- Professor, Department of English, Purdue University
- Affiliate Faculty Member, Department of Linguistics, Purdue University
- Courtesy Faculty Member, Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Purdue University
- Ph.D. Linguistics, 1999, University of Chicago
- B.A. Linguistics, 1993, College of William and Mary
- New book: Gradient Acceptability and Linguistic Theory is now available in paperback from Oxford University Press and in e-book format from Google Play and Amazon Kindle. Feel free to request a free examination copy here and contact Elaine personally (ejfranci@purdue.edu) if you are interested in possibly using it for teaching. You can read the first chapter for free at Google Books. Please consider putting in a request to your university library to purchase online access from Oxford Academic Online. Read this review by Tobias Ungerer in the journal English Language and Linguistics.
- Research interests: Elaine Francis’s research deals with syntax and its interfaces with semantics, discourse information structure, and language processing in production and comprehension. Most recently, she has worked on word order alternations, filler-gap dependencies, and resumptive pronouns. Some of her goals are:
- to identify the various factors that contribute to the realization of grammatical alternations in language use
- to explore the hypothesis that processing pressures in production and comprehension contribute to the development of grammatical conventions
- to investigate the nature of grammatical knowledge
- Administration: Elaine is the Associate Head of the Department of English.
- Brief bio: After earning her B.A. in linguistics at the College of William and Mary (1993), Elaine completed her MA (1995) and PhD (1999) at the University of Chicago under the direction of Salikoko Mufwene. Her other committee members were Amy Dahlstrom, Jerry Sadock, and Jim McCawley. Her dissertation examined variation among members of the same lexical category in English, using Sadock’s Autolexical Grammar framework. Her first faculty position was at the University of Hong Kong, where she taught English linguistics for three years. In collaboration with Stephen Matthews, she conducted research on syntactic categories and relative clauses in Cantonese. She also started working in experimental syntax during this time. She left Hong Kong in 2002 for Purdue University, where she still teaches in the Department of English and in the Department of Linguistics.
- For more information, please see her ResearchGate page and her CV.
- Contact: ejfranci@purdue.edu
Publications
Book
Francis, Elaine J. 2022. Gradient Acceptability and Linguistic Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Refereed Journal Articles
Chaves, Rui and Elaine J. Francis. 2024. Long-term effects of repeated exposure to Subject Island constructions: Evidence for syntactic adaptation. Glossa Psycholinguistics, 3(1), 1-45. https://doi.org/10.5070/G601120321
Francis, Elaine J. and Laura A. Michaelis. 2017. When relative clause extraposition is the right choice, it’s easier. Language and Cognition 9(2): 332-370.
Hitz, John and Elaine J. Francis. 2016. On the usefulness of formal judgment tasks in syntax and in second-language research: The case of resumptive pronouns in English, Turkish, and Mandarin Chinese. Linguistics 54: 1241-1280.
Francis, Elaine J., Charles Lam, Carol Chun Zheng, John Hitz, and Stephen Matthews. 2015. Resumptive pronouns, structural complexity, and the elusive distinction between grammar and performance: evidence from Cantonese. Lingua 162: 56-81.
Huber, Jessica E., Meghan Darling, and Elaine J. Francis. 2012. Impact of typical aging and Parkinson’s disease on the relationship among breath pausing, syntax, and punctuation. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 21: 368-379.
Francis, Elaine J., Stephen Matthews, Reace Wing Yan Wong, and Stella Wing Man Kwan. 2011. Effects of weight and syntactic priming on the production of Cantonese verb-doubling. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 40: 1-28.
Francis, Elaine J. 2010. Grammatical weight and relative clause extraposition in English. Cognitive Linguistics 21(1): 35-74.
Francis, Elaine J. and Etsuyo Yuasa. 2008. A multi-modular approach to gradual change in grammaticalization. Journal of Linguistics 44(1): 45-86.
Francis, Elaine J. and Stephen Matthews. 2006. Categoriality and object extraction in Cantonese serial verb constructions. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 24: 751-801.
Francis, Elaine J. and Stephen Matthews. 2005. A multi-dimensional approach to the category ‘verb’ in Cantonese. Journal of Linguistics 41(2): 269-305.
Francis, Elaine J. 1998. Some semantic reasons why iconicity between lexical categories and their discourse functions isn’t perfect. Language Sciences 20(4): 399-414.
Book Chapters
Francis, Elaine J. and Laura A. Michaelis. 2014. Why move? How weight and discourse factors combine to predict relative clause extraposition in English. Edith Moravcsik, Andrej Malchukov, and Brian MacWhinney. Eds. Competing Motivations in Grammar and Usage, pp. 70-87. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Francis, Elaine J. 2011. Constraining mismatch in grammar and in sentence comprehension: The role of default correspondences. Etsuyo Yuasa, Tista Bagchi, and Katharine Beals, eds. Pragmatics and Autolexical Grammar: In honor of Jerry Sadock, pp. 279-298. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Francis, Elaine J. 2005. Syntactic mimicry as evidence for prototypes in grammar. Salikoko S. Mufwene, Elaine J. Francis, and Rebecca S. Wheeler, eds. Polymorphous Linguistics: Jim McCawley’s Legacy, pp. 161-181. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Francis, Elaine J. and Laura A. Michaelis. 2003. Mismatch: a crucible for linguistic theory. Elaine J. Francis and Laura A. Michaelis, eds. Mismatch: Form-Function Incongruity and the Architecture of Grammar, 1-27. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Yuasa, Etsuyo and Elaine J. Francis. 2003. Categorial mismatch in a multi-modular theory of grammar. Elaine J. Francis and Laura A. Michaelis, eds. Mismatch: Form-Function Incongruity and the Architecture of Grammar, pp. 179-227. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Edited Books
Mufwene, Salikoko S., Elaine J. Francis and Rebecca S. Wheeler, eds. 2005. Polymorphous Linguistics: Jim McCawley’s Legacy. Cambridge: MIT Press. (550 pp.)
Francis, Elaine J. and Laura A. Michaelis, eds. 2003. Mismatch: Form-Function Incongruity and the Architecture of Grammar. Stanford: CSLI Publications. (430 pp.)
Book Reviews
Francis, Elaine J. 2015. Review of: Cross-linguistic variation and efficiency, by John A. Hawkins. Language 91(1): 253-255.
Francis, Elaine J. 2002. Form and function in syntactic theory: a reaction to Newmeyer. Language Sciences 24(1): 29-56.
Francis, Elaine J. 2000. Two perspectives on the grammar of possession. Language Sciences. 22(1): 87-107.
Francis, Alexander L. and Elaine Jones (Francis). 1996. Phonetics and phonological theory. Language & Communication 16(4): 381-395.
Replies and Commentaries
Francis, Elaine J. 2017. Structural priming can inform syntactic analyses of partially grammaticalized constructions. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 40: 22-23. (commentary on target article by Branigan and Pickering)
Mufwene, Salikoko S. and Elaine J. Francis. 2007. McCawley’s legacy: a response to Pieter A.M. Seuren. Language Sciences 29: 566-570.
Edited Journal Issue
Jones (Francis), Elaine and Gail Brendel Viechnicki, eds. 1997. Special issue on the importance of theory in discourse analysis. Language & Communication 17(2).
Conference Proceedings
Francis, Elaine J. and Laura A. Michaelis. 2012. Effects of weight and definiteness on speakers’ choice of clausal ordering in English. LSA Annual Meeting Extended Abstracts 2012 3(5).
Francis, Elaine J. 2007. The role of default constructions in the processing of mismatch: The case of possessive free relatives. Stefan Müller, ed. Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar: Workshop on Constructions and Grammatical Theory, 345-363. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Francis, Elaine J. and Laura A. Michaelis. 2000. Approaches to mismatch: introduction. Proceedings of the BFG00 Conference Workshops, ed. by Miriam Butt and Tracy Holloway King. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Francis, Elaine J. 1998. When form and meaning come apart: quantificational nouns, predicate nominals, and locative subjects in English. Chicago Linguistic Society 34: 159-170.