The West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, or WCCFL (/ˈwɪkfəl/), is an international linguistics conference that is held annually, usually in the spring, at a university in western North America. Research presented there can focus on any aspect of language from a formal perspective, including, but not limited to, phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and discourse structure. Along with the annual meeting of the North East Linguistics Society (NELS), it is one of two major conferences held in North America that focuses on formal linguistics,Natsuko Tsujimura, "Linguistic Research and Language Teaching," Language and Linguistics Compass 2/2 (2008): 251–263. with an emphasis, in recent years, on syntactic topics.Abby Kaplan. “Discussion: Phonology at general linguistics conferences.” Phonolist. May 31, 2016 https://blogs.umass.edu/phonolist/2016/05/31/discussion-phonology-at-general-linguistics-conferences/

History WCCFL was first held in 1982 at Stanford University. Since then, it has been hosted by universities across the west coast and inland west of the United States and Canada. In 2026, WCCFL was held for the first time in Mexico at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Proceedings through WCCFL 17 were published by the Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI) at Stanford University; proceedings for WCCFL 18 and after have appeared with Cascadilla Press.

The years in which WCCFL has been held are listed below, together with the host institution and the invited speakers (where this information is available or applicable).

WCCFL # Year Location Invited Speaker (if available) 1 1982 Stanford University 2 1983 University of Southern California 3 1984 University of California, Santa Cruz 4 1985 University of California, Los Angeles 5 1986 University of Washington 6 1987 University of Arizona 7 1988 University of California, Irvine 8 1989 University of British Columbia 9 1990 Stanford University 10 1991 Arizona State University 11 1992 University of California, Los Angeles 12 1993 University of California, Santa Cruz 13 1994 University of California, San Diego 14 1995 University of Southern California 15 1996 University of California, Irvine 16 1997 University of Washington 17 1998 University of British Columbia 18 1999 University of Arizona 19 2000 University of California, Los Angeles John McCarthy (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) Richard S. Kayne (New York University) 20 2001 University of Southern California Alec Marantz (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Alan Prince (Rutgers University) 21 2002 University of California, Santa Cruz Joe Pater (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) Caroline Heycock (University of Edinburgh) Irene Heim (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) 22 2003 University of California, San Diego Mary Beckman (Ohio State University) Tom Wasow (Stanford University) Doug Pulleyblank (University of British Columbia) 23 2004 University of California, Davis Georgia Green (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) Robert Kluender (University of California, San Diego) José Hualde (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) 24 2005 Simon Fraser University Bruce Hayes (University of California, Los Angeles) Mark Steedman (Edinburgh University) Rose-Marie Déchaine (University of British Columbia) 25 2006 University of Washington James McCloskey (University of California, Santa Cruz) Maria Polinsky (University of California, San Diego)Douglas Pulleyblank (University of British Columbia) 26 2007 University of California, Berkeley Adam Albright (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Lyn Frazier (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) Manfred Krifka (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft) 27 2008 University of California, Los Angeles Hagit Borer (University of Southern California) Elliott Moreton (University of North Carolina) Liina Pylkkänen (New York University) 28 2010 University of Southern California Richard S. Kayne (New York University) Sun-Ah Jun (University of California, Los Angeles) David Beaver (University of Texas, Austin)Duane Watson (University of Illinois) Adamantios Gafos (Yale University) 29 2011 University of Arizona Susanne Gahl (University of California, Berkeley) Norvin Richards (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)Tom Bever (University of Arizona) 30 2012 University of California, Santa Cruz Jeffrey Lidz (University of Maryland) Christopher Potts (Stanford University) Kie Zuraw (University of California, Los Angeles) 31 2013 Arizona State University Diana Archangeli (University of Arizona)Hilda Koopman (University of California, Los Angeles) Lisa Matthewson (University of British Columbia) 32 2014 University of Southern California Sabine Iatridou (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Jon Sprouse (University of Connecticut)Yael Sharvit (University of California, Los Angeles) Jaye Padgett (University of California, Santa Cruz) 33 2015 Simon Fraser University Kyle Johnson (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) Heather Goad (McGill University) Matt Wagers (University of California, Santa Cruz) 34 2016 University of Utah Colin Phillips (University of Maryland) Sam Epstein (University of Michigan) Rachel Walker (University of Southern California) 35 2017 University of Calgary Elan Dresher (University of Toronto) Heidi Harley (University of Arizona) Keir Moulton (Simon Fraser University)Neil Banerjee (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) 36 2018 University of California, Los Angeles Vincent Homer (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) Jie Zhang (University of Kansas)Ivy Sichel (University of California, Santa Cruz)Akira Omaki (University of Washington) 37 2019 not held 38 2020 University of British Columbia Meg Grant (Simon Fraser University) Jessica Rett (University of California, Los Angeles)Gillian Gallagher (New York University)Maziar Toosarvandani (University of California, Santa Cruz) 39 2021 University of Arizona Noam Chomsky (University of Arizona)Keren Rice (University of Toronto) Andrew McKenzie (University of Kansas) 40 2022 Stanford University Line Mikkelsen (University of California, Berkeley)Juliet Stanton (New York University)Guillaume Thomas (University of Toronto) 41 2023 University of California, Santa Cruz Luke Adamson (Rutgers University)Dorothy Ahn (Rutgers University)Eva Zimmerman (University of Leipzig) 42 2024 University of California, Berkeley Maria Kouneli (Rutgers University)Will Oxford (University of Manitoba)Sharon Rose (University of California, San Diego) Yimei Xiang (Rutgers University) 43 2025 University of Washington Kathryn Davidson (Harvard) Henry Davis (University of British Columbia)Meghan Sumner (Stanford University) 44 2026 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México Wendy L. A. López Márquez (University of California, Berkeley)Adela Covarrubias (Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia)Jesse Harris (University of California, Los Angeles)Fidel Hernández (Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia) 45 2027 ?? TBD 46 2028 ?? TBD

References