Research

The main focus of my research is grammatical theory. I work particularly on questions that arise where syntactic theory comes into contact with theories of the syntax-semantics interface (argument structure, aspect) and morphology. 

I am generally interested in the structure of verbs, especially in connection with A-movement.

Some current areas of interest include:  

• Argument introduction, interpretation, and licensing

• Building verbal meanings: complex statives; causatives; participles; passives

• The morphosyntactic structure of tense/ mood/ aspect 

My research also engages with formal questions in linguistic variation -   'variation'  both in a cross-linguistic sense, and with respect to questions and data usually associated with sociolinguistic research, as well as dialect morphosyntax. The subareas I work on concern what morphosyntactic variability and change reveal about the architecture generating it, and the nature of the connection between the formal system and systems of use. 

Some topics I have worked on include: 

• Variable preposition deletion in ditransitives and its interaction with passivization in Northwest British English varieties

• Variable deletion of phonologically heavy prepositions marking external arguments in varieties of Indonesian

• The syntax and semantics of done my homework statives in Philadelphia and various other Englishes, and methods in morphosyntactic variation data collection