I'm an associate professor of linguistics at the University of Ottawa.

My research interests in linguistics include locality and domains in phonology, morphology and syntax, argument structure, category-changing morphology, the semantics of tense, aspect and modality, and the syntax-phonology interface.

My thesis, defended in 2007 at MIT, is about the syntax and semantics of nominalizations in Mebengokre, a Jê language from the Eastern Amazon in whose description, documentation and analysis I've been involved for over fifteen years. In a current SSHRC-funded research project with Ana Arregui (PI) and María Luisa Rivero, we explore the cross-linguistic expression of modality, i.e., the devices that languages use to talk about situations that are not necessarily true in the present state of affairs. Some recent papers from this project may be found here.

I'm interested more broadly in the Brazilian Highlands as a cultural area, in its ethnographic, historical, archaeological and linguistic aspects. Through my work with Mebengokre and related languages, I hope to make a contribution to a better understanding of the prehistory of this region.

For information on courses taught and other department activities, please visit my page in the Linguistics Department site.

Pour l'Olympiade linguistique canadienne francophone, veuillez visiter le site de l'OLCF.