Matthew S. Dryer

Matthew S. Dryer is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University at Buffalo. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and joined UB in 1989 after ten years at the University of Alberta. He has held visiting positions at UCLA, University of Oregon, and the Max Planck Institutes in Nijmegen and Leipzig.

His research focuses on typology, syntax, and language documentation, with theoretical grounding in basic linguistic theory. Since 1983, he has developed a major cross-linguistic database on word order typology. His fieldwork includes documentation of Ktunaxa (Kutenai) and Papuan languages (Walman, Srenge, Poko-Rawo) in Papua New Guinea.

Dryer's publications frequently explore word order universals, grammatical relations, and discourse functions across languages. His co-editorship of the World Atlas of Language Structures (2005) represents a landmark contribution to linguistic typology. Recent work shows continued focus on noun phrase structure, negation patterns, and methodological issues in typological research.