Bernard Sterling Comrie, (; born 23 May 1947) is a British linguist. Comrie is a specialist in

linguistic typology Linguistic typology (or language typology) is a field of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features to allow their comparison. Its aim is to describe and explain the structural diversity and the co ...

, linguistic universals and on

Caucasian languages The Caucasian languages comprise a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Linguistic comparison allows t ...

Personal life

Early life and education

Comrie was born in

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is a port at the mouth of the River Wear on the North Sea, approximately south-east of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is the most p ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

on 23 May 1947. He earned his undergraduate and doctoral degrees in Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics from the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, where he also taught Russian and Linguistics until he moved to the Linguistics Department of the

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 ...

Personal life

He married linguistics professor Akiko Kumahira in 1985.

Professional life

Academic career

For 17 years he was professor at and director of the former Department of Linguistics at the

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (, shortened to MPI EVA) is a research institute based in Leipzig, Germany, that was founded in 1997. It is part of the Max Planck Society network. Well-known scientists currently based at ...

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, combined with a post as Distinguished Professor of Linguistics at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an ...

, where he returned full-time from 1 June 2015. He has also taught at the

and the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

Honours

Comrie was elected a

Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (post-nominal letters FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: # Fellows – scholars resident in t ...

(FBA), the United Kingdom's

national academy A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with state financial support and approval, that co-ordinates scholarly research activities and standards for academic disciplines, and serves as a public policy advisors, research ...

for the humanities and social sciences. He became a foreign member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (, KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed in the Trippenhuis in Amsterdam. In addition to various advisory a ...

in 2000. In September 2017, he was awarded the Neil and Saras Smith Medal for Linguistics by the

British Academy The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies 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 sa ...

Selected works

Books

* ''The World's Major Languages'' (ed.), 1987, New York: Oxford University Press, . Second edition: 2009, Routledge . * ''Tense'', 1985, Cambridge University Press. . * ''The Languages of the Soviet Union'', 1981, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Language Surveys), (hard covers) and (paperback) * ''Language Universals and Linguistic Typology: Syntax and Morphology'', 1981, The University of Chicago Press. * ''Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems'', 1976, Cambridge University Press.

Articles

* Comrie, Bernard. 1975. Causatives and universal grammar. Transactions of the Philological Society 1974. 1–32. * Comrie, Bernard. 1976. The syntax of causative constructions: Cross-language similarities and divergences. In Shibatani, Masayoshi (ed.), ''Syntax and Semantics 6: The Grammar of Causative Constructions'', 261–312. New York: Academic Press. * Comrie, Bernard. 1978
Ergativity
In Lehmann, Winfred P. (ed.), ''Syntactic typology: Studies in the phenomenology of language'', 329–394. Austin: University of Texas Press. * Comrie, Bernard. 1986. Markedness, grammar, people, and the world. In Eckman, Fred R. & Moravcsik, Edith A. & Wirth, Jessica R. (eds.), ''Markedness'', 85–106. New York: Plenum. * Comrie, Bernard. 1999
Reference-tracking: Description and explanation
''Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung'' 52(3–4). 335–346. * Comrie, Bernard. 2005. Alignment of case marking. In Haspelmath, Martin & Dryer, Matthew S. & Gil, David & Comrie, Bernard (eds.), ''The world atlas of language structures'', 398–405. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ((http://wals.info/chapter/98)) * Keenan, Edward L. & Comrie, Bernard. 1977. Noun phrase accessibility and universal grammar. ''Linguistic Inquiry'' 8. 63–99.

References

External links

Homepage at the Max Planck Institute
{{DEFAULTSORT:Comrie, Bernard 1947 births Living people University of California, Santa Barbara faculty Alumni of the University of Cambridge People from Sunderland Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Foreign members of the Russian Academy of Sciences Historical linguists Fellows of the Cognitive Science Society Recipients of the Neil and Saras Smith Medal for Linguistics Corresponding fellows of the British Academy Linguists of Papuan languages Linguists of Piawi languages Linguists of Caucasian languages 20th-century British linguists 21st-century British linguists Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Max Planck Institute directors Fellows of the Linguistic Society of America Typologists