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Research Interests: Overview
My interest in linguistics arises from the fact that it
studies a component of human nature with methods that approach
scientific rigor. I feel privileged to study an aspect of
the human mind that is still largely mysterious, the knowledge of
language, and enjoy the challenge of trying to model it using a
theoretical framework that is still developing, the generative
framework.
My main field of study is syntax. My work aims to
further our understanding of the limits of syntactic variation by
comparing languages that differ minimally from one another.
I have worked extensively on Romance languages, carrying out a detailed
comparison of varieties that include not only the more widely
spoken and well studied languages (like Italian and French), but also
several varieties that are spoken in small communities and have not yet
been extensively investigated (the so-called "dialects" of Northern
Italy and Southern France). More recently, I have extended the
empirical domain of my research to "dialects" of English (see below).
My research interests arise from the desire to make new empirical
generalizations and use them to test and refine the current theory, and
the sub-field of comparative syntax is particularly well suited for
that.
One topic I have investigated in depth is the syntactic representation
of sentential negation. I have examined Romance varieties where it is
possible to construct sentences that are the same in all respects,
except for the expression of sentential negation. This has allowed me
to conduct a detailed investigation of the structural position of the
markers of sentential negation, and of the effect that their
position has on other aspects of grammar. This work has led to several
publication, including my 1997 book with Oxford University Press, Negation and Clausal Structure: A Comparative Study of Romance Languages.
I have also worked on the notion of clause type, in collaboration with
my colleague Paul Portner. The goal of our joint work is to give
precise theoretical content to a notion that is commonly used by
linguists, and yet still escapes a precise characterization. This work
has led to a number of presentations and publications and to a two year
NSF grant (``Clause Types: Form and Force in Grammatical Theory",
BCS-0234278). Working with the small research group that the grant
allowed us to create has been one of the most rewarding experiences of
my academic life.
The work on syntax and semantics of clause types has led me to think
about the issue of the syntactic encoding of the notion of speaker and
addressee, and of that of agreement more in general. This interest
carries over to my most recent research project, which is a
morpho-syntactic investigation of varieties of English spoken in the
United States, with particular focus on Appalachian English. This work
is a collaborative effort with Drs. Judy Bernstein, Marcel den Dikken
and Christina Tortora and has recently received funding from NSF in the
form of a collaborative research grant to the four of us as
co-principal investigators ( ``Collaborative Research: The Comparative
Morpho-Syntax of Appalachian English", BCS--0617133). We have begun by
working on the issue of subject-verb agreement, comparing standard
English with Belfast English and with the Appalachian varieties that
are the object of our investigation. In addition to working on our own
hypothesis concerning the variation found in this domain, a broader
goal of this work is that of addressing the thorny issue of how it
might be possible to reconcile the socio-linguistic and the formal
approach to the analysis of linguistic variation.
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