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I am currently an assistant professor in the Department of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Linguistics at the University of Maryland, where I studied under Howard Lasnik, Norbert Hornstein, and Colin Phillips. My research focuses on experimental approaches to syntactic theory (see a review chapter here), and the relationship between syntactic theory and sentence processing (see a review chapter here). | |
| 2007-present | Assistant Professor. Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine. | |
| 2007 | Ph.D. in Linguistics. University of Maryland, College Park. | |
| 2003 | A.B. in Linguistics, summa cum laude. Princeton University. | |
Manuscripts
Sprouse, Jon, Ivano Caponigro, Ciro Greco, & Carlo Cecchetto. (submitted). Experimental syntax and the cross-linguistic variation of island effects in English and Italian. [ pdf ]
Sprouse, Jon, Carson T. Schütze, & Diogo Almeida. (submitted). A comparison of informal and formal acceptability judgments using a random sample from Linguistic Inquiry 2001-2010. [ pdf ] - updated 1.16.13
Sprouse, Jon & Diogo Almeida. (submitted). Power in acceptability judgment experiments and the reliability of data in syntax. [ lingbuzz ] - updated 5.21.12
Journal Articles
Pearl, Lisa & Jon Sprouse. 2013. Syntactic islands and learning biases: Combining exeperimental syntax and computational modeling to investigate the language acquisition problem. Language Acquisition 20: 23-68. [ pdf ]
Sprouse, Jon & Diogo Almeida. (to appear). The empirical status of data in syntax: A reply to Gibson and Fedorenko. Language and Cognitive Processes. [ pdf ]
Sprouse, Jon & Diogo Almeida. (2012). Assessing the reliability of textbook data in syntax: Adger's Core Syntax. Journal of Linguistics 48: 609-652. [ pdf ]
Sprouse, Jon, Matt Wagers, & Colin Phillips. (2012). Working memory capacity and island effects: A reminder of the issues and the facts. Language 88(2): 401-407. [ pdf ] [N.B. This is part of some commentary generated by SWP 2012a below. The reading order is (i) SWP 2012a, (ii) HSS 2012a, (iii) SWP 2012b, and (iv) HSS 2012b.]
Sprouse, Jon, Matt Wagers, & Colin Phillips. (2012). A test of the relation between working memory capacity and syntactic island effects. Language 88(1): 82-123. [ pdf | data | materials ]
Sprouse, Jon. 2011. A test of the cognitive assumptions of magnitude estimation: Commutativity does not hold for acceptability judgments. Language 87(2): 274-288. [ pdf ]
Sprouse, Jon. 2011. A validation of Amazon Mechanical Turk for the collection of acceptability judgments in linguistic theory. Behavior Research Methods 43(1): 155-167. [ pdf ]
Sprouse, Jon, Shin Fukuda, Hajime Ono, & Robert Kluender. 2011. Reverse island effects and the backward search for a licensor in multiple wh-questions. Syntax 14(2):179-203. [ pdf ]
Sprouse, Jon. 2009. Revisiting Satiation. Linguistic Inquiry 40(2): 329-341. [ pdf ]
Sprouse, Jon. 2008. The differential sensitivity of acceptability to processing effects. Linguistic Inquiry 39(4): 686-694. [ pdf ]
Sprouse, Jon. 2007. Continuous Acceptability, Categorical Grammaticality, and Experimental Syntax. Biolinguistics 1: 118-129. [ pdf ]
Sprouse, Jon. 2007. Rhetorical Questions and WH-Movement. Linguistic Inquiry 38(3): 572-580. [ pdf ]
Sprouse, Jon. 2005. After all, What doesn't because select? Snippets 10. [ pdf ]
Book Chapters
Sprouse, Jon. (to appear). Acceptability Judgments. Oxford Bibliographis Online: Linguistics. Edited by Mark Aronoff. [ pdf ]
Sprouse, Jon, Matt Wagers, & Colin Phillips. (to appear). Deriving competing predictions from grammatical approaches and reductionist approaches to island effects. Experimental Syntax and Island Effects. Edited by Jon Sprouse and Norbert Hornstein. [ pdf ]
Schütze, Carson & Jon Sprouse. (to appear). Judgment Data. Resarch Methods in Linguistics. Edited by Devyani Sharma and Rob Podesva. [ pdf ]
Pearl, Lisa & Jon Sprouse. (to appear). Computational models of acquisition for islands. Experimental Syntax and Island Effects. Edited by Jon Sprouse and Norbert Hornstein. [ pdf ]
Sprouse, Jon & Diogo Almeida. (to appear). The role of experimental syntax in an integrated cognitive science of language. The Cambridge Handbook of Biolinguistics. Edited by Kleanthes Grohmann and Cedric Boeckx. [ pdf ]
Sprouse, Jon & Ellen Lau. (2012). Syntax and the brain. The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax. Edited by Marcel den Dikken. [ pdf ]
Books
Sprouse, Jon & Norbert Hornstein. (in press). Experimental Syntax and Island Effects. Cambridge University Press.
Conference Proceedings
Sprouse, Jon. 2009. Magnitude estimation and the non-linearity of acceptability judgments. Proceedings of the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics 27, UCLA. [ pdf ]
Caponigro, Ivano & Jon Sprouse. 2007. Rhetorical questions as questions. Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 11, Barcelona. [ pdf ]
Sprouse, Jon. 2007. ACD and Movement Reconsidered: A and A' Copies. Proceedings of NELS 36, UMASS. [ pdf ]
Sprouse, Jon. 2006. The Accent Projection Principle: Why the hell not? Proceedings of the 29th Penn Linguistics Colloquium, Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 12.1: 349-359. Edited by Aviad Eilam, Tatjana Scheffler, and Joshua Tauberer. [ pdf ]
Invited Presentations
Sprouse, Jon. 2013. Island effects: domain-general or domain-specific. Pomona College, February 13.
Sprouse, Jon. 2013. Experimental syntax, linguistic theory, and the cognitive neuroscience of language. University Connecticut, February 1.
Sprouse, Jon. 2012. Experimental syntax, theoretical syntax, and the cognitive neuroscience of language. Princeton University, December 13.
Sprouse, Jon. 2012. Experimental syntax and the cognitive neurocience of language. Johns Hopkins University, October 25.
Sprouse, Jon. 2012. Experimental syntax and the cognitive neurocience of language. Harvard University, October 19.
Sprouse, Jon. 2012. Syntactic island effects and learning biases. Princeton University, October 8.
Sprouse, Jon. 2012. Assessing the role of experimental syntax in linguistic theory. Keynote speaker at TEAL 7, Hiroshima University, February 18.
Sprouse, Jon. 2011. Making sense of the experimental syntax landscape. University of Michigan, October 28.
Sprouse, Jon. 2011. Making sense of the experimental syntax landscape. Michigan State University, October 27.
Sprouse, Jon. 2011. The cognitive neuroscience of sentence processing. Guest Lecture. California State University, Fullerton, October 10.
Sprouse, Jon. 2011. Experimental syntax and island effects. École Normale Supérieure, Paris, June 29.
Sprouse, Jon. 2011. Assessing the reliability of data in syntactic theory. École Normale Supérieure, Paris, June 28.
Sprouse, Jon. 2011. The role of experimental syntax in an integrated cognitive science of language. New York University, March 21.
Sprouse, Jon. 2010. The theoretical side of experimental syntax. Keynote Speaker at WECOL 2010. California State University, Fresno, November 12-14.
Sprouse, Jon. 2010. The theoretical side of experimental syntax. Invited speaker at NELS 41. University of Pennsylvania, October 22-24.
Sprouse, Jon. 2010. The quantitative syntax "debate". University of California, Santa Cruz, May 28th.
Sprouse, Jon. 2010. The experimental syntax debate. Keynote speaker at the 19th annual Linguistics Symposium. California State University, Fullerton, April 12th.
Sprouse, Jon. 2010. A program for experimental syntax. University of Chicago, February 18th.
Sprouse, Jon. 2009. Wh-dependencies in English and Japanese: A case study for experimental syntax. University of California, Los Angeles, October 28.
Sprouse, Jon. 2009. Looking for evidence in the islands debate. University of California, San Diego, May 4.
Sprouse, Jon. 2009. Looking for evidence in the islands debate. University of Maryland, May 1.
Sprouse. Jon. 2008. Islands and the role of working memory in acceptability judgments. University of California, Los Angeles. October 15.
Sprouse, Jon. 2008. Moving beyond experiments. University of Tuebingen, Germany, May 6.
Sprouse, Jon. 2007. Acceptability, Grammaticality, and the role of Experimental Syntax. University of California, Santa Cruz. November 2.
Sprouse, Jon. 2007. Acceptability, Grammaticality, and the role of Experimental Syntax. University of Southern California. October 29.
Sprouse, Jon. 2007. What do you we do now?. Guest Lecture. Harvard University, May 3.
Sprouse, Jon. 2007. A program for experimental syntax. Harvard University, May 1.
Sprouse, Jon. 2007. A program for Experimental Syntax. University of California, Irvine, March 22.
Sprouse, Jon. 2007. A program for Experimental Syntax. Princeton University, March 13.
Sprouse, Jon. 2006. Experimental Syntax: What does it get you? University of California, San Diego, November 30.
Conference Presentations
Matchin, William, Jon Sprouse, and Greg Hickok. 2012. Broca’s area shows a distance effect for both syntactic movement and backwards anaphora in fMRI. Poster presented at the 25th CUNY Human Sentence Processing Conference (CUNY 2012). CUNY Graduate Center. March 14-26.
Sprouse, Jon, Matt Wagers, and Colin Phillips. 2010. The islands debate: processing costs versus grammatical constraints. Talk presented at the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL 2010). University of Southern California. February 19-21.
Sprouse, Jon. 2009. Islands and the role of working memory in acceptability judgments. Talk presented at the 32nd Generative Linguistics in the Old World (GLOW 32). University of Nantes, France, April 16-18.
Sprouse, Jon. 2008. Magnitude estimation and the (non-)linearity of acceptability judgments. Talk presented at the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL 27). University of California, Los Angeles. May 16-18.
Sprouse, Jon. 2007. Covert Movement, Resumption, and Island Classes. Talk presented at the Western Conference on Linguistics 2007. University of California, San Diego. November 30.
Sprouse, Jon. 2007. Syntactic Satiation: Toward an etiology of linguist's disease. Talk presented at the 30th Annual Colloquium of Generative Linguistics in the Old World (GLOW 30). University of Tromso, Norway, April 12-14.
Sprouse, Jon. 2007. The effect of temporary representations on acceptability. Talk presented at the 30th Annual Colloquium of Generative Linguistics in the Old World (GLOW 30). University of Tromso, Norway, April 12-14.
Sprouse, Jon. 2007. Experimental Syntax: What does it get you? Talk presented at the 20th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, San Diego, CA, March 29-31.
Omaki, Akira, Chris Dyer, Shiti Molhatra, Jon Sprouse, Colin Phillips, and Jeff Lidz. 2007. The time-course of anaphoric processing and syntactic reconstruction. Talk presented at the 20th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, San Diego, CA, March 29-31.
Almeida, Diogo, Joseph Hill, Jon Sprouse, Deborah Chen Pichler and David Poeppel. 2007. MEG evidence of lexical access in signers. Poster presentation at the 20th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, San Diego, CA, March 29-31.
Almeida, Diogo, Joseph Hill, Jon Sprouse, Deborah Chen Pichler and David Poeppel. 2007. Lexical access in signers: MEG evidence. Poster presentation. Cognitive Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting. New York, May 5-8.
Caponigro, Ivano and Jon Sprouse. 2006. Rhetorical questions as questions. Sinn unde Bedeutung 11. Barcelona, September 21-23.
Caponigro, Ivano and Jon Sprouse. 2006. The questionable nature of rhetorical questions. The 2006 Milan Meeting, Gargnano, Italy, June 15-17.
Sprouse, Jon. 2005. ACD and Movement Reconsidered. NELS 36, University of Massachusetts Amherst, October.
Sprouse, Jon. 2005. The Accent Projection Principle: Why the hell not? Penn Linguistics Colloquium 29, University of Pennsylvania, February.
Research Tools
SurveyGenerator: a web application to create acceptability judgment experiments quickly and easily using Excel. [ coming soon ]
Reformat MTurk: an R script to reform the data from Amazon's Mechanical Turk into standard long format.
Z-score transformation: an R script to z-score tranform acceptability judgment data.
MTurk templates: HTML templates for various acceptability judgment tasks
Administrative and Service Roles
Undergraduate Director, Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California Irvine.
Associate Director, Center for Language Science, School of Social Sciences, University of California, Irvine.
Director, Syntax Lab, Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine.
Editorial Board, Teaching Linguistics, published by the Linguistic Society of America.
Grants
Pearl, Lisa & Sprouse, Jon. 2009-2012. Testing the Universal Grammar Hypothesis. NSF BCS-0843896. $176,713.
Sprouse, Jon. 2011-2012. The human-specific cognitive component of language: Separating linguistic and non-linguistic processes in the brain. Single Investigator Innovation Grant #22-2010-2011, UCI Council on Research, Computing, and Libraries. $5,000.
Awards
Linguistic Society of America. 2013. Early Career Award for outstanding contributions to the field.
Linguistic Society of America. 2012. Best paper in Language in 2011 for A test of the cognitive assumptions of magnitude estimation: Commutativity does not hold for acceptability judgments.