Professor of Linguistics
Biography and Research
Ph.D., Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley, 1980
M.A. French, Florida State University
B.A. French, Florida State University
Languages: Classical and Vedic Sanskrit, Avestan, Old Persian, Greek, Latin, Italic dialects, Hittite, Hieroglyphic Luwian, Gothic, Old Norse-Icelandic, Old English, Old Irish, Lithuanian, Old Church Slavic
Biography and publications: Before joining Berkeley's Department of Linguistics, Holland taught as a Lecturer in Scandinavian Studies and in Near Eastern Studies. His research interests fall into three main areas: comparative Indo-European linguistics (especially syntax and poetics), general historical linguistics, and language typology. His metrical restoration and edition of the Rigveda (co-authored with Barend van Nooten) appeared in 1994.
Selected Publications
- "Active and Passive in Hittite Infinitival Constructions", in Proceedings of the 22nd Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference: Los Angeles, November 5th and 6th, 2010, ed. by Stephanie W. Jamison, H. Craig Melchert, and Brent Vine (Bremen: Hempen, 2011)
- The Tale of Zalpa: Myth, Morality, and Coherence in a Hittite Narrative, with Marina Zorman (Studia Mediterranea, Series Hethaea, 5, 2007)
- Review of Benjamin W. Fortson IV, Indo-European Language and Culture: an introduction. Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2007.
- "Kennings, metaphors, and semantic formulae in Old Norse dróttkvætt". Arkiv för Nordisk Filologi 118 (2005) 123-147
- "Syntactic Reconstruction", in The International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, 2nd edn. (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), ed. by William Frawley, vol. 3, 448-450
- "Relativization and Word Order in Old Irish and Vedic Sanskrit", Journal of Indo-European Studies 24 (1996) 323-331
- "Irish Poetry and Norse Dróttkvætt", with John Lindow, in A Celtic Florilegium: Studies in Memory of Brendan O Hehir, ed. by Kathryn A. Klar, Eve E. Sweetser, and Claire Thomas (1996), pp. 54-62
- Rig Veda: A Metrically Restored Text with an Introduction and Notes, with B. A. van Nooten (Harvard Oriental Series, 50, 1994)
- "The Name of Achilles: A Revised Etymology", Glotta 71 (1993) 17-27
- "Transitivity, Causativity, and Surface Case in Old Norse", Arkiv för Nordisk Filologi 108 (1993) 19-37