I am retired from active teaching, but occupy a position within the department as Research Professor. I continue to be active with efforts to document the Seneca language in western New York State, working closely with members of the Seneca community, where there has been an explosion of interest in the language over the last few years. My materials, which go back to 1956, are especially valuable to the community today. Although it is only in the early stages, I am also planning a book for the general public that traces the history of the Seneca language within the Iroquoian language family as an illustration of the present state of the languages of America. Having a broad interest in how language expresses emotions, I have been focusing on laughter as an expression of what I am calling the feeling of nonseriousness, and I am close to finishing a book on that subject. Having long puzzled over the ontological status of syntax, I expect to follow the laughter book with one that puts syntax in its place as one stage in the conversion of thoughts to sounds, a stage that is in some respects subsidiary to semantics.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Discourse Effects of Polysynthesis. In Carol Lynn Moder and Aida Martinovic-Zic (eds.), Discourse Across Languages and Cultures, 37-52. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins (2004).

Seneca Creation Story. In Brian Swann (ed.), Voices from Four Directions: Contemporary Translations of the Native Literatures of North America, 515-531. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press (2004).

Caddo. In Heather K. Hardy and Janine Scancarelli (eds.), The Native Languages of the Southeastern United States, 323-350. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press (2005).

The Relation of Grammar to Thought. In Christopher S. Butler, María de los Ángeles Gómez-González, and Susana M. Doval-Suárez (eds.), The Dynamics of Language Use: Functional and Contrastive Perspectives, pp. 55-75. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins (2005).

Reading Aloud. In Rebecca Hughes (ed.), Spoken English, Applied Linguistics and TESOL: Challenges for Theory and Practice, pp. 53-71. Palgrave (2005).

CURRENT PROJECTS

• Completion of a book titled The Importance of Not Being Earnest: How and Why We Laugh
• Collaboration on the Seneca language with the Seneca Nation of Indians and the Tonawanda Seneca Band
• Preparation of undergraduate teaching units on Discourse, Prosody, and the Seneca Language
• Early stages of a book titled Beyond Syntax
• Early stages of a book titled Biography of a Language