简介

My background is in syntactic theory and the acquisition of syntax, both morphosyntax and argument structure, in children (monolingual first language). I'm also interested in bilingualism, language revitalization, Specific Language Impairment, computational modeling of language learning, learnability theory, and experimental methodologies for studying implicit linguistic knowledge. For the past decade or so my research has focused on how children learn "displacing" predicates. These are verbs and adjectives that do not select an external argument (subject) and thus allow another NP to be "displaced" into the subject position. Displacing predicates include raising verbs (e.g. seem or appear), tough adjectives (easy), and unaccusative verbs (arrive). My main question is how children distinguish these predicates from control verbs (want or claim), control adjectives (eager), and unergative verbs (laugh). These are predicates that do select an external argument but occur in superficially similar sentence environments (e.g. John seems/claims to like pizza). The answer I have pursued is that NP animacy provides a crucial cue: encountering a predicate with an inanimate subject should tell learners that the predicate is a displacing predicate. In 2014 I published a book about how NP (in)animacy helps children acquire displacing predicates.