Peter Cole

Contacting me

Mail	Contact Information
Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science University of Delaware 46 East Delaware Avenue Newark DE 19716 Secondary affiliation: Department of Linguistics Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Inselstrasse 22 D-04103 Leipzig, Germany	Email: pcole@udel.edu Phone: (302) 831-6829 Fax: (302) 831-6896

Positions

• Professor of Linguistics, University of Delaware, 1988-present
• Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science
  
• Director, Program in Cognitive Science, University of Delaware, 2004-2006
• Chairperson, Department of Linguistics, University of Delaware, 1988-1994
• Professor of Linguistics, University of Illinois, 1987-1990

Education

• Ph.D. Linguistics, University of Illinois 1973
• M.A. Linguistics, Southern Illinois, 1971

Research Interests

• comparative syntax
• cognitive science
  
• linguistic theory
• linguistic typology and language universals
• Malay/Indonesian, Toba Batak, Javanese and other Austronesian languages of Indonesia; Chinese, Hebrew, Quechua
• voice, reflexives, questions, relative clauses, pronominals
• computational tools for field linguistics

The studies I have engage in involve the comparison of syntactic constructions in several dialects or languages with the overall goal of delimiting the range of possibilities that can exist in human language.  The longterm goal is to determine what theory of language best predicts the rangew of possibilities. This general approach has become known as "comparative syntax".

MY work has spanned a number of languages.  Soon after getting my Ph.D. I spent several years concentrating on contemporary Hebrew. Later, I became interested in the Quechua languages (spoken in the Andean mountains of South America). While I have never lost interest in these languages, over the last ten years I have mostly worked on South East Asian languages, among them varieties of Malay Indonesian, Chinese, Toba Batak and Javanese.

The topic of my dissertation was pronouns, but I have worked on a wide variety of subjects. I am currently especially interested in voice in the Austronesian languages. In addition to syntax per se, I have written papers on semantics and pragmatics, and I am very interested in how the scientific study of language can contribute to cognitive science in general. During the last several years I have been involved in a long-term study of the acquisition of Indonesian by children in Jakarta and and a cross-dialectal study of Indonesian dialects, both in collaboration with Gabriella Hermon, Uri Tadmor and David Gil,  under the auspices of Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig, Germany). My most recent project is a study of Jambi Malay, an NSF-sponsored project carried out in collaboration with Gabriella Hermon and Uri Tadmor, Co-PIs.

Typological Tools for Field Linguistics

I maintain this website together with Jeff Good of the Department of Linguistics of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.  The site provides a listing of linguistic questionnaires, stimulus kits and other tools for field linguistics and language description. The website is a contribution of the Department of Linguistics of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology to the Language Typology Resource Center. Please send suggestions for the website to Peter Cole <pcole@udel.edu>.

Some Recent Symposia and Workshops

• ISMIL 10 (International Symposium on Malay/Indonesian Linguistics)
  
• Prior ISMIL meetings
  
• Workshop on Long Distance Reflexives

Some Publications

Papers Available for Downloading contains links to those of the papers below which are available for downloading. In some cases these are prefinal versions.

Selected Recent Publications

• In Press     VP Raising in a VOS Language. (Peter Cole and Gabriella Hermon).  To appear in Syntax.

• 2007a    Anaphoric Expressions in the Peranakan Javanese of Semarang.  (Peter Cole, Gabriella Hermon, Chonghyuck Kim, Chang-yong Sim,Yassir Tjung) Lincom Studies in Asian Linguistics 72, 156 pp., Lincom Europa (LINCOM GmbH, Gmunder Str. 35, D-81379 München).

• 2007b    Malay/Indonesian from a Pan-Austronesian Perspective (edited by P. Cole and   Gabriella Hermon eds.),  Special issue of Lingua, to appear in 2007.
  

• 2007c    Voice in Malay/Indonesian. (P. Cole , G. Hermon), Lingua 2007 (2007b).
  

• 2006     Anaphoric Expressions in Peranakan Javanese : a Comprehensive Database.  (P. Cole, G. Hermon, C. Kim, C. Sim, Y. Tjung, and Y.Tsai)  University of Utrecht, The Netherlands (electronic publication). http://languagelink.let.uu.nl/anatyp/.

• 2006    Is There Pasif Semu in Jakarta Indonesian?  (Peter Cole, Gabriella Hermon and Yassir Tjung), Oceanic Linguistics 45: 64-90..
  
  
• 2005a How Irregular is WH in Situ in Indonesian? (Peter Cole, Gabriella Hermon and Yassir Tjung), Studies in Language 29.2.
  
  
• 2005b Subject and Nonsubject Relativization in Indonesian. (Peter Cole and Gabriella Hermon), Journal of East Asian Linguistics 14.1.
  
  
• 2005c The Typology of Malay Reflexives. (Peter Cole and Gabriella Hermon), Lingua 115: 627-644.
  
  
• 2005d Event Structure in Korean and Standard Indonesian. (M.J. Son and Peter Cole), (in Johannes Dolling & Tatjana Heyde-Zybatow (eds.), a selected paper for the proceedings of Event Structures in Linguistic Form and Interpretation, in the series of Language, Context, and Cognition, Mouton-de Gruyter.
  
  
• 2005eThe Formation of Relative Clauses in Jakarta Indonesian: Data from adults and children. (Peter Cole, Gabriella Hermon, and Yassir Tjung) Presented at ISMIL 7, Nijmegen, June, 2003. To appear in A. van Engelenhoven & H. Steinhauer (eds) Selected Studies on Indonesian/Malay Linguistics. Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (Kuala Lumpur) in cooperation with the International Institute for Asian Studies (Leiden/Amsterdam)
  
  
• 2004d The Acquisition of WH Questions in Jakarta Indonesian. (Peter Cole, David Gil, Gabriella Hermon and Uri Tadmor), NUSA : Linguistic Studies in Indonesian and Languages in Indonesia 51. Jakarta :Badan Panyelenggara Seri NUSA.
  
  
• 2004f Long Distance Anaphors in Asian Languages. (Peter Cole, Gabriella Hermon and C.-T. James Huang), The Syntax Companion. Blackwell (See http://www-uilots.let.uu.nl/syncom/.)
  
  
• 2004k Event Decomposition and the Syntax and the Semantics of -kan in Standard Indonesian. (M.J. Son and Peter Cole), to appear in the Proceedings of the 34th NELS, Amherst, Mass.: GLSA
  
  
• 2004m Logophoric Conditions on Long-Distance Reflexives and Pronouns in Singapore Chinese and Chaozhou Dialect. (Cher Leng Lee, Peter Cole and Gabriella Hermon), in Chinese, Studies in Chinese Linguistics, Beijing Language Cultural University Press, Volume 14, number 3: 31-46.

 Selected Earlier Publications

• Long Distance Reflexives. Editor. (Peter Cole, Gabriella Hermon and C.-T. James Huang.) New York: Syntax and Semantics Series 33, Academic Press, 2001.
  
  
• Long Distance Reflexives: the State of the Art. (Peter Cole, Gabriella Hermon and C.-T. James Huang), .in Long Distance Reflexives.
  
  
• Grammatical and Discourse Conditions on Long Distance Reflexives in Two Chinese Dialects (Peter Cole, Gabriella Hermon and Cher Leng Lee), in Long Distance Reflexives.
  
  
• Logophoric Conditions on Long Distance Reflexives and Pronouns in Singapore Mandarin and Singapore Teochew (Cher Leng Lee, Peter Cole and Gabriella Hermon), in Studies in Chinese Linguistics, Volume 14, 2000
  
  
• Partial WH Movement: Evidence from Malay (Peter Cole and Gabriella Hermon). In: Lutz, U., Mueller, G. and A. von Stechow (eds.) Wh-Scope Marking, Linguistics Today 37, Amsterdan and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2000.
  
  
• An Apparent Typological Anomaly: Long Distance Reflexives in Singapore Malay (Peter Cole and Gabriella Hermon). Linguistic Typology 2, 1 (Spring, 1998).
  
  
• The Typology of WH Movement (Peter Cole and Gabriella Hermon). Syntax 1, 1998.
  
  
• Chaozhou Fangyan Zhong San Zhong Fanfu Wenju (Three Types of Yes/No Questions in a Teochew Dialect) (Peter Cole and Cher Leng Lee). In Chinese. Yuyan Yanjiu, 1997.
  
  
• Yes/No Question in the Teochew of Singapore (Peter Cole and Cher Leng Lee). Journal of East Asian Linguistics 6:2, 1997.
  
  
• Antecedents and Blockers of Long Distance Reflexives: the Case of Chinese Ziji (Peter Cole and Chengchi Wang). Linguistic Inquiry 27, 3, 1996.
  
  
• Language in the Andes. Editor (Peter Cole, Gabriella Hermon and Mario Daniel Martín). Newark, D.E.: Latin American Studies Program, University of Delaware, 1995.
  
  
• Is There LF Movement? (Peter Cole and Gabriella Hermon). Linguistic Inquiry 25, 239-262, 1994.
  
  
• Head Movement and Long Distance Reflexives (Peter Cole and Li-May Sung). Linguistic Inquiry 25, 355-406, 1994.
  
  
• Feature Percolation (Peter Cole, Gabriella Hermon and Li-May Sung. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 2:1, 1993.

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Copyright Peter Cole, 1995, 2001.
Last Updated: Feb. 28, 2006.
URL of this document: http://www.ling.udel.edu/pcole/cole.html.