Julie Anne Legate

Julie Anne Legate is Professor and Chair of Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Linguistics. She earned her PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2002. Legate co-directs the Penn Syntax Lab and served as Editor-in-Chief of Natural Language & Linguistic Theory for 10 years.

Her research focuses on syntactic theory, morphosyntax, and syntax-semantics interfaces, with specialization in endangered/understudied languages. Key interests include passives, impersonals, causatives, null subjects, case theory, and locality domains. She maintains secondary research interests in language acquisition.

Legate's publications demonstrate extensive work on voice systems (especially passives), ergativity, case theory, recursion, and cross-linguistic analysis of languages including Acehnese, Warlpiri, and Lithuanian. Her research frequently combines theoretical innovation with empirical fieldwork.

Awards include the LSA’s Best Paper in Language Award (2020) for On Passives of Passives.

She has advised multiple PhD students including Faruk Akkuş (2021), Milena Šereikaitė (2020), Ava Irani (2019), Helen Jeoung (2018), and Einar Freyr Sigurðsson (2017).

Current projects include: syntactic islands (with Charles Yang), Mandarin bridge verbs (with Jiayi Lu and Charles Yang), null subjects in Brazilian Portuguese (with Gesoel Mendes), and passive agent binding.