Miriam Butt is Professor of Linguistics and Chair of the Department of Linguistics (Fachbereich Sprachwissenschaft) at the University of Konstanz. She is best known for her theoretical linguistic work on complex predicates and on grammatical case, and for her computational linguistic work in large-scale grammar development within the Pargram project.[1][2]
Butt earned her doctorate in linguistics in 1993 at Stanford University. She subsequently held teaching positions at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology and the University of Tübingen before taking up her current position at the University of Konstanz. She is the author or editor of 11 books, including The Structure of Complex Predicates in Urdu and the Theories of Case volume in the Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics series. Her Pargram work in large-scale grammar development focuses on grammars for English, German, and Urdu.
Butt is also one of the authors of 6000 Kilometer Sehnsucht, which describes her childhood in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and how she, her sister, and her mother escaped from Pakistan.