The LSA is delighted to announce that Jon Sprouse (University of Connecticut) has been selected to receive the LSA’s inaugural C.L. Baker Award. Established in 2019 through an endowment by the family of the late eponymous LSA member, the C.L Baker Award honors excellence for scholarship in syntax. It is to be awarded at least every other year to a mid-career linguist, with preference given to those who are 10-20 years post-PhD. Read more about C.L. Baker and the endowment here.
The citation to accompany the award reads as follows: “Jon Sprouse is an experimental syntactician whose work is characterized by imagination, innovation, care, and respect for the facts. He has made methodological contributions of central importance, enabling syntacticians to base their theoretical work on a much more secure empirical foundation. He has also made contributions of central importance to some of the core issues in syntax and linguistic theory more broadly – concerning the nature of island-hood and (in collaboration with Lisa Pearl) the theory of learnability.”
The award will be given during a ceremony on Saturday, January 4, 2020 during the LSA Annual Meeting in New Orleans, LA.