Neil Smith (linguist)

Neilson Voyne Smith FBA, better known as Neil Smith (born 1939) is Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at University College London.

He wrote his PhD (1964) on the grammar of Nupe, a language of Nigeria. Since then his research has encompassed theoretical syntax, language acquisition, the 'savant' syndrome, and general linguistic theory, particularly the work of Noam Chomsky.

In the 1990s he began working with an autistic man, Christopher, in collaboration with Ianthi-Maria Tsimpli. According to Smith and Tsimpli, Christopher has a non-verbal IQ of between 60 and 70, but his English is comparable to that of normal native speakers, and he has an extraordinary ability to learn new languages.

Smith was Head of the Department of Phonetics and Linguistics at University College London from 1983 to 1990, and headed the Linguistics section from 1972 until his retirement in 2006, when he was presented with a Festschrift Language in Mind: A Tribute to Neil Smith on the Occasion of his Retirement (edited by Robyn Carston, Diane Blakemore and Hans van de Koot). He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1999, and an Honorary Member of the Linguistic Society of America in 2000.

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