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