Mark Baker

Mark Baker is a Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Science at Rutgers University. His work focuses on comparative syntax, linguistic universals, semantic roles, and the study of Amerindian and African languages. He holds the title of Distinguished Professor and maintains an office in Scott Hall. As of 2021, his office hours were by appointment due to sabbatical leave.

His research interests include syntactic diversity, its limits, and patterns across languages. Notable themes in his work involve logophoric pronouns, switch-reference mechanisms, and the relationship between case systems and agreement structures. He has contributed to discussions on language typology, formal syntax, and the cognitive foundations of linguistic structures.

Baker teaches advanced syntax courses and has published extensively on topics ranging from Panoan languages to theoretical models in generative grammar. His recent articles explore syntactic variation, morphosyntactic alignment, and interdisciplinary connections between linguistics and cognitive science.

He serves on editorial boards and has reviewed for journals such as Journal of East Asian Linguistics and Yearbook of Corpus Linguistics and Pragmatics. His work bridges formal linguistic theory with empirical cross-linguistic analysis, emphasizing the interplay between universal grammatical principles and lineage-specific traits.