Institute for Research in Cognitive Science (IRCS)
3401 Walnut Street, Suite 400A
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104
215 573-6284

chenmain at seas dot upenn dot edu

I am curious about many things, but I am most interested in the properties of grammar formalisms that have been proposed to model natural language syntax and phonology. I like looking into the range of patterns predicted to be possible by a formalism and understanding which parts of the formal machinery account for which parts of observed linguistic phenomena. Currently, I work mostly within Tree Adjoining Grammar and related approaches, but I also intend to keep an eye on developments in Optimality Theory. Some additional interests include language acquisition, Mandarin linguistics, and bilingualism.

I have just started a postdoc at IRCS under the supervision of Aravind Joshi. While here, I plan both to continue pursuing the type of research I am most comfortable with and to branch out into new areas. stay tuned . . .

Unsurprisingly, I am a regular at the XTAG group meetings.

I also help run the Common Ground Seminar.

On the Generation and Linearization of Multi-Dominance Structures

Before coming here, I studied in the Department of Cognitive Science at Johns Hopkins University. Bob Frank supervised my dissertation, which explores syntactic representations that allow nodes with multiple parents. That is, syntactic representations include non-tree graphs.
If you're curious, you can read the abstract or you can take a look by clicking on the title above.

Some papers, handouts, and slides will soon be available here.
These include work on Targeted Constraint Optimality Theory, Mandarin imperatives, acquisition of Mandarin, and finite state Optimality Theory.