Background

Alan’s research spans theoretical linguistics, psycholinguistics, and computational linguistics, with a focus on experimental and computational approaches to syntax, language acquisition, and sentence processing. His broader goal is to develop an integrated theory of language acquisition and processing by bringing together insights from these areas. In theoretical linguistics, Alan’s recent work investigates the computational nature of core structure-building and syntactic relation-building operations, including Minimal Search, Form Sequence, Ellipsis, Agree, and Labeling. His research in psycholinguistics and computational linguistics addresses several central questions:

1. What learning algorithms support child language acquisition, and how is linguistic input used by these algorithms?
2. How is linguistic knowledge affected or lost in older populations, including individuals with Alzheimer’s disease?
3. How do children develop linguistic knowledge during sentence comprehension, and how do adults apply linguistic knowledge during sentence processing?