Postdoctoral Fellowship: SPRF: A Cross-Linguistic Study of Complex Verbal Predicates

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) and the Linguistics programs. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research.

NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields.

Under the sponsorship of Dr. Harold Torrence at the University of California, Los Angeles, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating complex verbal predicates cross-linguistically. Particle verbs, a type of complex predicate, have been extensively studied in Germanic languages like English.

In these constructions, e.g. John picked up/out/on Mary, both the verb and the preposition/particle contribute to the overall meaning of the predicate. This project documents and describes particle verb constructions in four understudied languages in order to broaden the base of data that researchers use in studying an issue of long-standing complexity in linguistic research, namely, how the verb and preposition/particle work together to generate the overall meaning.

This project will advance scientific knowledge of verbal argument structures by undertaking the first detailed investigation of complex predicates in four understudied languages. The materials that it develops will provide crucial empirical data for syntacticians in testing hypothesis regarding complex predicate structures while enriching our understanding of the overall syntax of these languages.

The training of student researchers will enable them to conduct research on their native languages, ensuring that ongoing high-quality research will be able to continue. Finally, it will expand knowledge of diverse languages with implications for American educators

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.