Benjamin Slade
  • Associate Professor, Linguistics

Research Statement

I joined the Linguistics Department at the University of Utah in July 2013. Previously, I worked at the University of Texas at Arlington as a visiting Senior Lecturer between 2011-2013. My PhD was granted by the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, where I completed my dissertation, Formal and philological inquiries into the nature of interrogatives, indefinites, disjunction, and focus in Sinhala and other languages, under the direction of Hans Henrich Hock.

My specialisations in linguistics are formal semantics and historical linguistics/philology, and I maintain active interests in syntax and morphology as well as other subfields. My research often involves languages of South Asia, such as Sanskrit, Nepali, Hindi, and Sinhala.

I have published on topics ranging from the examination of the semantics of question particles and epistemic indefinites in Sinhala, Malayalam, Japanese, and Tlingit to studies which locate cognate phrases in the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf and ancient Indian Vedic texts to research into the development of special morphological neologistic processes (such as overstanding) in the language of the Rastafari communities of the Caribbean.

Research Keywords

  • Formal Semantics
  • Syntax-Semantics Interface
  • Syntax
  • Historical Linguistics
  • Morphology
  • Computational Linguistics
  • South Asian Languages and Literature
  • Sri Lanka
  • Nepal
  • Hindi and Urdu
  • African-American Studies
  • Caribbean Language or Literature

Creative Research

  • Csirmaz, Aniko & Slade, Benjamin. Mindenki is. Ms. Other, in progress 11/30/2022.
  • Slade, Benjamin & Archna Bhatia. in progress. Overview of uses & types of focus. Other, refereed, in progress 12/2018.
  • Slade, Benjamin & Aniko Csirmaz. in progress. Some historical developments in aspectual adverbs. Other, refereed, in progress 12/2018.
  • Slade, Benjamin & Aniko Csirmaz. in progress. A radically templatic approach to aspectual adverbs. Other, refereed, in progress 12/2018.
  • Csirmaz, Aniko & Slade, Benjamin. submitted. Pieces of Indo-Aryan and Hungarian adverbs. _Logical Vocabulary and Logical Change_, ed. Moreno Mitrović. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Other, refereed, submitted 11/03/2017.
  • Slade, Benjamin. submitted. The role of Q-particles in the formation of relative clauses in Sinhala and other languages. _Logical Vocabulary and Logical Change_, ed. Moreno Mitrović. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Other, refereed, submitted 11/03/2017.

Presentations

  • Slade, Benjamin. 2021. Hindi V+V collocations: the larger context and speculations on L2 acquisition issues. International Conference on Hindi Grammar and Lexicon. INALCO, Paris. November. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 11/03/2021.
    https://lambda-y.net/talk/hindi-v-v-collocations-t...
  • Benjamin Slade, Archna Bhatia, Vandana Puri, Aniko Csirmaz. 2021. An approach to the apparent polysemy of the Hindi (scalar-)additive particle ‘bhii’. 39th meeting of the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics [WCCFL39]. University of Arizona, Tucson. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 04/11/2021.
    https://sites.google.com/view/wccfl2021/
  • Benjamin Slade, Vandana Puri, Archna Bhatia, Aniko Csirmaz. 2021. A compositional account of the apparent polysemy of Hindi ‘bhii’. 11th meeting of the (Formal) Approaches to South Asian Languages [(F)ASAL-11]. University of Minnesota. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 03/28/2021.
    https://sites.google.com/umn.edu/fasal11/home
  • Slade, Benjamin & Csirmaz, Aniko. Universality and the evolution of aspectual adverbials. Formal Diachronic Semantics 4. The Ohio State University, Columbus. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 11/16/2019.
    https://u.osu.edu/fods4/
  • "Equake - drop-drop console written in elisp". EmacsConf 2019 | Virtual (Online) Conference November 2, 2019 | 9am EDT / 1pm UTC / 2pm CET. https://emacsconf.org/2019/. Other, Presented, 11/02/2019.
    https://media.emacsconf.org/2019/30.html
  • Razo, Daniel A. & Csirmaz, Aniko & Slade, Benjamin. Spanish Aspectual Adverbials. 48th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest and XXX Biennial Louisiana Conference on Hispanic Languages and Literatures. Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 11/01/2019.
    https://lassolsuchll2019.weebly.com/
  • Slade, Benjamin & Csirmaz, Aniko. 2019. The Uniform Treatment of Adverbials Hypo- thesis. 3rd Budapest Linguistics Conference [BLINC-3]. Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 06/07/2019.
    http://seas3.elte.hu/blinc3/
  • Csirmaz, Aniko & Slade, Benjamin. 2019. The Visibility Parameter Reconsidered. 3rd Budapest Linguistics Conference [BLINC-3]. Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 06/06/2019.
    http://seas3.elte.hu/blinc3/
  • Csirmaz, A. and B. Slade. 2019. Aspektuális határozók (látszólat) nem-aspektuális használata [(Apparently) non-aspectual use of aspectual adverbials]. Conference in honour of K. É. Kiss. Linguistics Research Institute, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 05/28/2019.
  • Bahuguna, Saket & Slade, Benjamin & Csirmaz, Aniko. 2019. Aspectual particles in Hindi. Formal Approaches to South Asian Languages 9 [FASAL-9]. Reed College, Portland, Oregon. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 03/2019.
    https://www.reed.edu/linguistics/fasal9/
  • Csirmaz, Aniko & Slade, Benjamin. Visibility parameter: An unusual class of adverbials. 47th Meeting of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest (LASSO-47). Aspen Grove, Provo, Utah. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 10/2018.
    http://linguistics.byu.edu/faculty/deddingt/LASSO2...
  • Slade, Benjamin & Csirmaz, Aniko. A templatic treatment of temporal terms. 47th Meeting of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest (LASSO-47). Aspen Grove, Provo, Utah. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 10/2018.
    http://linguistics.byu.edu/faculty/deddingt/LASSO2...
  • Slade, Benjamin & Csirmaz, Aniko. ‘‘Underlying structure of a class of adverbials.’’ LSA Annual Meeting 2018, Salt Lake City (January 2018). Poster, Presented, 01/06/2018.
    https://www.linguisticsociety.org/node/8208/schedu...
  • Slade, Benjamin. ‘‘An Optimality-Theoretical Analysis of a Novel Morphological Process in Rasta Talk.’’ LSA Annual Meeting 2018, Salt Lake City (January 2018). Poster, Presented, 01/05/2018.
    https://www.linguisticsociety.org/node/8208/schedu...
  • Slade, Benjamin. ‘‘South Asian relative-correlatives and unexpected particles’’, Perspectives on South Asian Syntax, a panel in honor of Alice Davison and James W. Gair, Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison, Wisconsin (28 Oct 2017). Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 10/28/2017.
    https://southasiaconference.wisc.edu/
  • Slade, Benjamin & Csirmaz, Aniko. ‘‘Then too…’’, Meaning in Flux, Yale University, New Haven, (14 October 2017). Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 10/14/2017.
    https://ling.yale.edu/research/meaninginflux2017
  • Slade, Benjamin. ‘‘Why are there disjunctive particles in Sinhala & Dravidian relative-correlatives?: existential particles in nonexistential environments’’, Workshop on Logical Vocabulary & Logical Change, 23rd International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Hotel Contessa, San Antonio, Texas, (3 August 2017). Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 08/03/2017.
    http://ichl23.utsa.edu/
  • Slade, Benjamin & Csirmaz, Aniko. ‘‘Adding meaning to Indo-Aryan & Hungarian aspectual adverbials then and again’’, Workshop on Logical Vocabulary & Logical Change, 23rd International Conference on Historical Linguistics [ICHL23], Hotel Contessa, San Antonio, Texas, (3 August 2017). Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 08/03/2017.
    http://ichl23.utsa.edu/
  • Csirmaz, Aniko & Slade, Benjamin. ‘‘Anatomy of Hungarian aspectual particles’’, 13th International Conference on the Structure of Hungarian [ICSH13], Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, (30 June 2017). Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 06/30/2017.
    http://www.nytud.hu/icsh13/
  • Slade, Benjamin & Csirmaz, Aniko. ‘‘The pieces of Indo-Aryan aspectual adverbs.’’ Formal Approaches to South Asian Languages 7 [FASAL-7], Massachusetts Institute of Technology (5 March 2017). Poster, Presented, 03/05/2017.
    http://fasal.mit.edu/
  • Slade, Benjamin. ‘‘The semantics of Jamaican Creole verbal reduplication’’, Society for Caribbean Linguistics 21st biennial conference, University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica (1–6 August 2016). Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 08/2016.
    http://www.scl-online.net/Conferences/2016/program...
  • Csirmaz, Aniko & Slade, Benjamin. ‘‘Repetitives and Affectedness’’, 34th meeting of the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics [WCCFL34], University of Utah (May 2016). Poster, Presented, 05/2016.
  • Slade, Benjamin & Csirmaz, Aniko. ‘‘Re-reconsidering re-’’, Penn Linguistics Colloquium 40, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (18–20 March 2016). Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 03/2016.
    http://www.ling.upenn.edu/Events/PLC/plc40/index.h...
  • Slade, Benjamin. "History of kakarimusubi-like constructions in Sinhala and Dravidian", National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL), Tachikawa City, Tokyo (given in absentia 6 September 2015). Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 09/06/2015.
  • Slade, Benjamin. 2014. Formal analysis of novel morphological processes in Rasta Talk. Talk given at the 20th biennial conference of the Society for Caribbean Linguistics [SCL20], Holiday Inn Resort, Palm Beach, Oranjestad, Aruba. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 08/06/2014.
  • Garley, Matt & Slade, Benjamin. “Virtual Meatspace: Word formation and deformation in cyberpunk discussion”, Fifth International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English [ICLCE5], University of Texas, Austin (25–29 September 2013). Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 09/2013.
  • Slade, Benjamin. “Overstanding Idren: Special Features of Rastafari English Morphology”, 2nd Rastafari Studies Conference and General Assembly — Rastafari, Coral Gardens and African Redemption: Issues, Challenges and Opportunities — Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Coral Gardens Massacre, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica (12–16 August 2013). Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 08/14/2013.
  • Slade, Benjamin. “Some epistemic indefinites in Sinhala”, Formal Approaches to South Asian Languages 3 [FASAL- 3], University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California (10 March 2013). Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 03/10/2013.
  • Slade, Benjamin. “Some talk or other: Epistemic indefinites, choice functions and conceptual covers”, Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex Linguistics Conference 2012, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas (10 November 2012). Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 11/10/2012.
  • Slade, Benjamin. “Sinhala Epistemic Indefinites”, 86th meeting of the Linguistic Society of America [LSA 86], Hilton Portland, Portland, Oregon (7 January 2012). Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 01/07/2012.
  • Slade, Benjamin. “Why wh-words need ordinary semantic values (and what to do about intervention effects)”, 84th meeting of the Linguistic Society of America [LSA 84], Hilton Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland (9 January 2010). Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 01/09/2010.
  • Slade, Benjamin. ‘‘The development of Indo-Aryan compound verbs: an historico-geographic study’’, 83rd meeting of the Linguistic Society of America [LSA 83], Hilton San Francisco, San Francisco, California (September 2009). Poster, Presented, 09/2009.
  • Slade, Benjamin. “Splitting the Belly: the Indo-European Dragon-Slaying Myth in Indic & Germanic”, 25th East Coast Indo-European Conference [ECIEC 25], the Ohio State University, Columbus (20 June 2006). Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 06/20/2006.
  • Slade, Benjamin. ‘‘Historical Change and Repair of Aktionsart: The Development of Compound Verbs/Absolutives in Indo-Aryan, esp. Hindi and Nepali’’, 25th meeting of the South Asian Linguistic Analysis roundtable [SALA 25], University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign (17 September 2005). Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 09/17/2005.
  • Slade, Benjamin. “...þrym gefrunon, ...helle gemundon: Indogermanic śruti and Christian smṛti in the Epistemology of Beowulf”, 38th International Congress on Medieval Studies [ICMS 38], Western Michigan Univeristy, Kalamazoo (May 2003). Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 05/2003.
  • Slade, Benjamin. ‘‘Optimal Curves: an optimality-theoretic approach to the evolution of do-periphrasis in English’’, 2nd Hopkins, University of Maryland, Rutgers, University of Massachusetts joint class meeting [HUMDRUM2], Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland (5 May 2001). Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 05/05/2001.
    http://web.archive.org/web/20080511160237/http://w...
  • Slade, Benjamin. “Catastrophes at 1000 Grammars/Hour on the ‘S’-Curve”, 45th annual meeting of the International Linguistic Association [ILA 45], Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. (7 April 2000). Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 04/07/2000.

Software Titles

  • Equake. A drop-down console for eshell & terminal emulation written in Emacs Lisp. [Source code: https://gitlab.com/emacsomancer/equake ]. Release Date: 12/12/2018. Inventors: Benjamin Slade. Distribution List: Published in MELPA, a curated package repository for Emacs: https://melpa.org/#/equake.

Geographical Regions of Interest

  • Caribbean
  • Southern Asia

Publications

  • Csirmaz, A. and B. Slade. 2023. Minden is. In B. Surnyai (ed.) Tanulmanyok a jelentestan korebol (Studies in Semantics). Altalanos Nyelveszeti Tanulmanyok (Studies in General Linguistics) XXXV. Budapest, Hungary: Akademiai Kiado. Published, 12/31/2023.
  • Slade, Benjamin, Prashant Pardeshi, Taro Kageyama & Peter Edwin Hook (2021). Verb-verb combinations in Indo-Aryan. (pp. 249–274). Oxford University Press. Published, 04/2021.
    https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view...
  • Csirmaz, Aniko & Slade, Benjamin. Aspektuális határozók: Magas pozíciók és más, alulreprezentált olvasatok [= Aspectual adverbials: High positions and other under-represented readings]. In Újabb eredmények a grammatikaelmélet, nyelvtörténet és uralisztika köréből [= Recent advances in grammatical theory, language history, and Uralic studies], eds. István Kenesei, Éva Dékány, Tamás Halm, & Balázs Surányi. Általános nyelvészeti tanulmányok [=Studies in generative linguistics]. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 281–296. Published, 01/2021.
  • Slade, Benjamin (2020). Verb Concatenation in Asian Linguistics. Oxford Research Encyclopedia. Published, 09/01/2020.
    https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013...
  • Csirmaz, Aniko & Slade, Benjamin. 2020. Anatomy of Hungarian aspectual particles. Approaches to Hungarian. Vol. 16: Papers from the 2017 Budapest Conference. ed. Veronika Hegedűs & Irene Vogel. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Published, 04/2020.
    https://benjamins.com/catalog/atoh.16.02csi
  • Slade, Benjamin (2019). Quantifier particle environments. Linguistic Variation. Vol. 19, 280-351. Published, 12/2019.
    https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1...
  • Slade, Benjamin. accepted. Verb-verb combinations in Indo-Aryan. Verb-Verb complexes in Asian languages. ed. Taro Kageyama, Peter Hook, Prashant Pardeshi. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Accepted, 10/2019.
  • Slade, Benjamin (2018). review of Pritha Chandra & Richa Srishti (eds.) _The Lexicon–Syntax Interface: Perspectives from South Asian languages._ (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today; 209). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 2014. (pp. 105–110). Vol. 5:1. Journal of South Asian Languages & Linguistics. Published, 10/23/2018.
    https://doi.org/10.1515/jsall-2018-0003
  • Slade, Benjamin (2018). Overstanding Idren: Special Features of Rasta Talk Morphology. Journal of Pidgin & Creole Languages. Vol. 33:2, 280–306. Published, 10/19/2018.
    https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.00017.sla
  • Slade, Benjamin (2018). History of focus-concord constructions and focus- associated particles in Sinhala, with comparison to Dravidian and Japanese. Glossa. Vol. 3(1). Published, 01/2018.
    http://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.241
  • Csirmaz, Aniko & Slade, Benjamin. 2016. Result states and repetitive adverbs. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 63(4): 443-455. Published, 11/24/2016.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1556/064.2016.63.4.3
  • Garley, Matt & Slade, Benjamin. 2016. Virtual meatspace: Word formation and deformation in cyberpunk discussions. In English in Computer-Mediated Communication: Variation, Representation, and Change, ed. Lauren M. Squires, 123-148. Berlin: De Gruyter. Published, 10/24/2016.
    https://www.degruyter.com/view/product/475486
  • Slade, Benjamin. 2016. Compound verbs in Indo-Aryan. In World of Linguistics: The Languages and Linguistics of South Asia, a comprehensive guide, eds. Hans Henrich Hock & Elena Bashir, 559-567. Berlin: De Gruyter. Published, 05/24/2016.
    https://www.degruyter.com/view/product/429184
  • Slade, Benjamin. 2015. A short history of English epistemic indefinites. In Epistemic indefinites, eds. Luis Alonso-Ovalle & Paula Menéndez-Benito. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Published, 04/2015.
    http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acpr...
  • Slade, Benjamin. 2015. Sinhala indefinites with a certain je ne sais quoi. In Epistemic indefinites, eds. Luis Alonso-Ovalle & Paula Menéndez-Benito. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Published, 03/2015.
    http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acpr...
  • Slade, Benjamin. 2013. The diachrony of light and auxiliary verbs in Indo-Aryan. Diachronica 20:4: 531-578. Published, 03/2014.
    https://benjamins.com/#catalog/journals/dia.30.4.0...
  • Slade, Benjamin. 2013. Question-particles and relative clauses in the history of Sinhala, with comparison to early and modern Dravidian. In Grammatica et verba / Glamour and verve — Studies in South Asian, Historical, and Indo-European Linguistics: A Festschrift in Honor of Professor Hans Henrich Hock on the Occasion of His 75th Birthday, eds. Shu-Fen Chen & Benjamin Slade. Ann Arbor: Beech Stave Press. Published, 01/2014.
    http://www.beechstave.com/gev.htm
  • Chen, Shu-Fen & Benjamin Slade, (eds.). 2013. Grammatica et verba / Glamour and verve — Studies in South Asian, Historical, and Indo-European Linguistics: A Festschrift in Honor of Professor Hans Henrich Hock on the Occasion of His 75th Birthday. Ann Arbor: Beech Stave Press. Published, 09/2013.
    http://www.beechstave.com/gev.htm
  • Garley, Matt, Benjamin Slade, & Marina Terkourafi. 2012. Hwæt! LOL! Common formulaic functions in Beowulf and blogs. Proceedings from the Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS) 45.1: 111–126. Published, 01/2012.
  • Garley, Matt, Benjamin Slade, & Marina Terkourafi. 2010. A text in speech’s clothing: Discovering specific functions of formulaic expressions in Beowulf and blogs. In Perspectives on formulaic language: Acquisition and communication, ed. David Wood, 213–233. London: Continuum. Published, 01/2010.
    http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/perspectives-on-formu...
  • Slade, Benjamin. 2008[2010]. How (exactly) to slay a dragon in Indo-European? PIE *bheid- {h3égwhim, kwŕ̥mi-}. Historische Sprachforschung 121: 3–53 (formerly Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung). Published, 01/2010.
    http://www.v-r.de/en/magazine_edition-0-0/historis...
  • Slade, Benjamin. 2007. Untydras ealle: Grendel, Cain, and V̥rtra: Indo-European śruti and Christian sm̥rti in Beowulf. In Geardagum 27:1-32. Published, 01/2007.
  • Slade, Benjamin. 2003. How to rank constraints: Constraint conflict, grammatical competition, and the rise of periphrastic do. In Optimality theory and language change, ed. D. Eric Holt, 337–385. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Published, 01/2003.
    https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-94...
  • Slade, Benjamin. 2002-2005. Beowulf on Steorarume (Beowulf in Cyberspace) - a new critical electronic edition of the text, based on an examination of the original manuscript with supplementary texts including The Fight at Finnsburh, Waldere, Deor, Woden's Nine Herbs Charm, Bede's Account of Cædmon. Published, 01/2002.
    http://www.heorot.dk