Heather Lee Taylor
linguist

email(s):
HeatherLeeTaylor att gmail dot com
HEV att msu dot edu

about my research:
I am a formal linguist who specializes in syntactic analysis and syntactic theory. Through my work, I endeavor to investigate these broad questions:

  • What kinds of representations of knowledge exist in the human mind?
  • How is language represented in the mind?
  • Is any of the knowledge of language innate?
  • Is the ability to learn a language sensitive to a developmentally predetermined critical period?

Research Interests:
  • theoretical syntax and syntactic analysis
  • language acquisition (first and second)
  • semantics and pragmatics


    • My CV can be downloaded here.

    Currently, I'm a research affiliate with Alan Beretta's neurolinguistics lab at Michigan State University.

    Education:

    Ph.D.

    Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland at College Park
    Dissertation - “Grammar Deconstructed: Constructions and the Curious Case of the Comparative Correlative” [Norbert Hornstein, Director]

    M.A.

    Program in Linguistics, Department of English, Eastern Michigan University
    Thesis - “On Tough-constructions and Construal-as-Movement: Be tough! It's too easy to give up!” [T. Daniel Seely, Director]

    B.A.

    		 Baylor University, Waco Texas
    Major: Psychology
    Minor: Child Development


    a recent picture

    College-Level Teaching in Linguistics:

    courses taught

    • Introduction to Cognitive Science
    • Child Language Acquisition
    • Special Topics in Syntax (WH-movement and relative clauses)
    • Introduction to Linguistics (200- & 400-level)

    institutions
    my hometown

    Papers and Publications:

    papers  
    2009

    (co-authored with Konstantia Kapetangianni) “Comparative Correlatives in Greek: The Syntax of oso,” in C. Halpert, J. Hartman and D. Hill (eds.) Proceedings of the 2007 Workshop in Greek Syntax and Semantics at MIT.

    2009 “The complementizer the,” in R. P. Leow, H. Campos, & D. Lardiere (eds.) Little Words: Their History, Phonology, Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics, and Acquisition.
    2008 “The Syntactically Well-Behaved Comparative Correlative,” in Brucart, J.M., & Gavarró, A. (eds.) Merging Features: Computation, Interpretation and Acquisition.
    2007 “Movement from IF-clause adjuncts” in A. Conroy, C. Jing, C. Nakao, & E. Takahashi (eds.) University of Maryland Working Papers in Linguistics (UMWPiL) Volume 15, pp. 192-206.
    2006

    "Out on Good Syntactic Behavior," ms., University of Maryland, College Park (Doctoral candidacy paper).
    2005 “Can comparative correlatives be derived under minimalist assumptions?” in Davis, C., A. R. Deal, & Y. Zabbal (eds.) Proceedings of the 36th meeting of the North East Linguistics Society (NELS), GLSA, Amherst, MA.
    2005 “The Web in theoretical linguistics research: two case studies using the Linguist's Search Engine,” (authors - Philip Resnik, Aaron Elkiss, Heather Taylor and Ellen Lau) in Proceedings of 31st Berkeley Linguistics Society.
    edited volumes  
    2006 University of Maryland Working Papers in Linguistics (UMWPiL) volume 14, eds, Nina Kazanina, Utako Minai, Philip J. Monahan and Heather L. Taylor

    long hair


    Presentations:

    2015

    Taylor, Heather Lee. “Be free! (of construction-specific grammar),” presented at linguistics colloquium, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, January 29.
    2009

    Taylor, Heather Lee, Nick Ellis & Nuria Sagarra. “Learned attention affects in SLA,” presented at Georgetown University Round Table on Language and Linguistics (GURT) 2009, Georgetown University, Washington DC, March 13-15.
    2008

    Taylor, Heather Lee. “The more things change, the more they stay the same: Syntax of Comparative Correlatives,” presented University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, Feb 12.
    2007 Kapetangianni, Konstantia & Heather Lee Taylor (co-authored paper). “Comparative Correlatives in Greek: the syntax of oso,” presented at 8th International Conference on Greek Linguistics (ICGL-8), at University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece.
    2007 Kapetangianni, Konstantia & Heather Lee Taylor (co-authored paper). “Comparative Correlatives in Greek: the syntax of oso,” presented at Workshop on Greek Syntax and Semantics, (commentary by Rajesh Bhatt), at MIT, May 20-22.
    2007 Kapetangianni, Konstantia & Heather Lee Taylor (co-authored paper). “The syntax of Greek equative comparatives,” accepted for presentation at 18th International Symposium on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics (ISTAL), at Aristotle University of Thessoloniki, Thessoloniki, Greece, May 3-6.
    2007 Pires, Acrisio & Heather Lee Taylor (co-authored paper). “The Syntax of Wh-in-situ and Common Ground,” presented at the 43rd Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS 43), University of Chicago, May 3-5.
    2007 Pires, Acrisio & Heather Lee Taylor (co-authored paper). “The Syntax of Wh-in-situ and Common Ground,” presented at the Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL) 37, University of Pittsburgh, March 15-18.
    2007 Taylor, Heather Lee. “The complementizer the,” presented at Georgetown University Round Table on Language and Linguistics (GURT) 37, Georgetown University, Washington DC, March 8-11. Chosen for Best Student Paper/Presentation Award in the conference.
    2007 Pires, Acrisio & Heather Lee Taylor (co-authored paper). “The Syntax of Wh-in-situ and Common Ground,” accepted for presentation at Penn Linguistics Colloquium 31, University of Pennsylvania, Feb 23-25.
    2007 Pires, Acrisio & Heather Lee Taylor (co-authored paper). “The Syntax of Wh-in-situ and Common Ground: Discourse-Pragmatics and I-Language,” presented at Biolinguistic Investigations, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Feb 23-25.
    2006

    Taylor, Heather Lee. “Conditionals and (the lack of) CED violations,” presented at Michigan Linguistic Society, Oakland University, Rochester Michigan
    2006 Taylor, Heather Lee. “The Syntactically Well-Behaved Comparative Correlative,” presented at the 29th Colloquium, Generative Linguistics of the Old World (GLOW), UAB-Casa Convalescència, Barcelona Spain, April 6-8.
    2006 Taylor, Heather Lee. “Moving out of IF-clauses If an IF-clause is sentence initial...” presented in the Adjuncts/Modifiers Workshop, Generative Linguistics of the Old World (GLOW), UAB-Casa Convalescència, Barcelona Spain, April 5.
    2005 Taylor, Heather Lee. “Can comparative correlatives be derived under minimalist assumptions?” poster presented at the North Eastern Linguistics Society (NELS) 36, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
    2005 Taylor, Heather Lee. “Pragmatics, Intonation, and WH-in-situ,” presented at the SouthEastern Conference on Linguistics (SECOL) LXXII, Sheraton Conference Center, Raleigh, North Carolina.
    2005

    Taylor, Heather Lee. “The Syntax of Correlation: Deriving Comparative Correlatives”, at syntax discussion group, University of Michigan – Ann Arbor.

    2005 Resnik, Philip, Aaron Elkiss, Heather Lee Taylor and Ellen Lau. “The Web in theoretical linguistics research: two case studies using the Linguist's Search Engine,” paper presented at 31st Meeting of Berkeley Linguistics Society.
    2004 Taylor, Heather Lee. “Interclausal (co)dependency: the case of the comparative
    correlative,” presented at Michigan Linguistic Society Annual Meeting, University of Michigan-Flint.
    2003

    Taylor, Heather Lee. “Tough-constructions and degree ADVPs as parasitic gaps in English,” at syntax discussion group, University of Michigan – Ann Arbor.
    2003 Taylor, Heather Lee. “A construal-as-movement analysis of a new type of tough-construction,” presented at the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) 2003 Annual Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia
    2002 Taylor, Heather Lee. “Tough-constructions involving degree ADVPs: A Construal-as-
    Movement approach,” presented at Michigan Linguistic Society Annual Meeting, Wayne State University.
    2002 Taylor, Heather Lee. “Adverbs Are Too Important to Ignore: Complementation of Degree
    Adverbs,” presented at Eastern Michigan University Graduate Research Fair 2002, Ypsilanti, Michigan
    2001 Appleby, Michael, Lydia Grebenyova and Heather Taylor-Loring. “Binding Principles of Children in First-Language Acquisition,” presented at Eastern Michigan University Graduate Research Fair 2001, Ypsilanti Michigan.

    my most recent passport/visa photo

    What I'm doing right now beyond my research in linguistics:

  •  reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus and considering this work in light of where consciousness resides in the mind
  • finding recipes that include apple vinegar as an ingredient (I've somehow acquired over a gallon and I have no idea what to do with it.)

    • Links of interests:

    A woman I admire

    "Faculty of Language" blog

     
    me before I became left-handed