Thomas McFadden

Dr. Thomas McFadden is an Assistant Professor at Stony Brook University, specializing in theoretical and comparative syntax, morphology, and historical linguistics with a focus on Germanic languages (especially English and German) and Tamil. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania (2004) and has held prior positions as a PostDoc at the University of Stuttgart, faculty member at the University of Tromsø, and Research Associate at the Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS) in Berlin. His research explores the syntax-morphology interface, historical syntax using electronic corpora, and linguistic database management. He leads projects such as the DFG/AHRC-funded LASER project on syntactic structure and the DFG-funded B01 project on periphrasis in English historical linguistics.

• Education: Ph.D. in Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania (2004)

Research Interests: Finiteness, subject behavior in embedded clauses, aspect in historical English, allophoric agreement in Tamil, case structures, alternative phase theory. His work integrates corpus-based and theoretical approaches, with extensive experience in database management (MySQL) and fieldwork.