C.L. Baker Award
About the award
This award, given for the first time in 2020, honors the legacy of the late C. L. Baker (1939-1997) and is funded by a generous gift from his family. The C.L. Baker Award recognizes excellence in research in the area of syntactic theory on the part of a mid-career scholar. The award has a monetary component of $500 and is presented in even-numbered years to the nominees that the members of the C. L. Baker Award Committee believe best exemplify the goals of the award.
The award is given every two years, with awardees recognized at the Annual Meeting in even-numbered years.
The nomination period opens on February 18, 2025, and closes at 11:59 PM (ET) on June 30, 2025.
Eligibility
- Nominees should be members of the LSA at the time the prize is awarded, i.e., at the 2026 LSA Annual Meeting.
- Nominations of women and individuals from underrepresented ethnic groups are strongly encouraged.
- The C.L. Baker Award recognizes excellence in research in the area of syntactic theory on the part of a scholar who is at the mid-point of a distinguished career.
- The typical nominee will be between 3 and 10 years post-tenure. However, stellar atypical candidates will also be seriously considered.
- You can nominate yourself or your colleague.
Selection criteria
The award is intended to recognize a distinguished and still unfolding research record in syntax, one which meets all of the following criteria:
- It has had a significant impact.
- It is forward-looking and innovative.
- It is empirically careful.
- It engages the larger intellectual context for research on human language and goes beyond the merely technical in its analysis and proposals.
C.L. (Lee) Baker, shown here with wife Mary Baker
(photo credit: Brian Price)
Selection
The LSA C.L. Baker Award Committee reviews nominations and makes recommendations to the Executive Committee, which must formally approve the recommendations. The winner will be recognized at the Awards Ceremony at the LSA Annual Meeting in January in even-numbered years.
Previous Awardees
2024: Jessica Coon (McGill University)2022: Vera Gribanova (Stanford University)
2020: Jon Sprouse (University of Connecticut)