Geoffrey Keith Pullum (; born 8 March 1945) is a British and American

linguist 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 ...

specialising in the study of English. He is Professor Emeritus of General Linguistics at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

. Pullum is a co-author of ''

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language ''The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language'' (''CGEL'') is a descriptive grammar of the English language. Its primary authors are Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum. Huddleston was the only author to work on every chapter. It was publ ...

'' (2002), a comprehensive

descriptive grammar In the study of language, description or descriptive linguistics is the work of objectively analyzing and describing how language is actually used (or how it was used in the past) by a speech community. François & Ponsonnet (2013). All acad ...

of English. He was also a contributor to

Language Log ''Language Log'' is a collaborative language blog maintained by Mark Liberman, a phonetician at the University of Pennsylvania. Most of the posts focus on language use in the media and in popular culture. Text available through Google Search fr ...

and Lingua Franca at

The Chronicle of Higher Education ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals (staff members and administrators). A subscription is required to rea ...

Early life and education

Geoffrey K. Pullum was born in

Irvine, North Ayrshire Irvine ( ; sco, Irvin,
gd, Irbhinn, IPA: West Wickham West Wickham is an area of South East London, England, mainly within the London Borough of Bromley with some parts lying in the London Borough of Croydon. It lies south of Park Langley and Eden Park, west of Hayes and Coney Hall, north of ...

, England, while very young. He left secondary school at age 16 and toured Germany as a pianist in the rock and roll band Sonny Stewart and the Dynamos. A year and a half later, he returned to England and co-founded a soul band,

Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band are an England-based soul band. Career The Ram Jam Band were formed around 1964 by Pete Gage and Geoff Pullum. Before taking on Geno Washington, whom Gage knew from performing at the RAF Bentwaters US Air Fo ...

, with Pete Gage. After the band broke up, Pullum enrolled in the

University of York , mottoeng = On the threshold of wisdom , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £8.0 million , budget = £403.6 million , chancellor = Heather Melville , vice_chancellor = Charlie Jeffery , students ...

in 1968, graduating in 1972 with a Bachelor of Arts with first class honours. In 1976 he completed a PhD 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. Linguis ...

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

Career

Pullum left Britain in 1980, taking visiting positions at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

and

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. In 1987, he became a

United States citizen Citizenship of the United States is a legal status that entails Americans with specific rights, duties, protections, and benefits in the United States. It serves as a foundation of fundamental rights derived from and protected by the Constituti ...

. He worked at the

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California syste ...

, from 1981 to 2007. In 1995, Pullum started to collaborate with

Rodney Huddleston Rodney D. Huddleston (born 4 April 1937) is a British linguist and grammarian specializing in the study and description of English. Huddleston is the primary author of ''The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language'' (), which presents a comp ...

and other linguists on ''

'', which won the

Leonard Bloomfield Book Award 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'', ...

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'', ...

in 2004. In 2000, he published, in the style of

Dr. Seuss Theodor Seuss Geisel (;"Seuss"
'' Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical co ...

's theorem that the

halting problem In computability theory, the halting problem is the problem of determining, from a description of an arbitrary computer program and an input, whether the program will finish running, or continue to run forever. Alan Turing proved in 1936 that a g ...

is recursively unsolvable. In 2003, he was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

and in 2009 a Fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...

. In 2007, he moved to the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences,

, where he was Professor of General Linguistics and at one time Head of Linguistics and English Language.

Selected publications

* Pullum, Geoffrey K. (1977). Cole, P.; Sadock, J. M. (eds.). "Word order universals and grammatical relations". ''Syntax and Semantics''. 8: 249–277. . * Derbyshire, Desmond C.; Pullum, Geoffrey K. (1979)
"Object initial languages"
''Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session''. 23 (2). . * Pullum, Geoffrey K. (1979). ''Rule interaction and the organization of a grammar.'' Outstanding dissertations in linguistics. New York: Garland. . * Gazdar, Gerald; Klein, Ewan; Pullum, Geoffrey K.; and Sag, Ivan A. (1985). ''

Generalized phrase structure grammar Generalized phrase structure grammar (GPSG) is a framework for describing the syntax and semantics of natural languages. It is a type of constraint-based phrase structure grammar. Constraint based grammars are based around defining certain syntacti ...

''. Basil Blackwell, Oxford. * Pullum, Geoffrey K., and Ladusaw, William A. (1986). ''

Phonetic Symbol Guide The ''Phonetic Symbol Guide'' is a book by Geoffrey Pullum and William Ladusaw that explains the histories and uses of the symbols of various phonetic transcription conventions. It was published in 1986, with a second edition in 1996, by the Un ...

'', University of Chicago Press. , ** 2nd ed (1986). , . ** (''Sekai onsei kigō jiten''). Tokyo: Sanseido (2003). . * Pullum, Geoffrey K. (1991). ''The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax and Other Irreverent Essays on the Study of Language'', University of Chicago Press. . (See also

Eskimo words for snow The claim that Eskimo words for snow (specifically Yupik and Inuit words) are unusually numerous, particularly in contrast to English, is often used to support the controversial linguistic-relativity hypothesis or "Whorfianism". That strongest ...

) * Huddleston, Rodney D., and Pullum, Geoffrey K. (2002). ''The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language'', Cambridge University Press. * Huddleston, Rodney D.; Pullum, Geoffrey K.; Reynolds, Brett (2022). ''A student's introduction to English grammar'' (2 ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 157.

ISBN The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier that is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency. An ISBN is assigned to each separate edition and ...

978-1-009-08574-8. * Liberman, Mark, and Pullum, Geoffrey K. (2006). ''Far from the Madding Gerund and Other Dispatches from the Language Log'', William, James & Company. *Pullum, Geoffrey K. (2018). ''Linguistics: Why it matters.'' Cambridge: Polity.

References

External links

*
Language Log
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pullum, Geoffrey 1945 births Living people Linguists from the United States Linguists from the United Kingdom Syntacticians Scottish emigrants to the United States University of California, Santa Cruz faculty Alumni of University College London Academics of the University of Edinburgh People from Irvine, North Ayrshire Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the British Academy Alumni of the University of York People educated at Eltham College British rhythm and blues boom musicians British soul musicians Philosophers of linguistics Fellows of the Linguistic Society of America