projects
possible and impossible determiners
This project investigates a universal constraint on the mapping between meaning and form in the D domain. More soon!
number and cross-linguistic variation
English and Turkish have singular and plural nouns. Why, then, do you say three boys in English, but üç (three) çocuk (boy) ('three boy') in Turkish? How do languages with dual nouns, such as Slovenian or Atara Imere, say 'two boys', and why? How about languages with paucals and other number values? This project investigates patterns of numeral-noun combinations across languages and aims to uncover the basic primitives that are responsible for these patterns, with an eye to understanding better the role linguistic meaning plays in the explanation of cross-linguistic variation. This project is funded by a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship (2023-2024)
structure and interpretation in Atara Imere
This project, funded by a British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Small Research Grant (2019-2023) and held together with my colleague Coppe van Urk, investigated the phonology-syntax interface and the article system of Atara Imere, a Polynesian language spoken in Mele, Vanuatu. We visited Mele in June 2023 to carry out fieldwork on the language and to develop ties with the very welcoming Imere community. In my work on Atara Imere, I investigate the semantics and pragmatics of its rich article system and compare it to the article systems of other languages
semantic properties of Russian indefinites
Tania Ionin and I investigated, thanks to a British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Small Research Grant (2013-2015), the functional readings and scope of indefinites in Russian. We carried out experiments to establish the readings of different indefinites and explored the implications of these findings for different theories of indefinite scope . Read more about it here