John Goldsmith’s work has focused on phonological theory, on Bantu tone systems, and on computational morphology and phonology (especially algorithms for unsupervised learning). This work has included the development of autosegmental phonology, harmonic phonology, dynamic computational models of stress and sonority, the open source projects Linguistica, and geometric morphology. In 2019, Goldsmith published (along with Bernard Laks) Battle in the Mind Fields, the first in a sequence of books exploring the epistemology and sociology of the development of ideas in linguistics, philosophy, and psychology.