Samuel Jay Keyser
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Samuel Jay Keyser (born 7 July 1935) is an American theoretical
linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
who is an authority on the history and structure of the English language and on linguistic approaches to literary criticism.


Biography

Keyser received a BA degree in English from
George Washington University The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally-chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Originally named Columbian College, it was chartered in 1821 by ...
in 1956, a BA in 1958 ( MA 1962) in English from
Merton College, Oxford Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 126 ...
University, another MA, in linguistics, from
Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
in 1960, and a PhD in linguistics from Yale in 1962. He is Peter de Florez Emeritus Professor, an emeritus member of the Linguistics and Philosophy faculty, and former Associate Provost at
MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...
. He has authored numerous books and scientific publications, and is Editor-in-chief of the journal ''
Linguistic Inquiry ''Linguistic Inquiry'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal in generative linguistics published by the MIT Press The MIT Press is the university press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a private research university in Cambri ...
''. In addition to his contributions in many fields of linguistics, including
phonology Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...
,
generative metrics Generative metrics is the collective term for three distinct theories of verse structure (focusing on the English iambic pentameter) advanced between 1966 and 1977. Inspired largely by the example of Noam Chomsky's ''Syntactic Structures'' (1957) ...
, and lexical structure, he is well known to jazz fans throughout the
Boston area Greater Boston is the metropolitan region of New England encompassing the municipality of Boston, the capital of the U.S. state of Massachusetts and the most populous city in New England, and its surrounding areas, home to 4,941,632. The most s ...
as an accomplished trombonist and bandleader. Keyser married Margaret Horridge in 1959. Divorced in 1993, he married Nancy Dean Kelly in 2001.


Selected bibliography

* (With George Clements) ''C.V. Phonology: A Generative Theory of the Syllable (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)'' (MIT Press, 1983) * (With Ken Hale) ''Prolegomenon to a Theory of Argument Structure'' (MIT Press, 2002) * (With Wayne O'Neill) ''Rule Generalization and Optionality in Language Change'' (De Gruyter Mouton, 2015)


References


External links


Samuel Jay Keyser's personal webpage
Linguists from the United States Phonologists from the United States 1935 births Living people Alumni of Merton College, Oxford Linguistics journal editors {{US-linguist-stub