A "Minimalist" tree from Alexander Calder the artist
We ask questions about the computational nature of core operations for structure building in language and how language users (children and adults) acquire or lose them. Methods from theoretical syntax, language acquisition, sentence processing, and computational modeling are considered to study these questions.
We investigate theoretical and experimental questions about (i) the nature of linguistic knowledge, especially regarding syntax, as well as its interfaces with other domains of linguistic knowledge; (ii) how it is acquired by children as a first language or by adults as a second language; and (iii) how language knowledge is lost in dementia and language disorders. We are interested in Generative, Minimalist approaches to these domains, and in the application of methods from theoretical syntax, child language acquisition, sentence processing, computational modeling, and natural language processing to investigate different phenomena.
to appear Ke, Alan Hezao. The domain of transfer. The Cambridge Handbook of Minimalism. eds. Kleanthes K. Grohmann & Evelina Leivada. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2024 Ke, Alan Hezao, Jingying Xu, & Lijun Ding. The Clustering Approach: An Input-Driven Approach to Parameter Setting. In the proceedings of BUCLD 48.
2024 Thornber, Molly & Alan Hezao Ke. Modeling the learning of syntactic parameters from parsed data. In the proceedings of BUCLD 48.
2023 Ke, Alan Hezao, (2023) “Search downward: Minimal Search-based Agree”, Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 8(1). https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.6526.
2023 Ke, Alan Hezao. Syntax and semantics of NPs in Chinese possessive topic constructions. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 32, 133–167. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10831-023-09254-w.
2023 Lo, Chia-Wen, Tzu-Yun Tung, Alan Hezao Ke, Jonathan R. Brennan. Hierarchy, not lexical regularity, modulates low-frequency neural synchrony during language comprehension. Neurobiology of Language. https://doi.org/10.1162/nol_a_00077.
2022 Ke, Alan Hezao. Can Agree and Labeling be reduced to Minimal Search. Linguistic Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1162/ling_a_00481
2022 Ke, Alan H. and Acrisio Pires. Local versus long-distance bound implicit arguments of inalienable relational nouns in Chinese. Journal of Linguistics 58, 269-305. (published online 07/14/2021) https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226721000190
2022 Hettiarachchi, Sujeewa and Acrisio Pires. 2022. Second Language Acquisition of Constraints on Wh-movement by L2 English Speakers: Evidence for Full-access to Syntactic Features. Languages 7: 134 (19p). https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7020134
2021 Xu, Jingying, Yang, Xiaolu, & Shi, Rushen. Complement control in early child grammar: A study of Mandarin-speaking two-year-olds’ comprehension. In Daniell Dionne & Lee-Ann Vidal Covas (Eds.), Proceedings of the 45th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 45). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
2020 Chou, C.-T. T. & T.-Y. Chen & A. Pires. Acquisition of null objects in Mandarin Chinese by heritage speakers: Syntax-pragmatics interface knowledge without inflectional morphology. International Journal of Chinese Linguistics 7-2: 223-269.
2020 Jiménez Gaspar, Amelia, Acrisio Pires and Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes. Bilingualism and language change: The case of pronominal clitics in Catalan and Spanish. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. 23 (2) 113–131. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2017.1333487
2020 Ke, Alan Hezao & Liqun Gao. Domain restriction in child Mandarin: implications for quantifier spreading. Linguistics: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the Language Sciences. 58(6): 1839–1875. https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2020-0246.
2019 Ke, Alan H., Ya Zhao, Liqun Gao, Shuying Liu, Acrisio Pires. On the implicit anaphoric argument of relational nouns in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of Psycholinguist Research 48, 819–842. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-019-09633-2
2018 Ke, Alan Hezao, Samuel Epstein, Richard Lewis & Acrisio Pires. The quantificational domain of dou: An experimental study. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 47(3): 537–556. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-017-9532-9.
2009 Pires, Acrisio, and Jason Rothman, eds. Minimalist Inquiries into Child and Adult Language Acquisition: Case Studies across Portuguese. In Series Studies on Language Acquisition. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
2006 Pires, Acrisio. The Minimalist Syntax of Defective Domains: Gerunds and Infinitives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.