Assistant Professor of Linguistics at McGill
Research interests
My primary research interests lie in cross-linguistic variation in the domains of morphology and syntax. The overarching goal of my work is to uncover operations responsible for the building of syntactic structures and the role of other modules of the grammar, especially morphology, in their final shape. To that end, I explore the cross-linguistic uniformity of syntax, while identifying ways in which certain phenomena that superficially appear to be syntactic can in fact be relegated to other modules of the grammar. Specifically, I have come to believe that many phenomena that are thought to be syntactic, but that exhibit idiosyncratic, language-specific characteristics, can be explained by attributing them to morphological processes that obscure the surface output of syntax. I also did some work in phonetics/phonology, where I am especially interested in word-accentual systems.
My research thus far has focused largely on the West Atlantic language Wolof, where I have investigated a wide range of topics: A’-movement and its morpho-syntactic effects, cartographic and non-cartographic effects, ordering of syntactic and post-syntactic (morphological) operations, copular sentences, the syntax of information structure, the syntax and semantics of tense and aspect (in an ongoing collaboration with Ryan Bochnak), control, second position clitics. I have recently also started working on the minority Nigerian language Igala. You can find out more about my research here.