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Research Interests
My background is in syntactic theory and the
acquisition/development of syntax in children (first
language). I'm also interested in a broad range of issues in
cognitive science including visual cognition, spatial
representations, and learnability theory. My dissertation is
on the acquisition of the copula in English.
Education
- Ph.D. August, 2000. Now available! ps
or pdf Title:
The Development of the Copula in Child English: The
Lightness of Be. Dissertation advisors:
Nina Hyams and
Edward
Stabler.
- M.A., Dec. 1997, UCLA.
Thesis title: Acquiring a Grammar with Covert Head
Incorporation: The Case of Have as a Complex
Verb.
M.A. Thesis Adviser: Edward
Stabler
- B.A., magna cum laude, June 1995, Wellesley
College.
Honors Thesis: Acquisition of Syntax in Child German:
Verb Finiteness and Verb Placement
Papers, Publications and Conference Presentations
- Becker, Misha (2000) The Acquisition of the Copula in
English, paper presented at WCCFL XIX, February 2000 (to
appear in proceedings volume).
- Becker, Misha (2000) Production and Omission of the
Copula in Child English, paper presented at the 76th
Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America,
Chicago, January 2000.
- Becker, Misha (1999) The Acquisition of the English
Copula, paper presented at the 24th Boston University
Conference on Language Development, November 1999 (to
appear in proceedings volume).
- Becker, Misha (1999) The Acquisition of Copulas,
paper presented at Generative Approaches to Language
Acquisition (GALA), Potsdam, Germany, September
1999.
- Becker, Misha & Nina Hyams (1999) Modal Reference
in Children's Root Infinitives, paper presented at the
30th Stanford Child Language Research Forum, Stanford,
April 1999, to appear in proceedings volume.
- Becker, Misha (1999) The Acquisition of Copulas.
Dissertation prospectus, UCLA. [download: .ps
or .pdf]
- Becker, Misha (1999) The 'Some' Indefinites, paper
presented at Colloque de Syntaxe et Semantique à
Paris, October 1997. In G. Storto (ed.) Syntax at
Sunset 2, UCLA Working Papers in Linguistics vol. 3.
[download: .ps or
.pdf]
- Becker, Misha (1999) The Use of Modal Verbs and
Modality in Child German, UCLA ms. [dowload:
.ps or .pdf]
- Becker, Misha (1999) The Acquisition of Modals and
Modality in Child German, paper presented at the 75th
Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Los
Angeles, January 1999.
- Hoekstra, Teun, Nina Hyams & Misha Becker (1999)
The Role of the Specifier and Finiteness in Early
Grammar, in D. Adger, S. Pintzuk, B. Plunkett & G.
Tsoulas (eds.) Specifiers: Minimalist Approaches.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 251-270.
- Becker, Misha (1999) Syntactic and Metric Constraints
on Children's Function Morphemes, in A. Greenhill, H.
Littlefield & C. Tano (eds.) Proceedings of the
23rd Boston University Conference on Language
Development, Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press, pp.
80-92.
- Becker, Misha (1998) The Acquisition of Languages
with Complex Heads, poster presented at the Utrecht
Congress on Storage and Computation in Linguistics,
Utrecht, The Netherlands, October 1998.
- Becker, Misha (1998) Acquiring Grammars with Complex
Heads: A Model Using Have as a Complex Verb, in
Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Conference of the
Cognitive Science Society, M. A. Gernsbacher & S.
Derry, eds., Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp.
132-137.
- Becker, Misha (1998) Why Children Omit Function
Morphemes: Metric vs. Syntactic Structure, in B. Bergen,
M. Plauché & A. Bailey (eds.) Proceedings
of the 24th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics
Society, Berkeley, CA, February 1998, pp. 13-23.
- Becker, Misha (1997) "Acquiring a Grammar with Covert
Head Incorporation: The Case of Have as a Complex
Verb," MA Thesis, UCLA. [download: .ps
or .pdf]
- Hoekstra, Teun, Nina Hyams & Misha Becker (1997)
The Underspecification of Number and the Licensing of
Root Infinitives, in E. Hughes, M. Hughes, and A.
Greenhill (eds.), Proceedings of the 21st annual
Boston University Conference on Language Development,
Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press, pp. 293-306.
Teaching Experience
T.A. for Ling.
130/233 Language Development (Prof. Hyams, Prof.
Curtiss)
T.A. for Ling.
20 Introduction to Linguistics (Prof. Broadwell)
T.A. for Ling.
120B Syntax I (Prof. Stowell)
Academic Achievements
- 1999-2000, Dissertation Year Fellowship awarded
through UCLA Graduate Division
- Summer 1997, awarded the UCLA Graduate Division
Summer Mentorship Fellowship
- 1996-1998, recipient of Cognitive Science Research
Training Grant (NIH/Psychology)
- Phi Beta Kappa; Dean's Fellowship, UCLA
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