Daniel Clayton

Postgraduate researcher in linguistics

News!

I've had my very first publication in ULAB's U-Lingua Magazine! Aimed at a non-specialist readership, When Languages Meet: What Happens When We Start Talking to Each Other?  introduces the differences between language and dialect, and the problems associated with these terms, before discussing what happens when two or more languages and/or dialects live side-by-side and interact with each other, a phenomenon known as language / dialect contact.  You can read it here.

Current projects

What I'm doing in August/September, 2026:

• going to Baigorri, in the Basque Country, to collect data from speakers to determine how they use differential dative marking.

Broad: linguistic typology, morphosyntax, language description and documentation, language diversity,  typological universals and parameters, indigenous languages of the Americas and the Caucasus

Narrow: typologies of tense–aspect–mood–evidentiality (TAME), object-initial word orders (OVS and OSV), negation typology, differential object marking (DOM), differential dative marking (DDM), polysynthesis, agreement, parameter hierarchies

Methodological approaches: functional typology, formal generative typology, comparative morphosyntax, linguistic field methods for the purposes of language description

2025-2026     MA (by research) Linguistics, University of York

2023-2025     MSc Linguistics, University of York

2019-2022      PGDip Applied Linguistics, University of Birmingham

2005-2009      BA (Hons) Arabic, University of Manchester

At present, I am a Master's by Research student at the University of York, supervised by Dr. Imke Driemel. I work on constituent order with a focus on object-initial orders from both a formal and typological-functional approach.

Recently, I graduated with an MSc with distinction in Linguistics with a focus on formal syntax and typology, supervised by Professor George Tsoulas. Prior to this, I completed a PGDip in Applied Linguistics at the University of Birmingham and a BA in Arabic at the University of Manchester. My BA dissertation focused on variation in tense and aspect in a sample of the varieties of Arabic, supervised by Professor Yaron Matras.

My research focuses on the diverse external manifestations of human language across the individual languages of the world. I am particularly interested in describing and analysing synchronic variation in grammatical structure and in identifying broader patterns through cross-linguistic and typological comparison. My work therefore approaches language primarily through its observable realisation in distinct linguistic systems, rather than through the study of the internal neurocognitive capacity shared by humans irrespective of the particular language they speak. 

In my current work, I adopt a deliberately hybrid approach that draws on both formal and functional-typological perspectives, treating them as complementary rather than competing frameworks.

More generally, my research orientation is empiricist and typologically informed, with a strong focus on indigenous and under-documented languages, particularly as they bear on questions of linguistic diversity, typological universals and parameters, and syntactic theory.

I am drawn to Amerindian languages, especially those of the Amazon and of North America and of the Caucasus, although I am generally motivated by opportunities for cross-linguistic study, particularly where the data and phenomena are rare or underrepresented in both the theoretical and descriptive / typological literature.

I’ve studied dozens of different languages from different regions of the world and language families. At the moment I’m mostly focusing on developing my Russian, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. Additionally, I have recently been trying to learn (albeit it slowly) Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe), Paraguayan Guaraní and Georgian. 

I am influenced by a number of syntacticians, typologists and field linguists, including Robert Dixon, Lyle Campbell, John Payne (University of Manchester), Marianne Mithun, Joseph Greenberg, Daniel Everett, Mark Baker, and Matthew Dryer.

daniel.clayton@york.ac.uk