Alec Marantz (born January 31, 1959) is an American linguist and researcher in the fields of
syntax,
morphology
Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to:
Disciplines
* Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts
* Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
, and
neurolinguistics.
Until 2007, he was Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Linguistics at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
, and Research Director of KIT/MIT MEG Joint Research Lab. Since 2007, he has been Professor of Linguistics and Psychology at
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, th ...
.
Since the 1980s Marantz has made significant contributions to syntactic theory, especially regarding the structural representation of syntactic arguments, and the semantic and morphological implications of this representation. In the early 1990s Marantz proposed (together with
Morris Halle
Morris Halle (; July 23, 1923 – April 2, 2018) was a Latvian-born Jewish American linguist who was an Institute Professor, and later professor emeritus, of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The father of "modern phonolo ...
) a theory of architecture of grammar known as
Distributed Morphology
In generative linguistics, Distributed Morphology is a theoretical framework introduced in 1993 by Morris Halle and Alec Marantz.Halle, Morris & Alec Marantz. 1993. 'Distributed Morphology and the Pieces of Inflection.' In The View from Buildin ...
. More recently, he has been using
magnetoencephalography
Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is a functional neuroimaging technique for mapping brain activity by recording magnetic fields produced by electrical currents occurring naturally in the brain, using very sensitive magnetometers. Arrays of SQUIDs (s ...
(MEG) to study human language processing, particularly
morphology
Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to:
Disciplines
* Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts
* Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
and the mental lexicon.
Marantz's approach to linguistic theory is characterized by its emphasis on the empirical base of linguistics, including (but not necessarily limited to) evidence from native-speaker intuitions, child language, language processing, and the neural organization of language.
External links
Personal website Distributed MorphologyKIT/MIT MEG Joint Research Lab
Linguists from the United States
Living people
MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences faculty
Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni
Oberlin College alumni
Morphologists
1959 births
{{US-linguist-stub