Research interests

<p>My research explores the fundamental building blocks that make up human languages, how these building blocks relate to each other and how languages of the world differ in this respect. I pursue this research focusing on two major empirical domains: traditional grammatical categories and categories belonging to the <em>language of interaction</em> which I hypothesize is also constrained by grammar.</p>

<p>In my 2014 monograph, I develop a framework for discovering and comparing <strong>grammatical categories</strong> across languages. This work was inspired by 15 years of fieldwork on two languages indigenous to North America (Halkomelem, Blackfoot). It seeks to reconcile a tension between two opposing views: Typologists observe that languages differ in their categorial inventories but generative linguists assume that there is a core which all languages share, including a set of universal categories. The key to reconciling this tension, I argue, is to assume that the categories we observe are always constructed on a language-specific basis, but that there are some universal building blocks involved in their construction, namely the <em>universal spine, </em>a hierarchically organized set of functions which is at the core of constructing sentential meanings.&nbsp;</p>

<p>I have since used this framework to explore an empirical domain which lies outside of what traditional grammars and modern linguistic theory have considered, namely the <strong>language of interaction</strong><em>.</em> When embedded in a conversation, sentences are enriched with elements that serve to manage interaction (e.g., particles like <em>hm, oh, </em>and sentence intonation). My research has revealed that the linguistic behavior of these elements – their universal and their language-specific properties – can be explained in much the same way as that of grammatical categories of the traditional type.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Thus, my research links to neighboring fields, including philosophy (referential semantics, pragmatics), sociology (conversation analysis), and psychology (theory of mind).&nbsp;</p>

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