Ana Teresa Pérez-Leroux

It was in Kindergarden when I first heard that people in China spoke Chinese.  "Even the children?”  was what I wanted to know.  That evening, I told my father I was worried: "Papa,  these poor kids. They think in Spanish but need to learn to speak Chinese to talk to their families.” My work is primarily experimental, and aims precisely at that question: how grammar determines meanings, and how monolingual and bilingual children learn about that,  particularly when complex structures and silent constituents are involved.