Dr Richards’s research is primarily in theoretical and comparative syntax (especially English/ Germanic and Slavonic), with further interests in historical linguistics, language variation and change, and language acquisition.

His research specializes in the generative framework of Noam Chomsky’s Minimalist Program, with a particular focus on how the syntactic component of the human language faculty interacts with, and is shaped by, the external systems of speech (phonology) and thought (semantics).