We are honoured to announce that Professor Greville G. Corbett, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of Surrey and a founding member of the Surrey Morphology Group, will be delivering a keynote address at the 16th International Conference on Linguistic Research and Applications – Linguistics 2025 Paris.
Professor Corbett is renowned for his extensive contributions to linguistic typology, particularly in the areas of grammatical features such as gender, number, agreement, and case. His seminal works, including Gender (1991), Number (2000), Agreement (2006), and Features (2012), have significantly influenced the field and are widely cited in linguistic scholarship .
A pioneer of the Canonical Typology framework, Professor Corbett has provided linguists with a systematic approach to analysing linguistic phenomena by establishing idealised benchmarks against which real-world language data can be compared. This methodology has been instrumental in advancing our understanding of morphological and syntactic structures across diverse languages .
His recent research delves into the complexities of inflectional morphology, exploring how morphological structures can introduce complexity without apparent functional motivation. This work has led to the development of Network Morphology, a formalism that models morphological systems using default inheritance hierarchies, offering insights into the organisation of morphological paradigms .
Professor Corbett’s keynote is anticipated to provide valuable perspectives on the interplay between morphological complexity and typological theory, reflecting his commitment to elucidating the underlying principles of language structure.
For more information about the conference and to submit your abstract by the extended deadline of 16th June 2025, please visit our conference website.
