Projects

My lifelong research question and motivation to do linguistics is “why do only human beings speak language?”

L1 acquisition
- Interpretation of pronouns (Binding Principle B), with Yasutada Sudo
- Comprehension of Antecedent Contained Deletion (ACD) sentences, with Hadas Kotek
- Alternatives in the acquisition of only, with Martin Hackl

- Scope interaction of universal quantifier and negation, and effect of intonation (work in progress)


Semantics
- Semantics of -ish, which attaches to adjectives and adverbs. Noun-attaching -ish's for future research.
- Universal modals that affect scope relations of quantification expressions

- semantics of in fact (work in progress)


Phonology
- Accent patterns of Japanese given names


Syntax
- Topicalization, especially split topicalization in Japanese


Morphology
- How brain works when presented expressions induced by Blocking Effects in English and Japanese (EEG, MEG study), with Hadas Kotek, Shigeru Miyagawa, Miwako Hisagi, and Tohoku University Koizumi Lab
- Perception of vowel duration by L2 learners of Japanese (EEG, MEG study), with Miwako Hisagi, Shigeru Miyagawa, Valerie Shafer, Hadas Kotek, Winifred Strange, and Dimitrios Pantazis