David Roach Dowty (born 1945) is a linguist known primarily for his work in

semantic Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...

and

syntactic In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency), ...

theory, and especially in Montague grammar and

Categorial grammar Categorial grammar is a family of formalisms in natural language syntax that share the central assumption that syntactic constituents combine as functions and arguments. Categorial grammar posits a close relationship between the syntax and semant ...

. Dowty is a professor emeritus 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. Linguis ...

at the

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

, and his research interests mainly lie in Semantic and Syntactic Theory,

Lexical semantics Lexical semantics (also known as lexicosemantics), as a subfield of linguistic semantics, is the study of word meanings.Pustejovsky, J. (2005) Lexical Semantics: Overview' in Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, second edition, Volumes 1-14Ta ...

and

Thematic roles Thematic role is a linguistic notion, which may refer to: * Theta role (in syntax or at the syntax-semantics interface), the formal device for representing syntactic argument structure—the number and type of noun phrases—required syntactically ...

, and Semantics 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 ...

Life

David Dowty received his PhD from the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

, with a thesis supervised by Robert Wall and

Emmon Bach Emmon Bach (12 June 1929 – 28 November 2014) was an American linguist. He was Professor Emeritus at the Department of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Professorial Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African St ...

on the temporal semantics of verbs. Dowty was editor-in-chief of the journal ''

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 ...

'' from 1988 to 1992, and associate editor of ''

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 met ...

''. For several years he was chairman of the Department of Linguistics at the Ohio State University. A one-day symposium was held at the University of Groningen in honour of his sixtieth birthday, subsequently published as ''Theory and Evidence in Semantics''.

Major Publications

* ''Word Meaning and Montague Grammar: the semantics of verbs and times in generative semantics and in Montague's PTQ''. Dortrecht, Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Co, 1979. * (ed. with

Lauri Karttunen Lauri Juhani Karttunen was an adjunct professor in linguistics at Stanford and an ACL Fellow. He died in 2022. Career Karttunen received his Ph.D. in Linguistics in 1969 from Indiana University in Bloomington. At the University of Texas at Aus ...

and

Arnold M. Zwicky Arnold M. Zwicky (born September 6, 1940) is a perennial visiting professor of linguistics at Stanford University, and Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of linguistics at the Ohio State University. Early life and education Zwicky was b ...

) ''Natural language parsing: psychological, computational, and theoretical perspectives''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. * (with Robert E. Wall and Stanley Peters) ''Introduction to Montague Semantics''. Dortrecht, Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Co, 1991. *
Thematic Proto-Roles and Argument Selection
. ''

'' 67:3 (September 1991), pp.547-619 * (ed. with Erhard W. Hinrichs and John A. Nerbonne) ''Theory and evidence in semantics''. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009.

References

External links

David Dowty's home page
at the Ohio State University Department of Linguistics Linguists from the United States Living people Ohio State University faculty Semanticists 1945 births {{US-linguist-stub

Life

Major Publications

See also

References

External links