My research explores the typology of morphological complexity, with a particular focus on processes of variation and change. If language typology is to be more than a catalogue of curiosities, we must understand trajectories of diversification, and their limits.
By understanding processes of language change, we can understand how linguistic structures emerge, evolve, and how this is constrained. The catalogue of diverse linguistic structures thereby becomes a window into the cognitive and social forces that shape language evolution, and typological description becomes the proper source of linguistic theory. Morphology is a particularly fruitful sub-discipline for this typological endeavour, as languages show extreme diversity in the morphological structure of words. My research aims to discover how diverse word structures evolve, how they are cognitively processed and how they are deployed in social interaction.
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John Mansfield's highlights
FEATURED Journal article
CATEGORY CLUSTERING: A PROBABILISTIC BIAS IN THE MORPHOLOGY OF VERBAL AGREEMENT MARKING
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Projects
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Project Types
1
Internal Research Grant
1
Research Grant
Scholarly Works
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Honours, Awards and Fellowships
Endeavour Fellowship 2017 (Dept Education and Training)
Credentials
Positions
Arc Decra Research Fellow
Languages And Linguistics
Education
Doctor of Philosophy
Australian National University
Philosophical doctorate
The Australian National University
PhD in Linguistics
The Australian National University
Master of Arts
Monash University
Bachelor of Arts (Honours)
Adelaide University