Current Prepublications

• Marilyn Ford and Joan Bresnan. 2012. "Generating data as a proxy for unavailable corpus data: the contextualized sentence completion task.." To appear in Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory.
  

• Marilyn Ford and Joan Bresnan. 2012. "`They whispered me the answer' in Australia and the US: A comparative experimental study." Forthcoming in From Quirky Case to Representing Space: Papers in Honor of Annie Zaenen, edited by Tracy Holloway King and Valeria de Paiva. Stanford: CSLI Publications.

• Victor Kuperman and Joan Bresnan. 2012. "The effects of construction probability on word durations during spontaneous incremental sentence production." Journal of Memory & Language 66: 588-611.
  

• Christoph Wolk, Joan Bresnan, Anette Rosenbach, and Benedikt Szmrecsányi. 2012. "Dative and genitive variability in Late Modern English: Exploring cross-constructional variation and change." To appear in Diachronica.
  

• Marie-Catherine de Marneffe, Scott Grimm, Inbal Arnon, Susannah Kirby, and Joan Bresnan. 2012. "A statistical model of the grammatical choices in child production of dative sentences." Language and Cognitive Processes 27(1): 25-61. View the published article.
  

• Stephanie Shih, Jason Grafmiller, Richard Futrell, and Joan Bresnan. 2012. "Rhythm's Role in Genitive Construction Choice in Spoken English." To appear in Rhythm in Phonetics, Grammar and Cognition, edited by Ralf Vogel and Ruben van de Vijver, in the series Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs (TiLSM), Mouton. This version is fully revised (May 2012).
  

• Joan Bresnan. 2011. "A Voyage into Uncertainty." In a volume of essays by Reed College alumni on the occasion of the college's centenary, edited by Roger Porter and Robert Reynolds, Reed College.
  

• Tyler Kendall, Joan Bresnan, and Gerard Van Herk. 2011. "The Dative Alternation in African American English: Researching Syntactic Variation and Change across Sociolinguistic Datasets." Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory. 7(2): 229-244
  

• Marilyn Ford and Joan Bresnan. 2010. "Studying syntactic variation using convergent evidence from psycholinguistics and usage." To appear in Research Methods in Language Variation and Change, edited by Manfred Krug and Julia Schlüter. Cambridge University Press.
  

• Joan Bresnan and Marilyn Ford. 2010. "Predicting Syntax: Processing Dative Constructions in American and Australian Varieties of English." Language 86(1): 186--213.
  

• Harry Tily, Susanne Gahl, Inbal Arnon, Neal Snider, Anubha Kothari, and Joan Bresnan. 2009. "Syntactic Probabilities Affect Pronunciation Variation in Spontaneous Speech." Language and Cognition 1(2): 147--165.
  

• Sarah Roberts and Joan Bresnan. 2008. "Retained Inflectional Morphology in Pidgins: A Typological Study." Linguistic Typology 12(2): 269–302. 
  

• Joan Bresnan and Jennifer Hay. 2008. “Gradient Grammar: An Effect of Animacy on the Syntax of give in New Zealand and American English.” Lingua 118(2): 245–59. 
  

• Devyani Sharma, Joan Bresnan, and Ashwini Deo. 2008.  “Variation and Change in the Individual: Evidence from the Survey of English Dialects.” In Language in Flux: Dialogue Coordination, Language Variation, Change and Evolution, ed. by Robin Cooper and Ruth Kempson. College Publications, pp. 265–321.  A version of Bresnan, Deo, and Sharma 2007 with new material by Sharma.
  

• Joan Bresnan and Tatiana Nikitina. 2009. "The Gradience of the Dative Alternation." In Reality Exploration and Discovery: Pattern Interaction in Language and Life, edited by Linda Uyechi and Lian Hee Wee, 161--184. Stanford: CSLI Publications; Pdf. A shortened, substantially revised version of Bresnan and Nikitina 2003.

• Joan Bresnan. 2007. "Is syntactic knowledge probabilistic?  Experiments with the English dative alternation."   In Roots: Linguistics in Search of Its Evidential Base.. Series: Studies in Generative Grammar, edited by Sam Featherston and Wolfgang Sternefeld. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 77--96.

• Joan Bresnan, Ashwini Deo, and Devyani Sharma.  2007.  "Typology in Variation: A Probabilistic Approach to be and n't in the Survey of English Dialects".  English Language and Linguistics 11.2, 301-346.  49 pages. Pdf.

• Joan Bresnan. 2007. "A Few Lessons from Typology".  Linguistic Typology 11(1): 297--306.
  
  
• Joan Bresnan, Anna Cueni, Tatiana Nikitina, and Harald Baayen. 2007.  "Predicting the Dative Alternation."   In Cognitive Foundations of Interpretation, ed. by G. Boume, I. Kraemer, and J. Zwarts.  Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy of Science, pp. 69--94. 33 pages. Pdf.
  
  
• Joan Bresnan and John Mugane. 2006. "Agentive Nominalizations in Gĩkũyũ and the  Theory of Mixed Categories".  In Intelligent Linguistic Architectures: Variations on themes by Ronald M. Kaplan, Miriam Butt, Mary Dalrymple, and Tracy Holloway King (eds), CSLI Publications, Stanford, California, 2006, pp. 201-234.  39 pp. Pdf.

• Jennifer Hay and Joan Bresnan. 2006. "Spoken Syntax: The Phonetics of  giving a hand in New Zealand English".  The Linguistic Review 23: Special Issue on Exemplar-Based Models in Linguistics, 321-349..   41 pp. Pdf.
  

• Joan Bresnan and Tatiana Nikitina. 2003. "On the Gradience of the Dative Alternation".   Draft of May 7, 2003.  39 pages. Pdf.
  
  
• Joan Bresnan and Judith Aissen. 2002.  "Optimality and Functionality: Objections and Refutations".   Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 20(1): 81 - 95.  18 pages.  Postscript, pdf.
  
  
• Joan Bresnan, Shipra Dingare, and Christopher D. Manning. 2001.   "Soft Constraints Mirror Hard Constraints: Voice and Person in English and Lummi".  Proceedings of the LFG '01 Conference. CSLI Publications.  20 pages. Postscript. Pdf.  
  

• Joan Bresnan. 2000.   "Pidgin Genesis and Optimality Theory".  In Processes of Language Contact: Case Studies from Australia and the Pacific, edited by Jeff Siegel. Montreal: Les Editions Fides, 145--173.  34 pages.  Postscript; pdf.  This is a revision of my LFG98 paper.  

• Joan Bresnan. 2001. Lexical-Functional Syntax. Oxford: Blackwell.  

• Joan Bresnan. 2002. "The Lexicon in Optimality Theory."   In The Lexical Basis of Syntactic Processing: Formal,Computational and Experimental Issues, edited by Suzanne Stevenson and Paola Merlo, pp. 39 - 58.   Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  22 pages (postscript;  also available in pdf)  

• Joan Bresnan. 2001.  "The Emergence of the Unmarked Pronoun".  In Optimality-theoretic Syntax, edited by Geraldine Legendre, Jane Grimshaw, and Sten Vikner, 113 - 142.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.  37 pages (postscript; also available in pdf).  

• Joan Bresnan. 2001. "Explaining Morphosyntactic Competition."  In Handbook of Contemporary Syntactic Theory, ed. by Mark Baltin and Chris Collins, 11--44.  Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.   Final revision, February 18, 1999. 49 pages (postscript; also available in pdf).  Available on the Rutgers Optimality Archive: (ROA-299-0299).  

• Joan Bresnan. 1998. "Markedness and Morphosyntactic Variation in Pronominal Systems".  Handout for the Workshop Is Syntax Different?  Common cognitive structures for syntax and phonology in Optimality Theory, December 12-13, 1998, Center for the Study of Language and Information.  16 pages (postscript).

• Joan Bresnan. 1998. "Pidgin Genesis in Optimality Theory".   Presented at the LFG98 Conference, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, June 30, 1998. 18 pages (postscript).   Final revision of October 24, 1998.  This paper can also be viewed on-line in html.  Please go to CSLI Publications and look for their on-line proceedings, if you have trouble finding this link; they change their URLs without warning.
  

• Joan Bresnan. 2000. "Optimal Syntax." In Optimality Theory: Phonology, Syntax and Acquisition, edited by Joost Dekkers, Frank van der Leeuw and Jeroen van de Weijer, 334--385.  Oxford: Oxford University Press.  Revised March 22, 1998. 65 pages (postscript); also available in pdf.  

• Joan Bresnan. 1997. "Mixed Categories as Head Sharing Constructions."  Proceedings of the LFG97 Conference, University of California, San Diego, edited by Miriam Butt and Tracy Holloway King.  On-line, Stanford University: http://www-csli.stanford.edu/publications/LFG2/lfg97.html. 17 pages (postscript).  

• Joan Bresnan. 1997. "The Emergence of the Unmarked Pronoun: Chichewa Pronominals in Optimality Theory."To appear in BLS-23.  20 pages (postscript).  

• Rachel Nordlinger and Joan Bresnan. 1996. "Non-configurational tense in Wambaya."  In Proceedings of the First LFG Conference, Rank Xerox Research Center, Grenoble, France, August 26-28, 1996, edited by Miriam Butt and Tracy Holloway King.  On-line, Stanford University: http://www-csli.stanford.edu/publications/LFG/lfg1.html.15 pages (postscript).  

• Joan Bresnan. 1996. "Lexicality and Argument Structure."  Invited paper given at the Paris Syntax and Semantics Conference, October 12-14, 1995.  Corrected version: 12:57 p.m. April 15, 1996.  27 pages (postscript). Pdf version.
  

• Joan Bresnan. 1998. "Morphology Competes with Syntax: Explaining Typological Variation in Weak Crossover Effects."  In Is the Best Good Enough?  Optimality and Competition in Syntax, edited by Pilar Barbosa, Danny Fox, Paul Hagstrom, Martha McGinnis, and David Pesetsky, 59--92. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press and MIT Working Papers in Linguistics.  Revised version, March 18, 1996. About 40 pages (postscript).  [Some tree artwork missing.]