Research

Current Projects:

Indefinite Objects in
Generics
A number of researchers (Carlson 1989, Kratzer in press, Rimell 2004, Ferreira 2005, and others) have observed that singular indefinites in object position are strangely incompatible with generic sentences, as in (1a); various strategies can be used to salvage these structures, including the addition of a manner adverbial, in (1b):

(1) a. *June bakes a vegan chocolate cake.
       b. June bakes a vegan chocolate cake effortlessly.

This research aims to uncover just what function the manner adverbial plays in (1b), whether current accounts of (1a)’s oddness can accommodate the adverbials effect, and what this may reveal for the similar modification-requirement on English middles.

Pseudo-incorporated
Pseudo-passives
Alongside the common pseudopassive construction, as in (2a), some English speakers also allow the surprising variant in (3a-c):

(2) a. Our papier-mâché blowfish was sat on!

(3) a. That cutting-board was chopped habanero on!!
       b. These pants just aren’t meant to be tucked shirts into.
       c. That seat was spat gum on!

What licenses the direct object in the passive sentences in (3)? Upon investigation, we observe that this object is restricted to being an NP with no D-level, i.e., a property of type <e,t>. This type of object has been identified cross-linguistically as pseudo-incorporation (Bittner 1984, van Geenhoven 1998, Wharram 2003 for Inuktitut and West Greenlandic, Dayal 2003 for Hindi, Massam 2001 for Niuean, Coon 2006 for Chol, Deal 2007 for Nez-Perce). How does this property combine syntactically and semantically with the predicate, and what part does the preposition play in the English construction?

Algonquian
Modification Structures
Algonquian languages are well-known for displaying morphology known as ‘relative roots,’ preverbs (or independent words) that enhances a verb’s meaning to require a specification for direction, manner, location, form etc. of the action, depending on the relative root used (Rhodes 1998). An example is in (4):

(4) ‘t-oloq-aph-a-l                     oloqi-w               qospem-ok
       3-that.way-track-Dir-Obv that.way-Particle lake-Loc
       “She tracked him toward the lake.”
(Bruening 2001:169, Passamaquoddy)

The ‘quasi-arguments’ associated with these roots are mandatory, unlike how we typically think of modifiers. By examining these and other Algonquian modificational structures, I hope to further our crosslinguistic understanding of how modifiers combine semantically and syntactically in the sentence, and what role they play in identifying/describing events and objects. This project also aims to draw a connection between relative root structures and ‘light-nouns,’ or bare-DP adverbials in English.

When Uvular is
   not Uvular
A well-known observation discussed and debated in the loanword-phonology literature involves the apical-‘r’ of Moroccan-Arabic loanwords from French, which stands in correspondence with the uvular-‘R’ of the original French words, despite that MA has a uvular liquid in its inventory. It has been argued that French-R is not phonologically treated as a uvular, but instead as an alveolar segment, and that the French-R—MA-r correspondence is a purely phonological one (Paradis&LaCharité 2001). This research investigates what, if any, phonetic similarities between French-R and MA-r, and/or dissimilarities between French-R and MA-R (i.e. MA’s uvular liquid) might drive/support this correspondence. A number of other interesting aspects of MA loanword phonology are also under investigation (including the role of exact-phonetic copy avoidance, or *SNOOTY)

Papers and Presentation hand-outs:

PSEUDOPASSIVES
2007. “Objects in the Pseudopassive: the syntax and semantics of bare-NP complements.” Presented at Canadian Linguistics Association, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK. May 27th].
hand-out: [PDF]
Proceedings paper: [PDF]

MIDDLES
2006. “Solving Middle Syntax with Tagalog Morphology.” Presented at the 30th Pennsylvania Linguistics Colloquium (PLC30). University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. February 26th. [PDF]

2005. “Finding the Middle in the maka-: Tagalog Morphology Offers New Insight on Middle Syntax.” In McGill Working Papers in Linguistics 20:1. 27-50. McGill, Montreal. [PDF]

2005. Events in the middle. Undergraduate thesis, McGill University. [PDF]

LIGHT-NOUNS/QUASI-ARGUMENTS
2006. Light nouns and their quirks. Unpubd. semantics squib, 24.973 MIT. [PDF]

2005. Relative at the root. Unpubd. syntax squib, 24.951 MIT. [PDF]

Comments, questions, criticisms, suggestions, all welcome!