Direct Objects and Language Acquisition

Ana Teresa Perez-Leroux is Professor of Spanish and Linguistics, and Director of the Cognitive Science Program at the University of Toronto. Her research seeks to understand how children learn the syntax and semantics of the smallest and silent components of sentence grammar, including determiners, prepositions, number, tense, mood and aspect, null objects and subjects, and how grammatical complexity develops from these components. Mihaela Pirvulescu is Associate Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Language Studies, University of Toronto. Her research looks at the morpho-syntactic expression and acquisition of verbal argument structure, and how bilingualism and multilingualism impacts the course of language acquisition. Yves Roberge is Principal of New College and Professor of Linguistics in the French Department at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on the syntax and semantics of French and other Romance languages, especially Canadian French, as well as dialectal variation, first language acquisition, and the syntax-morphology interface.