |
Phonetics in Linguistics |
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1982 |
Dell H. Hymes |
The Language of Myth |
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1981 |
Fred W. Householder |
Kyriolexia and Language Change |
Language, Vol. 59, No. 1, Mar., 1983 | |
1980 |
Ilse Lehiste |
Prosodic change in progress: Evidence from Estonian |
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1979 |
William Labov |
Resolving the Neo-Grammarian Controversy |
Language, Vol. 57, No. 2, June, 1981 | |
1978 |
Peter Ladefoged |
Fundamental Phonological Units |
Language, Vol. 56, No. 3, Sept., 1980 |
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1977 |
Joseph H. Greenberg |
Rethinking Linguistics Diachronically |
Language, Vol. 55, No. 2, June, 1979 | |
1976 |
Rulon S. Wells |
Suggested Meaning |
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1975 |
Thomas A. Sebeok |
The Pertinence of Peirce to Linguistics |
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1974 |
Morris Halle |
Confessio Grammatici |
Language, Vol. 51, No. 3, Sept., 1975 | |
1971 |
Eric P. Hamp |
Reconstruction, Inheritance, Diffusion and Change |
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1970 |
Charles A. Ferguson |
Some requirements for a theory of language behavior |
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1969 |
Archibald A. Hill |
Laymen, Lexicographers, and Linguists |
Language, Vol. 46, No. 2, Part 1, June, 1970 | |
1968 |
Eugene A. Nida |
The Science of Translating |
Language, Vol. 45, No. 3, Sept., 1969 | |
1967 |
William G. Moulton |
Structural Dialectology |
Language, Vol. 44, No. 3, Sept., 1968 | |
1966 |
J Milton Cowan |
Attention |
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1965 |
Yakov Malkiel |
Linguistics as a Genetic Science |
Language, Vol. 44, No. 1, Mar., 1967 | |
1962 |
Albert H. Marckwardt |
Opportunity and Obligation |
Language, Vol. 40, No. 3, Part 2, July - Sept., 1964 | |
1961 |
George L. Trager |
Linguistics is Linguistics |
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1958 |
Henry Hoenigswald |
Some Uses of Nothing |
Language, Vol. 35, No. 3, July - Sept., 1959 | |
1950 |
Einar Haugen |
Directions in Modern Linguistics |
Language, Vol. 27, No. 3, July - Sept., 1951 | |
1949 |
Murray B. Emeneau |
Language and Non-Linguistic Patterns |
Language, Vol. 26, No. 2, April - June, 1950 | |
1945 |
Y. R. Chao |
The Logical Structure of Chinese Words |
Language, Vol. 22, No. 1, Jan. - March, 1946 | |
1940 |
A. L. Kroeber |
Some Relations of Linguistics and Ethnology |
Language, Vol. 17, No. 4, Oct. - Dec., 1941 | |
1925 |
Hermann Collitz |
World Languages |
Language, Vol. 2, No. 1, Mar., 1926 |