Working within the framework of Chomskian transformational generative grammar, we are concerned with the syntactic structure of human language. Through detailed investigation of particular languages, we seek to discover the basic structural properties of language in general, and the parametric ways in which languages can differ. Among our major interests are syntactic universals, the interaction of syntax and semantics, and the formal properties of syntactic systems. This work is directed at such questions as how knowledge of grammaticality and sentence relatedness is represented, and what the constraints on human language are that make it possible for a child to acquire such knowledge.

A human language is a very complex, rule-governed system, and yet children learn their native language in the space of a very few years, at an age when they are unable to master mathematics or other cognitive skills of comparable complexity. Linguists argue that this rapid learning is possible because a child is born with knowledge of the basic principles of language structure and the parameters of permissible variation. In studying language acquisition, we empirically evaluate the claim that children's evolving grammars are governed by innate principles and parameters. We are also concerned with developing new empirical methods for assessing children's grammatical knowledge.

Semantic research is concerned with giving a systematic description of the interpretation of natural language expressions on the basis of their syntactic structure. We pursue Montague's tradition in formal semantics within the framework of generative grammar. Our goal is to account for native speakers' intuitions about what sentences of different kinds imply. Our tools are the formal methods and concepts that have evolved from semantic research over the past 30 years, together with modern syntactic theory. We investigate the semantics of phenomena such as questions, comparatives, clefts, negative polarity items, ellipsis and plurals, and try to find general properties of the interpretational mechanism that natural languages employ.

Language is a combination of form and meaning. The form side comprises the morphosyntactic organization, as well as the perceptible manifestation, of morphemes and words. Phonology is a subsystem or component of the grammar that accounts for the knowledge permitting language users to store in memory, produce, and understand the perceptible form. The phonological system, being a mental system, is abstract and potentially neutral with respect to whether the perceptible form is manifested in speech or sign. Our research follows the tradition of generative phonology in accounting for the phonological system in terms of primitives (‘features’), constraints, and parameters that characterize complex constellations of these primitives and (repair) processes, at various levels of representation (lexical, post-lexical). Of special concern are feature theory, the interaction between constraints and repairs, the representation of syllable structure, stress, and harmony processes. Evidence from diachronic change, child language acquisition, and sign-language phonology complements the usual synchronic data from adult language.

Adopting the methodology of generative linguistics, we investigate the grammatical structure and acquisition of natural sign languages (American Sign Language, Sign Language of the Netherlands). Such study, apart from serving a purpose in itself, helps to reveal those properties of language that are modality-dependent as opposed to deeper linguistic universals that hold true of both spoken and signed languages. We offer courses and conduct research on the phonology, morphology, syntax, and acquisition of signed languages; courses in American Sign Language are offered through the Department of Modern and Classical Languages.

Morphologists study the connection between form and meaning in linguistic expressions. The traditional unit of organization for this field is the morpheme, often described as the minimal meaningful unit of grammar (thus 'dog' and 's' are morphemes of English-in combination they refer to a plurality of canines). Morphological theory seeks to explain, among other things, the range of possible and impossible combinations of morphemes, and in a sense, the range of possible words. This field stands at the juncture between phonology and syntax and is studied in combination with these other areas.