The West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, or WCCFL (pronounced /ˈwɪkfəl/) is an annual linguistics conference, usually held in the spring, at a university in western North America. Research presented there can focus on any aspect of natural language analysis, including, but not limited to,

phonetics Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

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, ...

syntax 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) ...

semantics 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 Philosophy (f ...

and discourse structure. Along with NELS, it is one of two major U.S. regional conferences that focus on general linguistics, with an emphasis, in recent years, on syntactic topics.Abby Kaplan. “Discussion: Phonology at general linguistics conferences.” ''Phonolist''. May 31, 2016 https://blogs.umass.edu/phonolist/2016/05/31/discussion-phonology-at-general-linguistics-conferences/

History

WCCFL was first held in 1982
Proceedings for conferences 4-17
were published by the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford (CSLI)
proceedings for conferences 18 and beyond
have appeared with Cascadilla Press. The years in which WCCFL has been held are listed below, together with the host institution and the invited speakers (where this information is available or applicable). {, class="wikitable" , - ! WCCFL # !! Year !! Location !! Invited Speaker (if available) , - , 1 , , 1982 , ,

Stanford 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 considere ...

, - , 2 , , 1983 , ,

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

, - , 3 , , 1984 , , UC Santa Cruz , - , 4 , , 1985 , ,

UC Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

, - , 5 , , 1986 , ,

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 ...

, - , 6 , , 1987 , ,

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

, - , 7 , , 1988 , , UC Irvine , - , 8 , , 1989 , ,

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

, - , 9 , , 1990 , ,

, - , 10 , , 1991 , ,

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...

, - , 11 , , 1992 , ,

, - , 12 , , 1993 , , UC Santa Cruz , - , 13 , , 1994 , , UC San Diego , - , 14 , , 1995 , ,

, - , 15 , , 1996 , , UC Irvine , - , 16 , , 1997 , ,

, - , 17 , , 1998 , ,

, - , 18 , , 1999 , ,

, - , 19 , , 2000 , ,

, , John McCarthy (University of Massachusetts at Amherst)

Richard S. Kayne Richard Stanley Kayne is Professor of Linguistics in the Linguistics Department at New York University. Born in 1944, after receiving an A.B. in mathematics from Columbia College, New York City in 1964, he studied linguistics at the Massachus ...

(New York University) , - , 20 , , 2001 , ,

, ,

Alec Marantz Alec Marantz (born January 31, 1959) is an American linguist and researcher in the fields of syntax, morphology, and neurolinguistics. Until 2007, he was Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Linguistics at Massachusetts Institute of Technolo ...

(MIT)

Alan Prince Alan Sanford Prince (born 1946) is a Board of Governors Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Prince, along with Paul Smolensky, developed Optimality Theory, which was originally applied to phonology, but has bee ...

(Rutgers) , - , 21 , , 2002 ,
UC Santa Cruz
, , Joe Pater (University of Massachusetts at Amherst)

Caroline Heycock Caroline Heycock is a Scottish syntactician and professor of linguistics at the University of Edinburgh. Heycock received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991, with a dissertation entitled ''Layers of predication: The non-lexical ...

(University of Edinburgh)

Irene Heim Irene Roswitha Heim (born in Munich, Germany, on October 30, 1954) is a linguist and a leading specialist in semantics. She was a professor at the University of Texas at Austin and UCLA before moving to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology i ...

(MIT) , - , 22 , , 2003 , , UC San Diego , , Mary Beckman (OSU)
Tom Wasow (Stanford University)
Doug Pulleyblank (University of British Columbia) , - , 23 , , 2004 , ,

UC Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...

, , Georgia Green (UIUC)
Robert Kluender (UCSD)
José Hualde (UIUC) , - , 24 , , 2005 , , Simon Fraser University , , Bruce Hayes (UCLA)
Mark Steedman (Edinburgh)
Rose-Marie Déchaine (UBC) , - , 25 , , 2006 ,
University of Washington
, , James McCloskey (UCSC)

Maria Polinsky Maria “Masha” Polinsky is an American linguist specializing in theoretical syntax and study of heritage languages. Career Polinsky was born in Moscow, Russia. She received a B.A. in philology from Moscow University in 1979, and an M.A. in ...

(UCSD)
Douglas Pulleyblank (UBC) , - , 26 , , 2007 ,
Berkeley
, , Adam Albright (MIT)

Lyn Frazier Lyn Frazier (born October 15, 1952, in Madison, Wisconsin) is an experimental linguist, focusing on Psycholinguistics, psycholinguistic research of adult Sentence Comprehension, sentence comprehension. She is professor emerita at the University of ...

(University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
Manfred Krifka (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft) , - , 27 , , 2008 ,
UC Los Angeles
, , Hagit Borer (USC)
Elliott Moreton (UNC)
Liina Pylkkänen (NYU) , - , 28 , , 2010 ,
University of Southern California
, ,

(NYU)

Sun-Ah Jun Sun-Ah Jun (born November 6, 1959) is a Korean-American professor of linguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles. Education Jun received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from Ohio State University in 1993, with a dissertation entitled, ''T ...

(UCLA)

David Beaver David Ian Beaver is a professor of linguistics and philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, where he also directs the cognitive science program and serves as Graduate Studies Advisor of the Human Dimensions of Organizations Master's prog ...

(UT Austin)
Duane Watson (University of Illinois)
Adamantios Gafos. T (Haskins/Yale) , - , 29 , , 2011 ,
University of Arizona
, , Susanne Gahl (University of California, Berkeley)
Norvin Richards (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Tom Bever (University of Arizona) , - , 30 , , 2012 , , UC Santa Cruz , , Jeffrey Lidz (University of Maryland)
Christopher Potts (Stanford University)
Kie Zuraw (UCLA) , - , 31 , , 2013 , ,

, ,

Diana Archangeli Diana B. Archangeli (born in Oregon in 1953) is an American linguist and Professor at the Department of Linguistics at the University of Arizona. She earned her M.A. at the University of Texas-Austin in 1981, and her PhD from MIT in 1984, with a ...

(University of Arizona)
Hilda Koopman (UCLA)

Lisa Matthewson Lisa Christine Matthewson is Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Linguistics at University of British Columbia with specialties in pragmatics and semantics. She has also done significant work with semantic fieldwork and in the preservati ...

(UBC) , - , 32 , , 2014 , ,

, ,

Sabine Iatridou Sabine Iatridou is a linguist whose work on syntax and the syntax‐semantics interface has helped to delineate theories of tense and modality. Academic career Iatridou was born in Thessaloniki, spent her childhood in the Netherlands, and th ...

(MIT)
Jon Sprouse (University of Connecticut)
Yael Sharvit (UCLA)
Jaye Padgett (UCSC) , - , 33 , , 2015 , , Simon Fraser University , , Kyle Johnson (UMass, Amherst)
Heather Goad (McGill)
Matt Wagers (UCSC) , - , 34 , , 2016 , ,

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

, , Colin Phillips (University of Maryland)
Sam Epstein (University of Michigan)
Rachel Walker (USC) , - , 35 , , 2017 , ,

University of Calgary The University of Calgary (U of C or UCalgary) is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The University of Calgary started in 1944 as the Calgary branch of the University of Alberta, founded in 1908, prior to being ins ...

, , Elan Dresher (University of Toronto)
Heidi Harley (University of Arizona)
Keir Moulton (Simon Fraser University)
Neil Banerjee (MIT, invited student speaker) , - , 36 , , 2018 , ,

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

, , Vincent Homer (UMass)
Jie Zhang (Kansas)
Ivy Sichel (UCSC)
Akira Omaki (UW) , - , 37 , , 2019 , , not held , , , - , 38 , , 2020 ,
University of British Columbia
, Meg Grant (Simon Fraser University)
Jessica Rett (UCLA)
Gillian Gallagher (NYU)
Maziar Toosarvandani (UCSC) , - , 39 , , 2021 ,
University of Arizona
, ,

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...

(University of Arizona)
Keren Rice (University of Toronto)
Andrew McKenzie (University of Kansas) , - , 40 , , 2022 ,
Stanford University
, , Line Mikkelsen (Berkeley)
Juliet Stanton (NYU)
Guillaume Thomas (Toronto) , - , 41 , , 2023 ,
University of California, Santa Cruz
, , Luke Adamson (Rutgers University)
Dorothy Ahn (Rutgers University)
Eva Zimmerman (University of Leipzig)

References

Linguistics conferences