Dr. Amanda Swenson
Assistant Professor

Departments / Programs
- Department of English
- English
- English Graduate Programs
Degree Information
- PHD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2017)
- BA, Baylor University (2011)
Publications
Swenson, Amanda. (2019). Malayalam Verbs: The Functional Structure and Morphosemantics. Studies in Generative Grammar. Mouton DeGruyter.
____. (to appear). Auxiliary, light verb, and ‘do’ support: the roles of irikk-in Malayalam. Proceedings of Formal Approaches to South Asian Languages 7.
____. (2017). Typological variation i...
Read More »Swenson, Amanda. (2019). Malayalam Verbs: The Functional Structure and Morphosemantics. Studies in Generative Grammar. Mouton DeGruyter.
____. (to appear). Auxiliary, light verb, and ‘do’ support: the roles of irikk-in Malayalam. Proceedings of Formal Approaches to South Asian Languages 7.
____. (2017). Typological variation in the Universal perfect: Insight from Malayalam. Swanimam. Vol 3, 5-21. University of Kerala: Thiruvananthapuram.
____. (2017). The incompatibility of Malayalam conjunctive participle constructions with multiple temporal adverbs and individual level predicates. Proceedings of Triple A3, 111-125.
____. (2016). A temporal semantics for Malayalam Conjunctive Participle Constructions. Proceedings of Formal Approaches to South Asian Languages 6,131-140.
____. (2016). Nominalizing at different levels: How Malayalam can help us better understand Universal Grammar. Swanimam. Vol 2, 7-22. University of Kerala: Thiruvananthapuram.
____., Aravind, A., & Marty, P. (2015). The expression of information structure in Malayalam. Swanimam. Vol 1, 11-25. University of Kerala: Thiruvananthapuram.
____. & Marty, P. (2014). On the features of Malayalam taan. Proceedings of the North East Linguistic Society 44, Vol. 2, 171-182.
Presentations
Swenson, Amanda. (2022). Grammar is a Science Puzzle: How Reimagining our Understanding of Grammar can Improve Academic English. Invited talk by the Department of Sciences & Humanities, School of Engineering and Technology, Christ University, Bengaluru (India), October 28th.
_____. (2022). Re-examining A-prefixing: A Mirative Account. Southeastern Conference on Linguistics 89, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA (USA), March 31st-April 2nd.
___...
Read More »Swenson, Amanda. (2022). Grammar is a Science Puzzle: How Reimagining our Understanding of Grammar can Improve Academic English. Invited talk by the Department of Sciences & Humanities, School of Engineering and Technology, Christ University, Bengaluru (India), October 28th.
_____. (2022). Re-examining A-prefixing: A Mirative Account. Southeastern Conference on Linguistics 89, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA (USA), March 31st-April 2nd.
____., Mattos da Costa, L., & Kim, Y. (2020). Error as a Cause for Celebration: Linguistic Tools for Improving English Language Learners’ Writing. Southeastern Conference on Linguistics 87,University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS (USA), March 26-28th. [Conference canceled due to COVID-19 outbreak]
_____. (2019). Revisiting the Gerund Puzzle: A Case Study in Finding a Research Project. Invited talk by the Linguistics Club at Gordon College, Wenham, Massachusetts (USA), November 26th.
____. (2019). Verbal Masala: Exploring the Verbal Flavors in South Baffin Inuktitut, Hausa, English and Malayalam. Invited talk at Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee (USA), March 18th.
____. (2018). The Perfect Principle of Compositionality Puzzle: Insight from Malayalam. Invited talk at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi (India), July 26th.
____. (2018). A Pluractional Account for the Semantics and Pragmatics of Malayalam –unnu. Invited talk at English and Foreign Language University, Hyderabad (India), July 4th.
____. (2017). The uses of irikk- and kondu in Malayalam. Invited talk at English and Foreign Language University, Hyderabad (India), July 5th.
____. (2017). Auxiliaries and light verbs: exploring the clausal spine in Malayalam. Invited talk at the Forum for Theoretical Linguistics, Universitetet i Oslo (Norway), June 8th.
____. (2017). Deciphering the Malayalam Universal Perfect. Formal Approaches to South Asian Languages 7, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA (USA), March 4th-5th.
____. (2016). The Semantics of Malayalam Conjunctive Participle Constructions. The Semantics of African, Asian and Austronesian Languages 3, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen (Germany), July 6th-8th.
____. (2016). Malayalam Conjunctive Participle Constructions: A Temporal Semantics. Formal Approaches to South Asian Languages 6, University of Massachusetts Amherst (USA), March 12-13th.
____. (2016). Finding Similarity in Dissimilarity: Tensed and Tenseless Languages. Invited talk at Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan (USA), February 17th.
____. (2015). On the Tense-Aspect Puzzle in Malayalam. Invited talk at English and Foreign Language University, Hyderabad (India), August 19th.
____. (2015). Negation, Finiteness and Tense in Malayalam. 43rd All India Conference of Dravidian Linguistics, Annamalai University, Annamalai Nagar, Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu (India), June 18-20th.
____. (2014). The Morphosemantics of the Perfect in Malayalam. Invited talk at English and Foreign Language University, Hyderabad (India), July 25th.
____. (2014). Tense and the Malayalam Perfect: A reply to Amritavalli and Jayaseelan(2005). 42nd All India Conference of Dravidian Linguistics, Dravidian University, Kuppam, Andhra Pradesh (India), June 19-21st.
____. & Marty, P. (2013). Malayalam taan: A local account for an anti-local form. Poster presented at North East Linguistic Society 44, University of Connecticut (USA), October 18-20th.
____. & Marty, P. (2013). Malayalam taan: Implications for Binding. Formal Approaches to South Asian Languages 3, University of Southern California (USA), March 9-10th.
____. (2010). Logophoric Binding: Unraveling the Mystery. Eighth Annual Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Colloquium. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA(USA), April 17th.
____. (2009). Spanish Fabliau, Cervantes and the ‘Viejo Celoso'. Undergraduate Research and Scholarly Achievement Scholars Week. Baylor University, Waco, Texas (USA), April 8th-13th.
Courses
Dr. Swenson teaches general education literature and writing courses, junior and senior-level grammar and linguistics courses, and graduate-level linguistics and Old English language/literature courses.