psycholinguistics, language comprehension, memory, experimental syntax
- chamorro psycholinguistics project
- The real-time comprehension of wh-dependencies in a Wh-Agreement language
- with Sandra Chung & Manuel F. Borja.
- To appear, Language. (April 2014 version)
- Constituent order and parser control processes in Chamorro.
- with Sandra Chung & Manuel F. Borja.
- August 2014. Proceedings of the Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association.
- - AAAS 2014. Language processing in Chamorro: lessons from a language of the Pacific.
- - CUNY 2014. Relative clause processing in Chamorro: overlapping pressures in an agreement-rich language.
- long-distance dependencies, memory and prediction
- The structure-sensitivity of memory access: evidence from Mandarin Chinese
- with Brian Dillon, Wing Yee Chow, Taomei Guo (corresponding), Fengqin Liu, & Colin Phillips.
- August 2014. Frontiers in Psychology: Language Sciences.
- Memory mechanisms for wh-dependency formation and their implications for islandhood
- February 2014. In Sprouse, J. & Hornstein, N. Experimental Syntax and Island Effects. Cambridge UP.
- Going the distance: memory and control processes in active dependency formation
- with Colin Phillips.
- August 2013. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.
- Gap acceptability predicts resumption rate in English
- with Adam Morgan (lead); August 2013; Presented at AMLaP 2013
- Processing covert dependencies: an SAT study on Mandarin Wh-in-situ questions
- with Ming Xiang (lead), Brian Dillon, Fengqin Liu & Taomei Guo, March 2013.
Journal of East Asian Linguistics.
- Islands don't reflect WM constraints
- A test of the relation between working memory capacity and syntactic island effects
- with Jon Sprouse & Colin Phillips, Language (March 2012 issue)
- And Working memory capacity and island effects: a reminder of the issues and the facts
(A reply to commentary generated by our first article; first comment, second comment)
My research and instruction asks questions about the mental data structures of syntactic representation
and the interface between language structure and memory. For example:
- how are linguistic representations segmented in memory?
- what are the mechanisms for the prediction and retrieval of syntactic
- how do linguistic feature systems control access to
- how do grammatical principles and extra-linguistic constraints interact?
An important current research project is incremental comprehension in Chamorro. Chamorro is a verb-initial Austronesian language with an intricately interacting system of movement, case, and agreement. My collaborators and I are investigating how syntax-morphology interactions impact the comprehender's expectations and how different sources of expectation guide early interpretation. This forms part of an effort to increase the contribution to psycholinguistic theory made by 'small' languages. We conduct our research in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. With: Sandra Chung (UCSC) and Manuel F. Borja (Inetnon Åmot yan Kutturan Natibu, CNMI; [photo]). Our research is supported by the NSF (Award #1251429).
I've also worked on appropriate methods for eliciting judgments in semantics/pragmatics experiments (joint work with Pranav Anand, & Donka Farkas).
- 2009: Post-doc, New York University, advisor: Brian McElree
- 2008: Ph.D., Linguistics, Maryland, advisor: Colin Phillips
- 2003: A.B. (Honors), Molecular biology (Neuroscience), Princeton, advisor: Sam Wang
- 1999: Diploma, North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics
- current lab members
- Nate Arnett (PhD), Karl Devries (PhD)
- Scarlett Clothier-Goldschmidt (MA), Chelsea Miller (MA)
- Jake Vincent (BA; Chamorro Psycholinguistics Fellow)
- [grad] Adam Morgan (MA '13), Matt Tucker (PhD '13), Boris Harizanov (PhD '14)
- [undergrad] Sylvia Soule, Shawna Mattison, Sarah Napoli, Emily Pendleton,
Joseph King (NYU Abu Dhabi), Caroline Andrews (UMass), Shayne Sloggett
- Pranav Anand, Manny F. Borja, Sandy Chung, Brian Dillon,
Donka Farkas, Julie Frank, Ellen Lau, Brian McElree, Colin Phillips,
Masha Polinsky, Jon Sprouse, Ming Xiang