Research Themes

(i) Theoretical linguistics

  • Formal linguistics, generative syntax;
  • Comparative syntax: Chinese, Chinese dialects, French, English, Qiangic languages.

Research topics:

• The Minimalist Program: MERGE and its properties (Markovian MERGE, free MERGE, etc.), Workspace, (long distance) Agree, Move, Phase, Labeling;

• MERGE; (Victor Pan, Yuqiao Du)

• Workspace, derivation with parallel Workspaces; (Chenghao Hu, Victor Pan)

• Nominal licensing mechanisms; (Chenghao Hu)

• Anti-labeling devices and their crosslinguistic comparison; (Chenghao Hu, Victor Pan)

• Adjunction and labeling; (Victor Pan, Yuqiao Du)

• Coordination; (Yuqiao Du)

• Labeling and DP in Mandarin; (Xiangyu Li)

• Form-Copy and its applications; (Xiangyu Li)

• Labeling reduced structures; (Zetao Xu)

• Cliticization and head-movement in Sogdian; (Zhongyang Yu)

• A’-dependency: interrogative constructions,wh-in-situ, wh-ex-situ, topicalization, cleft-sentences, relativization, resumption, non-standard interrogatives, locality, islands;

• Cartography: left periphery, Sentence-Final Particles, functional projections under the Split-CP hypothesis; (Victor Pan, Dahoon Kim)

• DP structure; (Tingting Weng)

• Quantification: scope-taking, bound variable, gap, resumptive pronoun; wh-quantification (Victor Pan, Zetao Xu, Dahoon Kim, Chenghao Hu)

• Diachronic Chinese syntax: object-fronting; (Victor Pan)

• Interface: syntax-semantics, syntax-information structure, syntax-prosody;

(ii) Heritage language and language contact

• Oversea Chinese and Wu dialects, language contact in Europe; (Zetao Xu, Victor Pan, in collaboration with Prof Roberta D’Alessandro from Utrecht University, Heritage Language Syntax (HLS))

• Chinese as heritage language in France; (Jiaying Huang, in collaboration with Prof Caterina Donati from Université Paris Cité)

(iii) Minority and endangered languages (Sino-Tibetan)

• Language documentation and morpho-syntax of Qiangic languages: nDrapa; (Zetao Xu, Victor Pan)

(iv) Neurolinguistics with formal syntax as theoretical background, brain and language

• A’-dependency: gap, pro and resumption; (Wanxin Li)

• Relativization and its processing; (Jiaying Huang)