Molly Diesing

Molly Diesing is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Jewish Studies Program at Cornell University's College of Arts and Sciences, based in Morrill Hall with contact email md20@cornell.edu. Her academic work bridges theoretical linguistics and Germanic language studies.

Her research centers on syntax and the syntax-semantics interface, with deep expertise in Germanic languages—particularly Yiddish and German. Key investigations include argument structure, clause architecture, cross-linguistic word order parameters, and the syntactic mechanisms underlying noun phrase interpretation (quantifiers, pronominals). She specializes in syntax/semantics interactions in extraction phenomena, aspectual semantics, and the prosody-syntax interface in Slavic languages like Serbian.

Diesing's publication trajectory reveals persistent focus on Germanic syntactic theory since the 1990s, with recent work (2015-2022) intensifying analysis of Yiddish verb movement and Serbian clitic systems. Her scholarship consistently connects micro-variation in word order to broader theoretical frameworks, demonstrating how Germanic and Slavic data inform universal principles of phrase structure and interface conditions.