Rate My Professor Mark Post

Mark Post served as Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at the University of New England, Armidale, from August 2013 to December 2017. He holds a PhD from the University of Sydney. His earlier academic training includes studies in linguistic typology at La Trobe University from June 2004 to June 2008, linguistics at the University of Oregon from January 2001 to June 2004, and semiotics at Wesleyan University from September 1991 to June 1995. Following his time at UNE, Post joined the University of Sydney as Senior Lecturer in Linguistics in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences in January 2018, where he continues in that role. At Sydney, he has taught courses including Theory and Typology of Grammar, Language Diversity and Universals, Advanced Morphology and Syntax, Grammar in the World's Languages, Language and the Law, Language and Communities, and Language and Development.

Post specializes in descriptive, historical, and typological linguistics, with research focused on Trans-Himalayan languages, particularly the Tani branch spoken in Northeast India and its eastern Himalayan neighbors. His work addresses the typology and evolutionary distribution of Greater Mainland Southeast Asian languages, covering topics such as morphosyntax, phonology, grammaticalization, compounding, clause chaining, applicatives, classifiers, middle voice, topographical deixis, and nominalization. Major publications include A Grammar of Galo (2007, La Trobe University, 205 citations); The Tangam Language: Grammar, Lexicon and Texts (2017, Brill, 30 citations); Rethinking Sino-Tibetan phylogeny from the perspective of North East Indian languages (2014, with R. M. Blench, 131 citations); The Tibeto-Burman languages of Northeast India (2017, with R. Burling, 116 citations); The phonology and grammar of Galo “words”: A case study in benign disunity (2009, 38 citations); Adjectives in Thai: Implications for a functionalist typology of word classes (2008, 40 citations); Topographical deixis in Trans-Himalayan (Sino-Tibetan) languages (2019, 23 citations); Clause chains and related structures in Macro-Tani languages (2024); Bare classifier phrases in Thai and other mainland Asian languages (2021); and Of hornbills, pigs and mortars: Re-examining Sun's "Austroasiatic-origin" vocabulary in Proto-Tani (2025). Post has co-edited volumes in the North East Indian Linguistics series and is a member of the North East Indian Linguistics Society. His scholarship has received over 1,456 citations on Google Scholar. In 2018, he was appointed a Sydney Outstanding Academic Research (SOAR) Fellow for his contributions to the documentation, analysis, and conservation of Asia's endangered languages.