Comparative Syntax

The primary focus of my research to date is in the area of comparative syntax, from a theoretical perspective. As part of this research, I look for properties of languages that tend to cluster together across geographically and genetically diverse languages (cf. macroparameters, Baker 2008). This research requires looking at the synchronic distribution of various properties across languages in order to identify such clusters and their diachronic distribution in order to identify how the various properties emerge (i.e., did one property appear first and trigger the appearance of others). In my dissertation research, I examined language data from over two dozen languages from over ten different language families and developed a typology of the different forms of the Extended Projection Principle (EPP; Chomsky 1981, 1982), arguing that it can be satisfied by either a nominal element or a predicate (building on work by Massam and Smallwood 1997, Davies and Dubinsky 2001), by either a phrase or a head (as argued by Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou 1998), and by pied-piping the entire vP or not (as proposed by Richards and Biberauer 2005). I've also looked at what other properties of a language correlate with its EPP type, showing that null subject type is not correlated with EPP type, and that languages with predicate EPP pattern together in having a high, defective T.

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Clausal Architecture

Broadly speaking, my research addresses the nature of clausal architecture and how it relates to human cognition. It is often assumed that the clause is divided into three (or sometimes four) domains: the discourse domain or left periphery, the inflectional domain or middlefield, and the thematic domain. In my research, I am investigating what these clausal domains are and how they operate, including the contrastive function of each domain and their relation to each other. The clausal spine seems to be somewhat universal across languages, at least in the broad ordering of clausal domains. By determining the underlying purpose of each domain, we can perhaps uncover the principles that determine their ordering, how they relate to each other, and how they result in the unique properties of human language. If the clausal spine has a principled reason for being structured the way it is, then this also opens the door for exploring whether its structure is emergent, rather than encoded in UG. I have explored these issues particularly through the lens of comparative syntax, which sheds light on the range of variation possible cross-linguistically. Specifically, I am looking at (a) the commonalities between various operations within the same domain cross-linguistically, (b) the contrastive functions of the different domains, and (c) the properties of operations that relate elements from different domains, such as movement.