Research

I am currently involved in the following projects:

As Principal Investigator

Mapping the Dene Clause

Although Dene languages are broadly SOV, and have been described as rigidly verb-final, a large number of clitics, particles and discourse markers occur post-verbally. Many of these show properties that suggest they are functional heads. By testing the selectional, combinatorial and semantic properties of these post-verbal elements, we can build a detailed picture of the Dene CP domain.

Copulas and predication.

Multiple-copula languages pose a challenge for views of copulas as content-free hosts of agreement: how do we reconcile copulas' lack of lexical semantics with the fact that copula choice can change the interpretation of a sentence? I suggest that the answer lies in copulas spelling out different combinations of features, and pursue empirical verification of this idea across languages.

As Co-Investigator

The Paradict

A web-based generative verb dictionary as a tool for language teachers, learners and researchers. Currently implemented for three Dene languages  Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì (Dogrib), Tsúùt'ínà (Sarsi) and Diné Bizaad (Navajo), this dictionary generates full verb paradigms from minimal user input. (Co-Investigator: Chris Harvey)