Jeff Runner

Jeffrey T. Runner

he/him/his

Professor of Linguistics

Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences

PhD, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1995

Office Hours: By appointment

Biography

I am not currently accepting PhD students

Academic Service

Prof. Jeffrey T. Runner served as Dean of the College 2017-2024, and as Vice Provost and University Dean for Undergraduate Education 2021-2024. Prior to that he chaired the Department of Linguistics for three years (2014-2017). He served as Faculty Development and Diversity Officer for Arts, Sciences and Engineering 2011-2017.  He served as editor of Syntax and Semantics book series 2011-2016. He has been a Faculty Associate of the Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies since 2003, serving as its Curriculum Director, Chair of the Curriculum Committee, Chair of the Governance Committee and for one year as Acting Director (2008-2009). Prof. Runner has been a member of the Center for Language Sciences since 1994, serving as its Director for six years (2009-2014).

Teaching

A 2006 recipient of the Goergen Award for Distinguished Achievement and Artistry in Undergraduate Education, Jeff Runner has been teaching at the University of Rochester since 1994,  in Linguistics, Brain & Cognitive Sciences.  He has taught at the Linguistic Society of America Summer Linguistics Institute at Stanford and at the Summer School in Experimental Grammar at Isle de Berder, France.

Research Overview

Lattimore Eye Tracking Lab                          Google Scholar Page

Jeff Runner's research uses visual world eye-tracking and other experimental methodologies to examine the fine-grained time course of language comprehension, focusing on the complex interactions between linguistic structure (specific properties of words, phrases and structures) and visual and discourse information. He and his students monitor participants' eye movements to real objects or to scenes displayed on a computer screen while they listen to sentences describing the scenes. Specifically, they are interested in how linguistic and visual context affects the interpretation of anaphoric expressions (e.g. pronouns and elided verb phrases), which are particularly challenging because they provide only impoverished linguistic information, depending on previous context to be understood. His research has been supported by National Science Foundation since 2002 and he has published in some of the top journals in the field, including Linguistic Inquiry, Cognition, Syntax and Cognitive Science, and in The Blackwell Companion to Syntax. He has presented his work and/or published in the proceedings of a number of Linguistics and Psycholinguistics conferences, such as the North Eastern Linguistic Society, Chicago Linguistic Society, International Conference on HPSG, West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, CUNY Human Sentence Processing Conference, Architectures and Mechanisms of Language Processing, International Conference on Linguistic Evidence, and the Linguistic Society of America. He has been an invited scholar at Brown University, Universite Paris-Diderot, UT Austin, and Stanford University. 

Research Interests

  • Experimental Syntax
  • Syntactic/Linguistic Theory
  • Binding Theory
  • Syntax Processing
  • Phrase Structure
  • Syntax/Semantics Interface

Selected Publications

  • Kaiser, E., & Runner, J. T. (2023). Acceptability judgements of binding and coreference: Methodological considerations. In J. Sprouse (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of experimental syntax. Oxford Handbooks. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198797722.013.2
  • Kim, J.-B., & Runner, J. T. (2022). Pseudogapping in English: A direct interpretation approach. The Linguistic Review, 39(3), 457–494. https://doi.org/10.1515/tlr-2022-2094
  • Xu, Y., & Runner, J. T. (2022). The long-distance ‘Taziji’ revisited: Experimental evidence for inherent non-local bindings. In J. McDonough (Ed.), Working papers in the language sciences at the University of Rochester (Vol. 9, No. 1).
  • Miller, P. H., Abeillé, A., & Runner, J. (Eds.). (2019). Experimental approaches to ellipsis. Special Collection, Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics. ⟨hal-03643155⟩
  • Xu, Y., & Runner, J. T. (2019). Memory retrieval in reflexives processing: Evidence against the local search hypothesis. In P. Guekguezian (Ed.), University of Rochester working papers in the language sciences (Vol. 7.1, pp. 9–25).
  • Kim, C. S., & Runner, J. T. (2018). The division of labor in explanations of verb phrase ellipsis. Linguistics and Philosophy, 41(1), 41–85. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-017-9220-0
  • Runner, J. T., & Moulton, K. (2017). The accusative plus infinitive construction in English. In M. Everaert & H. van Riemsdijk (Eds.), The Blackwell companion to syntax (2nd ed.). Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers.
  • Ibarra, A., Runner, J. T., & Tanenhaus, M. K. (2017). The role of prior knowledge and expertise on choice of referring expression. In Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (Vol. 39).
  • Kim, C. S., Gunlogson, C., Tanenhaus, M. K., & Runner, J. T. (2015). Context-driven expectations about focus alternatives. Cognition, 139, 28–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2015.02.009
  • Kim, C. S., Kobele, G. M., Runner, J. T., & Hale, J. T. (2011). The acceptability cline in VP ellipsis. Syntax, 14(4), 318–354. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9612.2011.00160.x
  • Runner, J. T., & Goldwater, M. B. (2011). On the representational nature of representational noun phrases. In J. T. Runner (Ed.), Experiments at the interfaces: Syntax and semantics (Vol. 37). Emerald Publications.
  • Runner, J. T. (2011). Experiments at the interfaces: Syntax and semantics (Vol. 37). Emerald Publications.
  • Runner, J. T., & Kaiser, E. (2011). Inter- and intra-clausal pronoun resolution. In Proceedings of the 8th Discourse Anaphora and Anaphor Resolution Colloquium.
  • Runner, J. T., & Dozat, T. A. (2011). A brief report on voice mismatch effects in verb phrase ellipsis and sluicing. In A. Fine (Ed.), University of Rochester working papers in the language sciences.
  • Kim, C., & Runner, J. T. (2011). Discourse structure and syntactic parallelism in VP ellipsis. In J. A. Harris & M. Grant (Eds.), University of Massachusetts occasional papers in linguistics: Processing linguistic structure (Vol. 38). Amherst, MA: GLSA Publishing.
  • Kim, C., Gunlogson, C., Tanenhaus, M. K., & Runner, J. T. (2009). Focus alternatives and contextual domain restriction: A visual world eye-tracking study on the interpretation of only. In A. Riester & T. Solstad (Eds.), Proceedings of SuB13. Stuttgart.
  • Kim, C., Gunlogson, C., Tanenhaus, M. K., & Runner, J. T. (2009). Inferential cues for determining focus alternatives: A visual world eye-tracking study. In ESSLLI Workshop: New Directions in the Theory of Presupposition Proceedings. Bordeaux, France.
  • Kim, C., & Runner, J. T. (2009). Discourse structure and parallelism in VP ellipsis. In Semantics and linguistic theory 19 proceedings. The Ohio State University.
  • Kaiser, E., Runner, J. T., Sussman, R. S., & Tanenhaus, M. K. (2009). Structural and semantic constraints on the resolution of pronouns and reflexives. Cognition, 112(1), 55–80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2009.03.010
  • Kaiser, E., & Runner, J. T. (2008). Intensifiers in German and Dutch anaphor resolution. In N. Abner & J. Bishop (Eds.), Proceedings of the 27th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (pp. 265–273). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
  • Kaiser, E., Runner, J. T., Sussman, R. S., & Tanenhaus, M. K. (2008). The real-time interpretation of pronouns and reflexives: Structural and semantic information. In E. Elfner & M. Walkow (Eds.), NELS 37: Proceedings of the 37th Annual Meeting of the North Eastern Linguistic Society.
  • Kim, C., Gunlogson, C., Tanenhaus, M. K., & Runner, J. T. (2008). Information integration and domain restriction: Interpreting ‘only’ in context. In 27th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics Proceedings. UCLA.
  • Runner, J. T. (2007). Freeing picture NPs from binding theory. In J. Thorson & L. Wolter (Eds.), University of Rochester working papers in the language sciences (Vol. 3.1, pp. 57–90).
  • Runner, J. T. (2006). Lingering challenges to the raising‐to‐object and object‐control constructions. Syntax, 9(2), 193–213. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9612.2006.00088.x
  • Runner, J. T., Sussman, R. S., & Tanenhaus, M. K. (2006). Processing reflexives and pronouns in picture noun phrase. Cognitive Science, 30(2), 193–241. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog0000_58
  • Runner, J. T. (2006). The accusative plus infinitive construction in English. In M. Everaert & H. van Riemsdijk (Eds.), The Blackwell companion to syntax. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers.
  • Runner, J. T., Sussman, R. S., & Tanenhaus, M. K. (2006). Reflexives and pronouns in picture noun phrases: Using eye movements as a source of linguistic evidence. In S. Kepser & M. Reis (Eds.), Linguistic evidence. Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Goldwater, M. B., & Runner, J. T. (2006). Coreferential interpretations of reflexives in picture noun phrases: An experimental approach. In P. Denis, E. McCready, A. Palmer, & B. Reese (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2004 Texas Linguistics Society Conference (pp. 28–34). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
  • Kaiser, E., Runner, J. T., Sussman, R. S., & Tanenhaus, M. K. (2006). The interpretation of pronouns and reflexives in picture noun phrases: Effects of non-structural factors. In M. Temkin Martínez, A. Alcázar, & R. Mayoral Hernández (Eds.), Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Western Conference on Linguistics (Vol. 16). Fresno, CA: California State University at Fresno.
  • Kaiser, E., Runner, J. T., Sussman, R. S., & Tanenhaus, M. K. (2005). What influences the referential properties of reflexives and pronouns in Finnish? In C. Ebert & C. Endriss (Eds.), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 10 (pp. 155–169). ZAS Working Papers in Linguistics, 44(1).
  • Runner, J. T., & Kaiser, E. (2005). Binding in picture noun phrases: Implications for binding theory. In S. Müller (Ed.), The Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (pp. 594–613). Stanford: CSLI Publications. http://cslipublications.stanford.edu/HPSG/6/
  • Runner, J. T., Sussman, R. S., & Tanenhaus, M. K. (2004). The influence of binding theory on the on-line reference resolution of pronouns. In M. Wolf & K. Moulton (Eds.), Proceedings of North Eastern Linguistic Society 34.
  • Runner, J. T. (2004). Insights into binding and ellipsis from head-mounted eye-tracking experiments. In J. E. Cihlar, D. W. Kaiser, I. Kimbara, & A. Franklin (Eds.), CLS 39 The panels: Proceedings from the panels of the thirty-ninth meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society.
  • Runner, J. T., Sussman, R. S., & Tanenhaus, M. K. (2003). Assignment of reference to reflexives and pronouns in picture noun phrases: Evidence from eye movements. Cognition, 89(1), B1–B13. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277(03)00065-9
  • Runner, J. T., & Aranovich, R. (2003). Noun incorporation and constraint interaction in the lexicon. In S. Mueller (Ed.), The Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
  • Runner, J. T. (2002). When minimalism isn’t enough: An argument for argument structure. Linguistic Inquiry, 33(1), 172–182. https://doi.org/10.1162/ling.2002.33.1.172
  • Runner, J. T., Sussman, R. S., & Tanenhaus, M. K. (2002). Logophors in possessed picture noun phrases. In L. Mikkelsen & C. Potts (Eds.), WCCFL 21 Proceedings (pp. 401–414). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
  • Runner, J. T. (2002). Review of The syntax of sluicing by Jason Merchant. Linguist List, 13.1210.
  • Potsdam, E., & Runner, J. T. (2001). Richard returns: Copy raising and its implications. In M. Adronis, C. Ball, H. Elston, & S. Neuvel (Eds.), Proceedings of CLS 37 (pp. 453–468).
  • Aranovich, R., & Runner, J. T. (2001). Diathesis alternations and rule ordering in the lexicon. In K. Megerdoomian & L. A. Bar-el (Eds.), WCCFL 20 Proceedings. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
  • Runner, J. T. (2001). The double object construction at the interfaces. In K. Crosswhite & J. Magnuson (Eds.), University of Rochester Working Papers in the Language Sciences (Vol. 1.3).
  • Runner, J. T. (2000). The external object hypothesis and the case of object expletives. In J. Magnuson & K. Crosswhite (Eds.), University of Rochester Working Papers in the Language Sciences (Vol. 1.2).