About Me (she/her)
I am currently pursuing my doctorate in Linguistics at Stanford University under the advisement of Vera Gribanov and Cleo Condoravdi.
My research centers on theory building in the domain of syntax and semantics. Some phenomena of interest include clause types, ellipsis, negation, and modality.
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Projects
Covert modality
Stanford
Modal interpretation is often associated with a lexical item like should, could, would etc., but modal interpretations are also found in a variety of constructions, untethered to a particular lexical item (covert modality). In recent work, I conduct an experiment that surveys modal interpretations across embedded Wh-infinitival clauses of English (e.g., I know who to call). The study confirms Bhatt's 1999 assessment that Wh-infinitivals have variable force modality, but also presents new problems for a fully uniform account of the modality in Wh-infinitivals.
- In prep.
Negation and ellipsis
Stanford
Negation is generally expressed and interpreted in a single position in English. In instances of apparent ellipsis, negation seems to be interpreted in a higher position. In one strand of this work, I focus on the interpretation of No-answers in English. Modals must and should scope differently with respect to negation in No-answers, whereas in the interpretation of basic declarative sentences with negation, they uniformly scope over negation. I show that this can be accounted for by appealing to a higher-than-normal position for negation in No-answers, also if they are associated with a silent LF. This work thus provides a new diagnostic for teasing apart approaches to English polarity particles, landing in favor of ellipsis-based approaches.
- to appear. Zaitsu, A. High negation and ellipsis in English No-answers. Proceedings of NELS 52.
Acquisition of clause types
University of Maryland, College Park
I built an annotated dataset of speech to children from CHILDES, which looks at the association between clause types (form) and speech acts (function). This work shows that the mapping of declarative-assertions, interrogative-questions, and imperative-requests is highly regular in the child's input, and that, to the extent that mismatches between clause type and speech act exist, they are marked by other features of the sentence: intonation for non-interrogative questions, and modals for non-imperative requests. This provides the groundwork for future research on clause type acquisition.
- 2021. Zaitsu, A., J. Wehbe, V. Hacquard & J. Lidz. Clause types and speech acts in speech to children. Proceedings of ELM 1.
Why-VP
UC Santa Cruz
A fairly common expression, which I descriptively term Why-VP (e.g., Why study linguistics?), has evaded modern syntactic analysis. In this work, I examine the interpretive properties of Why-VP found in naturally-occurring speech and argue that despite its appearances, it is a plain Wh-question 'under the hood.' I argue that its apparently reduced character is not due to ellipsis, but rather to a covert subject (PRO) and a covert modal, likely the one of Wh-infinitivals (Bhatt 1999).
- 2020. Zaitsu, A. Modality force and syntax in an understudied class of reduced why-questions in English. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 5(1): 5.
More about me
Before coming to Stanford, I was a Baggett Fellow at UMD, where I worked with Jeff Lidz and Valentine Hacquard on the acquisition of clause types. Before that, I was a BA/MA student at UC Santa Cruz. I spent many of my years there as a member of the Santa Cruz Ellipsis Group, out of which my MA thesis work grew, advised by Jim McCloskey.
I am originally from San Francisco, CA. I am a proud alumna of Balboa High School, along with my great grandmother who graduated 75 years before me. I enjoy dancing, hiking, my dog, Giants baseball, and the Bay Area hyphy movement of the early 2000s.
