Laura A. Michaelis is a

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professor ...

in the Department of

Linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingu ...

and a faculty fellow in the Institute of Cognitive Science at the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado s ...

Background and research

She received her BA, MA and PhD (1993) in

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingu ...

at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, writing her thesis under the direction of

Charles J. Fillmore Charles J. Fillmore (August 9, 1929 – February 13, 2014) was an American linguist and Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Michigan in 1961. Fillmore sp ...

. Laura Michaelis' widely cited research centers on the

discourse Discourse is a generalization of the notion of a conversation to any form of communication. Discourse is a major topic in social theory, with work spanning fields such as sociology, anthropology, continental philosophy, and discourse analysis. ...

-syntax interface in conversational English and the semantic interaction between words and grammatical constructions, with particular emphasis on the linguistic encoding of tense and

aspect Aspect or Aspects may refer to: Entertainment * ''Aspect magazine'', a biannual DVD magazine showcasing new media art * Aspect Co., a Japanese video game company * Aspects (band), a hip hop group from Bristol, England * ''Aspects'' (Benny Carter ...

. Her work has appeared in a variety of prestigious journals, including ''

Language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

'', ''

Journal of Linguistics The ''Journal of Linguistics'' is a triannual peer-reviewed academic journal covering all branches of theoretical linguistics and the official publication of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain. It is published by Cambridge University Pr ...

'', '' Cognitive Science'', ''

Linguistics and Philosophy ''Linguistics and Philosophy'' is a peer-reviewed journal addressing "structure and meaning in natural language". This journal, along with '' Studies in Language'', is a continuation of the journal ''Foundations of Language'' (1965 to 1976). The ...

'', ''Cognitive Linguistics'', ''The Journal of Semantics'' and ''The

Journal of Pragmatics The ''Journal of Pragmatics'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering the linguistic subfield of pragmatics. It was established in 1977 by Jacob L. Mey (at that time Odense University) and Hartmut Haberland (Roskilde University). The ...

''. Her recent research focuses on idiomatic language and multi-word expressions, the grammar of English

noun phrases In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently o ...

, verbal

argument structure In logic, logical form of a statement is a precisely-specified semantic version of that statement in a formal system. Informally, the logical form attempts to formalize a possibly ambiguous statement into a statement with a precise, unambigu ...

(Michaelis & Ruppenhofer 2001), nonstandard syntactic amalgams in conversational speech, syntactic innovation and

Construction Grammar Construction grammar (often abbreviated CxG) is a family of theories within the field of cognitive linguistics which posit that constructions, or learned pairings of linguistic patterns with meanings, are the fundamental building blocks of human ...

(Michaelis & Kim 2020).

Honors

In 2022, Michaelis was inducted as a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the

Linguistic Society of America The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', ...

. She is one of the founding editors of the

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambr ...

journal '' Language and Cognition''.

Select works

Books

* ''Syntactic Constructions in English'' (w/ Jongbok Kim) Cambridge University Press (2020) *''Mismatch: Form-Function Incongruity and the Architecture of Grammar'' (w/ Elaine J. Francis) CSLI Publications (2003) * ''Beyond Alternations: A Constructional Model of the Applicative Construction in German'' (w/ Josef Ruppenhofer) CSLI Publications (2001) * ''Aspectual Grammar and Past-Time Reference''. Routledge (1998)

Other publications

* Michaelis, Laura A. 2011
Stative by Construction
''Linguistics'' 49: 1359–1399 * Michaelis, Laura A. 2006. Time and Tense. In B. Aarts and A. MacMahon, (eds.), ''The Handbook of English Linguistics.'' Oxford: Blackwell. 220-234. * Brenier, Jason M. and Laura A. Michaelis. 2005. Optimization via Syntactic Amalgam: Syntax-Prosody Mismatch and Copula Doubling. ''Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory'' 1: 45-88. * Michaelis, Laura A. 2005. Entity and Event Coercion in a Symbolic Theory of Syntax. In J.-O. Oestman and M. Fried, (eds.), ''Construction Grammar(s): Cognitive Grounding and Theoretical Extensions. Constructional Approaches to Language'', Volume 3. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 45-88. * Michaelis, Laura A. 2004. Type Shifting in Construction Grammar: An Integrated Approach to Aspectual Coercion. ''Cognitive Linguistics'' 15: 1-67.

References

External links

University of Colorado bio

Personal website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Michaelis, Laura A. Linguists from the United States Women linguists University of California, Berkeley alumni University of Colorado faculty Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Fellows of the Linguistic Society of America Academic journal editors 1964 births