Prof. Susan Rothstein

Fields of interest
Semantics and the syntax-semantics interface, in particular the aspect, theories of counting and measuring, noun phrase structure, event semantics, crosslinguistic semantics, BIblical Hebrew.
CV
Education:
1979 - 1983 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Doctoral programme in Linguistics.
Minor Field: Philosophy of Language.
Dissertation: The Syntactic Forms of Predication
1976 – 1979 Oxford University (Lady Margaret Hall) B.A.
School of Philosophy and Modern Languages. B.A. (Hons)
June 1979 (converted to M.A. January 1984)
Employment:
2001- present Professor of Theoretical Linguistics, Department of English,
Bar-Ilan University (with tenure).
2002- present Fellow, Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan
University.
1991-2001 Senior Lecturer in Theoretical Linguistics, Department of English,
Bar-Ilan University (with tenure).
1985-1991 Lecturer in Theoretical Linguistics, Department of English,
Bar-Ilan University.
1983-1985 Assistant Professor of Linguistics, College of William and Mary.
Honours and Awards:
Honorary Visiting Professor, Beijing Language and Culture University (October 2015)
Humboldt Research Award (2014).
Member of the Academia Europaea, (elected 2013).
Alon Fellowship for Outstanding New Faculty (1985-1988)
Guest Positions (since 2001)
2015-2016 Visiting Professor, Department of General Linguistics, Tübingen University,
Germany
2008-2010 Visiting Professor , Leiden University Linguistics Department. The Netherlands.
2001-2002 Visitor, Utrecht Institute for Linguistics (UiL-OTS).
2001 Visitor, Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschatft, Berlin. (February)
Additional Invited Teaching:
2016 XIth Workshop on Formal Linguistics. Minicourse: Federal University of Paraná (UFPR),
Brazil. Minicourse; Counting and Measuring Crosslinguistically 7-9 November, 2016.
2015 University of Lativa, 7th International School in Cognitive Sciences and Semantics.
"Number: Crosslinguistic and Crossdisciplinary Approaches", Invited Organiser/
Professor. Minicourse:Counting and Measuring Crosslinguistically.
2010 Brazilian Association of Linguistics XXth Institute, Federal University of
Parana, Curitiba. Minicourse: Mass Nouns and Count Nouns (with Fred
Landman)
2009 University of Leiden, Graduate Seminar (one semester). Aspect in the
Nominal and Verbal Domain
2008 Brazilian Semantics Association VIIth Workshop on Formal Linguistics.
University of Parana, Curitiba. Minicourse:Aspect in the nominal and
verbal domain: atomicity and homogeneity revisited
2002 LOT Winter School, Leiden University. Minicourse: Aspect
1997 Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute, Cornell University.
The semantics of events (with Fred Landman)
1995 Université de Paris VII, Predication and Syntax (six lectures).
Publications
a) books as author:
Rothstein, Susan, 2017, Semantics for Counting and Measuring Cambridge University Press:
Cambridge.
Rothstein, Susan, 2004. Structuring Events: A Study in the Semantics of Lexical
Aspect. Blackwell: Oxford.
Rothstein, Susan, 2001. Predicates and their Subjects. Kluwer: Dordrecht.
Rothstein, Susan, 1985. The Syntactic Forms of Predication. Indiana University
Linguistics Club: Bloomington, Indiana.
b) books edited:
Rothstein, Susan and Jurģis Šķilters, 2016. The Baltic International Yearbook of
Cognition, Logic and Communication Volume 11: Number: Cognitive Semantics and
Crosslinguistic Approaches. New Prairie Press, Kansas. http://newprairiepress.org/biyclc/
Introduction: http://dx.doi.org/10.4148/1944-3676.1114
Armon-Lotem, Sharon, Gabi Danon and Susan Rothstein (eds.), 2009.
Generative Approaches to Hebrew Linguistics, John Benjamins: Amsterdam.
Rothstein, Susan (ed.), 2008. Theoretical and Crosslinguistic Approaches
to the Semantics of Aspect John Benjamins:Amsterdam.
Rothstein, Susan (ed.), 1998. Events and Grammar. Kluwer: Dordrecht. (with
introduction)
Rothstein, Susan (ed.), 1991. Perspectives on Phrase Structure: Heads and
Licensing. Syntax and Semantics 25. Academic Press: New York.
c. papers:
Rothstein, Susan, (in press). Proper names in construct state phrases, to appear in Folia
Linguistica special issue on proper names, edited by Barbara Schlücker and Tanja
Ackermann.
Rothstein, Susan, (to appear) Some contrasts between aspectual operators in English and
Slavic. In P. Kosta and T. Radeva-Bork (eds.), Current developments in Slavic Linguistics.
Twenty years after: selected papers from FDSL 11. Bern: Peter Lang.
Rothstein, Susan, (to appear) Counting, Measuring and Approximation. In: H. Filip (ed.)
Counting and Measuring in Natural Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rothstein, Susan, (to appear) Count vs. mass nouns. In: L.Matthewson, C.Meier, H.Rullman,
and T.E. Zimmermann (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Semantics. Malden and
Oxford: Wiley/Blackwell:
Rothstein, Susan and Roberta Pires de Oliveira (in press). Comparatives in Brazilian
Portuguese: Counting and measuring. In F. Moltmann (ed.) Mass and Count in Linguistics,
Philosophy, and Cognitive Science, John Benjamins: Amsterdam.
Kulkarni, Ritwik., Alessandro Treves and Susan Rothstein (in press). Can Mass- Count
Syntax be derived from Semantics. In F. Moltmann (ed.) Mass and Count in Linguistics,
Philosophy, and Cognitive Science, John Benjamins: Amsterdam.
Schvarcz, Brigitta R., and Susan Rothstein, (in press). Hungarian classifier constructions and
the mass/count distinction. In: A.Liptak and H. van der Hulst (eds.), Approaches
to Hungarian 15. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Moshavi Adina and Susan Rothstein (in press) Indefinite Numerical Construct Phrases in
Biblical Hebrew. To appear Journal of Semitic Studies
Rothstein, Susan, 2016 Counting and Measuring: a theoretical and crosslinguistic
account. In: S. Rothstein and J. Šķilters (eds.), The Baltic International Yearbook of
Cognition, Logic and Communication Volume 11: Number: Cognitive Semantics and
Crosslinguistic Approaches. New Prairie Press, Kansas. http://dx.doi.org/10.4148/1944-3676.1106
Rothstein, Susan, 2016. Aspect. In: M. Aloni and P. Dekker (eds.), The Cambridge
Handbook of Formal Semantics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Pp342-368
Kulkarni, Ritwik, Susan Rothstein and Alessandro Treves 2016. A neural network perspective
on the syntactic semantic association between mass and count nouns. Journal of Advances
in Linguistics 6:2 http://cirworld.com/journals/index.php/jal/article/view/6036/pdf_93
Khrizman, Keren, Fred Landman, Suzi Lima, Susan Rothstein and Brigitta Schvarcz, 2015.
Portion readings are count readings not measure readings. In: T. Brochhagen, F. Roelofsen
& N. Theiler (eds.) Proceedings of the 20th Amsterdam Colloquium. pp 197-206.
http://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/mVkOTk2N/AC2015-proceedings.pdf
Khrizman, Keren and Susan Rothstein (2015) Russian approximative inversion as a
measure construction. In G. Zybatow, P. Biskup, Marcel Guhl, Claudia Hurtig, Olav
Mueller-Reichau, M. Yastrebova (eds.): Slavic Grammar from a Formal Perspective. The
10th Anniversary FDSL Conference, Leipzig 2013. Linguistik International, Band 35. Peter
Lang Edition. Frankfurt am Main 2015 pp 259-272.
Rothstein, Susan 2013 On the scope of aspectual operators. In Cassandra Chapman, Olena Kit
Ivona Kučerová. Proceedings of Formal Approachs to Slavic Linguistics The McMaster
Meeting 22. p 245-265 Michigan Slavic Publications: Ann Arbor
Rothstein, Susan 2013 A Fregean semantics for number words Proceedings of the 19th
Amsterdam Colloquium. Maria Aloni, Michael Franke & Floris Roelofsen (eds.) pp179-186.
http://www.illc.uva.nl/AC/AC2013/uploaded_files/inlineitem/23_Rothstein.pdf
Rothstein, Susan 2013. Adjectivally-headed construct states in Hebrew. Lingua.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2013.10.005
Pires de Oliveira Roberta and Susan Rothstein. 2013. Bare singular objects in Brazilian
Portuguese: Perfectivity, Telicity and Kinds. In: Johannes Kabatek and Albert Wall (eds.)
New Perspectives on Bare Noun Phrases in Romance and Beyond. [ SLCS 141). John
Benjamins: Amsterdam. pp189-222.
Rothstein, Susan 2013. A cross linguistic perspective on bare nominals: Modern Hebrew
and Brazilian Portuguese. In: Johannes Kabatek and Albert Wall (eds.)
New Perspectives on Bare Noun Phrases in Romance and Beyond. [ SLCS 141). John
Benjamins: Amsterdam. pp36-61.
Kulkarni, Ritwik, Susan Rothstein and Alessandro Treves 2013 A statistical
investigation into the crosslinguistic distribution of mass and count nouns:
morphosyntactic and semantic perspectives. Biolinguistics 7, 132-168.
Rothstein, Susan, 2012 Numbers: Counting, Measuring and Classifying.
Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung16. Ana Aguilar-Guevara, Anna
Chernilovskaya and Rick Nouwen (eds). MIT Working Papers in Linguistics:
Cambridge, MA. pp527-543
Li, Xuping and Susan Rothstein. 2012. Measure readings of Mandarin classifier
phrases and the particle de. Language and Linguistics 13.4 693-741.
Rothstein, Susan, 2012. Another look at accomplishments and incrementality. In
V. Demonte, and L. McNally, Telicity, Change, State: A Cross-categorical View
of Event Structure. (Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics) Oxford University
Press: Oxford. 60-102.
Landman, Fred and Susan Rothstein 2012. The felicity of aspectual for-phrases
Part I: Homogeneity. Language and Linguistics Compass 6/2 85–96,
10.1002/lnc3.3242011
Landman, Fred and Susan Rothstein 2012. The felicity of aspectual for-phrases
Part II: Incremental homogeneity.Language and Linguistics Compass 6/2:
97–112, 10.1002/lnc3.3232011
Gupol, Olga., Rothstein Susan, and Armon-Lotem Sharon, 2012. The
development of L1 Tense-aspect morphology in Russian-Hebrew bilinguals. In
Emmanuelle Labeau and Inès Saddour. Tense, Aspect and Mood in First and
Second Language Acquisition. p73-106. Rodopi: Amsterdam - New York.
Pires de Oliveira R, and Susan Rothstein. 2011 Bare nouns in are mass in
Brazilian Portuguese. Lingua doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2011.09.004
Pires de Oliveira, Roberta and Susan Rothstein, 2011. Two sorts of bare nouns
in Brazilian Portuguese. Revista da Abralin 2011
http://www.abralin.org/index.php? option=com_content (in Portuguese)
Rothstein, Susan, 2011. Secondary predication. In P.Portner, C. Maienborn and
K.von Heusinger. Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language
Meaning. Volume 2. Mouten de Gruyter
Rothstein, Susan, 2010. Counting, measuring and the semantics of classifiers.
The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication.
Volume 6 http://thebalticyearbook.org/journals/baltic/issue/current
Rothstein, Susan and Alessandro Treves, 2010. Computational constraints on
compositional interpretation: refocusing the debate on language universals.
Lingua 2010, doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2010.03.017
Li, XuPing and Rothstein Susan, 2010. Two types of measure readings in
Chinese classifier phrases. Proceedings of the Twelfth International Symposium
on Chinese Languages and Linguistics (Is-CLL12)
Rothstein, Susan, 2010. Measure Phrases as (Complex) Predicates,
Proceedings of the Twelfth International Symposium on Chinese Languages and
Linguistics (Is-CLL12)
Rothstein, Susan, 2010. Counting and the mass count distinction. Journal of
Semantics. 27.3: pp343-397 doi 10.1093/jos/ffq007
Rothstein, Susan, 2010. The semantics of count nouns. In M. Aloni and K.
Schultz (eds.Logic, Language and Meaning:LNAI 6042 pp 395-404 Springer,
Heidelberg.
Landman, Fred and Susan Rothstein, 2010. Incremental homogeneity and the
semantics of aspectual for phrases. In M. Rappaport Hovav, I. Sichel and
E. Doron (eds.) Syntax, Lexical Semantics and Event Structure, Oxford
University Press.
Erez Keren, Jacob Goldberger, Ronen Sosnik, Moshe Shemesh, Susan
Rothstein and Moshe Abeles, 2009. Analyzing movement trajectories using
a Markov bi-clustering method. Journal of Computational Neuroscience 27:
pp543-552.
Rothstein, Susan, 2009. Measuring and counting in Modern Hebrew. Brill’s
Annual of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics, Volume 1. 2009. 106-145.
Rothstein, Susan 2009. Telicity at the dinner table. Snippets 20
www.ledonline.it:80/snippets/ Also "Between 40 and 60 puzzles for Manfred
Krifka. www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/40-60-puzzles-for-krifka/
Braginsky Pavel and Susan Rothstein, 2008. Vendler Classes and the
Russian Aspectual System. Journal of Slavic Linguistics 16.1.
Rothstein, Susan, 2008. Telicity, atomicity and the Vendler classification of
events. In S. Rothstein (ed.),Theoretical and Crosslinguistic Approaches to
the Semantics of Aspect. John Benjamins:Amsterdam. pp 43-78
Rothstein, Susan, 2008. Two puzzles for a theory of lexical aspect: the case of
semelfactives and degree adverbials. In J. Dölling, T. Heyde-Zybatow and M.
Shaefer (eds), Event Structures in Linguistic Form and Interpretation.
Mouton De Gruyter:Berlin. pp175-198
Rothstein, Susan, 2006. Predication. In: Keith Brown, (Editor-in-Chief),
Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, volume 10, pp73-76.
Oxford:Elsevier.
Rothstein, Susan, 2006. On secondary predication. In M. Everaert & H. van
Riemsdijk (eds): The Blackwell Companion to Syntax. Blackwell: Oxford.
Braginsky, Pavel and Susan Rothstein, 2005. Imperfective Accomplishments
in Russian: the bit by bit test. Proceedings of The Israel Association for
Theoretical Lingusitics 21.
http://micro5.mscc.huji.ac.il/~english/IATL/21/TOC.html
Filip, Hana, and Susan Rothstein, 2005. Telicity as a semantic parameter.
In Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics 15 (The Princeton Meeting).
J.Lavine, S Franks, Tasseva-Kurktchieva and H. Filip Michigan Slavic
Publications: Ann Arbor, pp139- 156.
Rothstein, Susan, 2004. Derived Accomplishments and Lexical Aspect. In J.
Gueron and J. Lacarme. (eds.) The Syntax of Time. MIT Press: Cambridge,
MA.
Rothstein, Susan, 2003. Secondary Predication and Aspectual Structure.
In E.Lang, C. Fabricius-Hansen and C. Maienborn (eds.) Handbook on
Adjuncts, Mouton.
Rothstein, Susan, 2001. What are incremental themes? In: G. Jaeger, A.
Strigin, C.Wilder and N. Zhang, (eds.) Papers on Predicative Constructions,
ZAS Papers in Linguistics 22.
Rothstein, Susan, 2000. The Semantics of Secondary Predication; Depictives
and Resultatives. Proceedings of the 16th annual meeting of the Israel
Association for Theoretical Linguistics.
Rothstein, Susan, 2000. Secondary predication and aspectual structure. In E.
Lang,C. Fabricius-Hansen and C. Maienborn (eds.) ZAS Papers in
Linguistics:Papers from the Oslo Conference on Adjuncts. ZAS, Berlin.
Rothstein, Susan, 1999. Fine-grained structure in the eventuality domain:
the semantics of predicate adjective phrases and ‘be’. Natural Language
Semantics 7, pp 347-420.
Rothstein, Susan, 1998. Predicational "Be". In Texas Linguistic Forum 38: The
Syntax and Semantics of Predication, edited by R. Blight and M. Moosally,
Austin, Texas: University of Texas Department of Linguistics.
Rothstein, Susan, 1995. Pleonastics and the interpretation of pronouns.
Linguistic Inquiry 26, pp499-529.
Rothstein, Susan, 1995. Adverbial quantification over events. Natural
Language Semantics 3, pp1-31.
Rothstein, Susan, 1995. Small clauses and copular constructions. In A.
Cardinaletti & T. Guasti (eds.), Small Clauses, Syntax and Semantics 28.
Academic Press: New York (1995) pp27-48.
Rothstein, Susan, 1992. Case and NP licensing. Natural Language and
Linguistic Theory 10. pp119-139.
Rothstein, Susan, 1992. Predication and the structure of clauses. Belgian
Journal of Linguistics 7, pp155-169.
Rothstein, Susan and William Snyder, 1992. A note on contraction, case and
complementisers. The Linguistic Review 9, pp251-266.
Rothstein, Susan, 1991. Logical form and grammar: comments on Lappin, May
and Reinhart. In A. Kasher (ed.), The Chomskian Turn, Blackwell:Oxford.
pp385-395.
Rothstein, Susan, 1991. Predication, binding and the c-command relation.
Linguistic Inquiry 22, pp572-578.
Rothstein, Susan, 1991. Heads, projections and category determination. In D.
Bouchard and K. Leffel (eds.), Views on Phrase Structure, Kluwer: Dordrecht.
pp97-112.
Rothstein, Susan, 1991. Syntactic licensing and subcategorisation. In S.
Rothstein (ed.), Perspectives on Phrase Structure:Heads and Licensing. Syntax
and Semantics 25. Academic Press: New York. pp139-158.
Rothstein, Susan, 1991. The autonomy of syntax: an argument from predication
and theta- assignment. In B. Palek and P. Janota. (eds.) Proceedings of LP'90,
Charles University Press: Prague. pp189-198.
Rothstein, Susan 1990. Review of D.J. Napoli, Predication, (CUP) Language 68,3.
Rothstein, Susan, 1988. Conservativity and the syntax of determiners,
Linguistics 26, pp999-1019.
Rothstein, Susan, 1987. The syntactic forms of predication. The Linguistic Review.
Rothstein, Susan, 1987. Syntactic representation and semantic interpretation.
In L.Vaina (ed.), Matters of Intelligence, Kluwer: Dordrecht.
Rothstein, Susan, 1987. The syntax and semantics of the Verb 'be',. 25th
Anniversary Volume, MIT Working Papers in Linguistics.
Rothstein, Susan. 1984. On the conceptual link between clauses I & II of
the Extended Projection Principle. Proceedings of the Meeting of the Berkeley
Linguistics Society, pp 266-273,.
Rothstein, Susan, 1981. Vowel deletion, vowel reduction, and Biblical Aramaic
syllable structure, MIT Working Papers in Linguistics Vol III, p53-72.
d) papers in preparation:
Rothstein Susan and Roberta Pires de Oliveira Counting and measuring with
bare singulars in Brazilian Portuguese.
Rothstein, Susan Bare noun phrases and the Universal Grinder
Rothstein, Susan Locatives, locations and other entities.
Courses
37-458 Number Counting and Aspect
37-861 Graduate Research Seminar
37-591 Meaning and Use
Research
My research interests, broadly speaking, are the semantics of natural language and the syntax-semantics interface, and crosslinguistic variation in the syntax/semantics mapping. My current ongoing projects include:
(i) Hebrew constructs and their relation to genitive constructions crosslinguistically. I am writing a book on this topic, which is to appear with Oxford University Press.
(ii) A typology of count, mass and number in Brazilian languages (in collaboration with Suzi Lima, University of Toronto/Federal Univerisity of Rio de Janeiro). This project investigates variation in the expression of number and the mass/count distinction in indigenous languages in Brazil. We have prepared a questionnaire which is being used as a basis for investigating this by fieldworkers documenting 25 different indigenous languages. A conference of all fieldworkers to present and discuss results will be held at the Museum of the Indian in Rio de Janeiro in August 2017.
(iii) Numerals in Biblical Hebrew (in collaboration with Adina Moshavi, Department of Hebrew Language, BIU)
(iv) Compounds in Modern Hebrew (in collaboration with Lior Laks, Department of English Literature and Linguistics, BIU)
(v) The semantics of aspect (in collaboration with Fred Landman, Tel Aviv University)
Recently, Edit Doron (HUJI) Outi Bat-El (TAU) and I have set up the Research Network in Biblical Hebrew Linguistics with the aim of encouraging interactions between philologists and theoretical linguists interested in Biblical Hebrew linguistics, and providing a forum for them to meet and talk. The first workshop of the Research Network took place at Bar-Ilan University on February 6, 2017.
- Last modified: 17/02/2017