Broad: Semantics • Pragmatics • Experimental linguistics • L1 acquisition • Logic acquisition • Logic of language •  Philosophy of language

Narrow: Questions • Disjunction • Conditionals • Modality • Attitude predicates • Speech acts • Clause types •  Presupposition • Implicatures 


Yan, Yixuan, (in prep). On the presupposition of alternative questions: The view from child Mandarin. First Generals Paper, University of Connecticut. (Overseer: William Snyder) 

Yan, Yixuan, (2020). Distributivity in Child and Adult Mandarin. M.A. Thesis, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. (Supervisor: Margaret Ka-Yan Lei) 


Yan, Yixuan* & Luo, Yitong, (2025). “Do children know that PolQs are not AltQs? Evidence from Mandarin Chinese." In Proceedings of the 49th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 49). [preprint]

Yan, Yixuan, (2024). “Time and Modality in Mandarin Counterfactual Reasoning." In Pre-proceedings of the ESSLLI 2024 Student Session (ESSLLI 2024).

Yan, Yixuan, (to appear). “Time and Modality in Mandarin Counterfactual Reasoning." In Proceedings of the ESSLLI 2023 & ESSLLI 2024 Student Sessions, Selected Papers.

Yan, Yixuan* & Luo, Yitong,  (to appear). “Interpretations of two disjunctive morphemes in child Mandarin and their theoretical consequences." In Proceedings of the 47th Generative Linguistics in the Old World Colloquium (GLOW 47).

Yan, Yixuan, (in prep). “John knows Mary likes what: Learning attitude verbs by speech acts in a wh-in-situ language." In Proceedings of the 50th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 50). 

Yan, Yixuan* & Luo, Yitong, (in prep). “Declarative but not inquisitive disjunctors derive conjunctive inference in child language: What to flatten?" In Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 30 (SuB30).

Yan, Yixuan, (in prep). “A-not-A questions in child Mandarin: Deletion or reduplication?" In Proceedings of the 16th Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition Conference (GALA 16).


Yan, Yixuan* & Luo, Yitong, (2024). “Do children know that PolQs are not AltQs? Evidence from Mandarin Chinese." Invited talk at ∅NihiL Seminar, Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC), Oct. 1st, Universiteit van Amsterdam, the Netherlands. (virtual)

Yan, Yixuan, (2023). “How do children distribute? Evidence from Mandarin Chinese." Invited talk at UMass Language Acquisition Lab, Sept. 14th, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA. (virtual)


Yan, Yixuan, (2025). “John knows Mary likes what: Learning attitude verbs by speech acts in a wh-in-situ language."† Poster at the 50th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 50), Nov. 6th-9th, Boston University, USA.

†Received Paula Menyuk Award

Yan, Yixuan* & Luo, Yitong, (2025). “Declarative but not inquisitive disjunctors derive conjunctive inference in child language: What to flatten?" Talk at Sinn und Bedeutung 30 (SuB30), Sept. 23rd - 27th, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Germany.

Yan, Yixuan* & Luo, Yitong, (2025). “Mandarin children interpret declarative but not interrogative disjunction as conjunction." Talk at the 17th (biennial) Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition Conference (GALA 17), Sept. 11th - 13th, Université de Tours, France.

Yan, Yixuan* & Luo, Yitong, (2025). “Interpretations of two disjunctive morphemes in child Mandarin and their theoretical consequences." Talk at the 49th annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium (PLC 49), April 5th-6th, University of Pennsylvania, USA.

Yan, Yixuan* & Luo, Yitong, (2025). “Interpretations of two disjunctive morphemes in child Mandarin and their theoretical consequences." Poster & Lightning talk at the 47th Generative Linguistics in the Old World Colloquium (GLOW 47), March 24th-28th, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt und Göttingen, Germany. [poster]

Yan, Yixuan* & Luo, Yitong,  (2024). “Do children know that PolQs are not AltQs? Evidence from Mandarin Chinese."† Poster at the 49th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 49), Nov. 7th-10th, Boston University, USA.

†Received Paula Menyuk Award

Yan, Yixuan, (2024). “A-not-A questions in child Mandarin: Deletion or reduplication?" Talk at the 16th (biennial) Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition Conference (GALA 16), Sept. 12th - 14th, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal.

Yan, Yixuan, (2024). “Time and modality in Mandarin counterfactual reasoning." Talk at the Student Session of the 2024 annual European Summer School on Logic, Language, and Information (ESSLLI 2024), July 29th - August 9th, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.

Yan, Yixuan, (2024). “Does impoverished morphology make conditionals late? Counter-evidence from Mandarin."† Poster at the XVIth (triennial) International Congress for the Study of Child Language (IASCL XVI), July 15th - 19th, Univerzita Karlova, Czech Republic.

†Received IASCL Travel Award

Yan, Yixuan, (2024). “How do children distribute? Evidence from Mandarin Chinese."† Talk at the XVIth (triennial) International Congress for the Study of Child Language (IASCL XVI), July 15th - 19th, Univerzita Karlova, Czech Republic.

†Received IASCL Travel Award

Yan, Yixuan, (2020). “Distributivity in child Mandarin." Talk at the 2020 Annual Research Forum of the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK-ARF 2020), The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Dec. 11th-12th, Hong Kong. (virtual)


Yan, Yixuan* & Luo, Yitong, (2024). “Interpretations of two disjunctive morphemes in child Mandarin and their theoretical consequences." Talk at the Southern New England Workshop in Semantics (SNEWS 2024), Nov. 23rd, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.

Yan, Yixuan, (2024). “The role of relative tense in Mandarin counterfactual reasoning." Talk at the Southern New England Workshop in Semantics (SNEWS 2023-2024), Feb. 10th, Harvard University, USA.

Yan, Yixuan, (2023). “A or not A? That is a question!" Talk at UConn Acqui-Lab, Nov. 28th, University of Connecticut, USA.

Yan, Yixuan, (2023). “Do conditionals appear late? Counter-evidence from Mandarin." Talk at UConn Ling-Lunch, Oct. 31st, University of Connecticut, USA.