Laurence David Stephens

Background

Stephens,, Laurence David was born on July 26, 1947 in Dallas, Texas, United States. Son of Laurence D. Senior and Amy Belle (Schickram) Stephens.

Education

Master of Arts, Stanford University, 1972. Doctor of Philosophy, Stanford University, 1976.

Career

Visiting fellow Yale University, New Haven, summer 1979. Research fellow University South Carolina, Columbia, 1980. Assistant professor University North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1982-1988, associate professor, since 1989.

President Colgate Management Company, Inc., Dallas, since 1997. General partner Moorman, Schickram & Stephens, Ltd., since 1997. Member-manager Stephens Resources, LLC, since 2004.

Vice president, manager 4025 Colgate LLC, 2004—2005, 3712 Wentwood, LLC, 2004—2005.

Achievements

• Achievements include discovery of language universal regularities concerning labiovelar phonemes, laws of palatalization, the law of catathesis in Greek (pitch lowering), and grammatical, semantic, pragmatic (information structure) regularities of discontinuous constituency and nonconfigurational syntactic structures in Greek and Latin. Co-developer of Justeson-Stephens probability distribution for cognates between unrelated languages, Justeson-Stephens probability distribution of the numbers of vowels, consonants, and total phonological inventory size in the languages of the world. Research on the law of the quantitative form of diachronic polysemy growth, semantic universals of aspect and modality, universals of writing systems and their evolution.

Membership

Member University Park Community League, Park Cities History Society, National Trust for History Preservation, Washington, since 1989, The Dallas Symphony Association Annual Fund, Metro. Opera Guild, New York City, since 1992, Wythe County VA History Society, since 1998. Member American Philological Association, Greek and Latin Linguistic Association (chairman 1987-1992), New York Academy of Sciences, Indogermanische Gesellschaft, International Society Bibliographie Classique, Arabian Horse Association, National Association Royalty Owners, Sigma Xi.

Connections

Married Susan Leigh Foutz, April 16, 1988. 1 child, Laurence David III.

Father:

Laurence D. Senior Stephens,

Mother:

Amy Belle (Schickram) Stephens,

Spouse:

Susan Leigh Foutz

child:

Laurence David III Stephens,