Kenneth L. Hale

Kenneth L. Hale
Born(1934-08-15)August 15, 1934
DiedOctober 8, 2001(2001-10-08) (aged 67)
Academic background
Education
ThesisA Papago Grammar (1959)
Doctoral advisorCharles F. Voegelin
Academic work
DisciplineLinguist
Institutions
Doctoral studentsAndrew Carnie, LaVerne Jeanne, David Nash, Paul Platero, Rudolf de Rijk, Tova Rapoport, Peggy Speas, Richard Sproat
Websitelinguistics.mit.edu/hale

Kenneth Locke Hale (August 15, 1934 – October 8, 2001), also known as Ken Hale, was an American linguist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studied a huge variety of previously unstudied and often endangered languages—especially indigenous languages of North America and Australia. Languages investigated by Hale include Navajo, O'odham, Warlpiri, and Ulwa.

Among his major contributions to linguistic theory was the hypothesis that certain languages were non-configurational, lacking the phrase structure characteristic of such languages as English.