.	Prof. Nina Hyams UCLA Linguistics Dept. 3125 Campbell Hall Los Angeles CA 90095-1543 hyams@humnet.ucla.edu

Nina M. Hyams' primary research area is grammatical development in first language acquisition. She has worked on several aspects of the early grammar of English and other languages including the development of functional structure and subjects, the acquisition of binding principles (in Icelandic) and control, ergativity and auxiliary selection in Romance. She is especially interested in the relationship between linguistic theory and language development, for example, the implications of parameter theory for development, and also in the interface between syntactic and semantic/pragmatic development.

CV and research papers linked to this page are mostly in Adobe PDF format.  For the free Adobe PDF reader; click here.

Curriculum Vitae

Downloadable Publications

2009

• Hyams, N. In Press. Missing subjects in early child language. In in J. De Villiers and T. Roeper (eds.), Handbook of Language Acquisition Theory in Generative Grammar, Kluwer, The Netherlands. [word doc]

2008

• Hyams, N. 2008. Reflections on Motherese, in T. Sano, Miwa Isobe, Mika Endo, Koichi Otaki, Koji Sugisaki, Takeru Suzuki .(eds), Enterprise in the Cognitive Science of Language: Festshrift in honor of Yukio Otsu. [pdf]

• Orfitelli, R. & Hyams, N. 2008. An Experimental Study of Children's Comprehension of Null Subjects: Implications for Grammatical/ Performance Accounts. In H. Chan, H. Jacob, & E. Kapia (Eds.) Proceedings of the 32nd annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, volume 2, 335-346. [pdf]

2007

• Hyams, N. 2007. Aspect Matters. In Deen, K.U., J. Nomura, B. Schulz & B.D. Schwartz (Eds.), Proceedings of the Inaugural Conference on Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition -North America (GALANA). Cambridge, MA, UCONN/MIT Working Papers in Linguistics. [word doc]

• Hyams, N. 2007. Aspectual Effects on Interpretation in Early Grammar. Language Acquisition 14,3. [pdf]

2006

• Salustri, M. and N. Hyams. 2006. Looking for the Universal Core of the RI Stage. In Torrens, V.,Escobar, L. (Eds.) The Acquisition of Syntax in Romance Languages Amsterdam: John Benjamins.[pdf]

• Hyams, N. Ntelitheos, D. & C. Manorohanta. 2006. The Acquisition of the Malagasy Voicing System: Implications for the adult grammar, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 24;4. [pdf]

2005

• Hyams, N. 2005. Child Non-finite Clauses and the Mood-Aspect Connection: Evidence from Child Greek. In R. Slabakova & P. Kempchinsky (eds.) Aspectual Inquiries, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands. [pdf]

2003

• Gilkerson, J., Hyams, N & S. Curtiss. 2003. On the scope of negation: More evidence for early parameter setting. Procedeedings of GALA 10, LOT, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands. [pdf]

• Salustri, M. & Hyams, N. 2003. Is there an analogue to the RI stage in the null subject languages. BUCLD 27. Cascadilla Press, Sommerville, MA. [pdf]

• Torrence, H. and N. Hyams. 2003. On the Role of Aspect in Determining Finiteness and Temporal Interpretation in Early Grammar. In J. van Kampen and S. Bauuw (eds.). Proceedings of GALA. LOT, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands. [pdf]

2002

• Deen, K. U, and N. Hyams. 2002. The Form and Interpretation of Finite and Non-finite Verbs in Swahili, BUCLD 26, Cascadilla Press, Sommerville, MA. [pdf]

• Hyams, N. 2002. Clausal Structure in Early Greek: A reply to Varlokosta, Vainikka and Rohrbacher and a reanalysis, The Linguistic Review 19. [pdf]

• Gilkerson, Jill, Nina Hyams, and S. Curtiss. 'No I Understand Negation’: A preferential looking paradigm study of early knowledge of sentential and anaphoric negation. [pdf]

2001

• Hyams, N. 2001. Now you hear it, now you don't: The Nature of Optionality in Child Language, Proceedings of BUCLD 25, Cascadilla Press, Sommerville, MA. [pdf]

• Thrift, E. & Hyams, N. 2001. The Role of Aspect in Licensing Object Drop in Child Dutch. Proceedings of BUCLD 25, Sommerville, MA.[pdf]

1999

• Hoekstra, T. & Hyams, N. 1999. The Eventivity Constraint and Modal Reference Effect in Root Infinitives, Proceedings of BUCLD 23, Cascadilla Press, Sommerville, MA. [pdf]

1998

• Hoekstra, Teun and Nina Hyams. 1998. Aspects of Root Infinitives. Lingua 106, 81-112. [pdf]

• Hoekstra, T. & Hyams. N. 1998. Agreement and Finiteness of V2: Evidence from Child Language. Proceedings of BUCLD 22, Cascadilla Press, Sommerville, MA. [pdf]

1997

• Hoekstra, T., Hyams, N. and Becker, M. 1997. The Underspecification of Number and the Licensing of Root Infinitives, Proceedings of BUCLD 21, Cascadilla Press, Sommerville, MA. [pdf]

1994

• Hyams, N. 1994. V2, Null arguments and C-Projections, in T. Hoekstra and B. Schwartz (eds.) Language Acquisition Studies in Generative Grammar, Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishers. [pdf]

• Hyams, N. 1994. Discreteness and Variation in Child Language: Implications for Principle and Parameter Models of Language Development, in Y. Levy (ed.), Other Children, Other Languages, Hillsdale, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. [pdf]

• Hyams, N. 1994. Null Subjects in Child Language and the Implications of Cross-Linguistic variation," in B. Lust, G. Hermon & J. Kornfilt (ede.) Syntactic Theory and Language Acquisition: Cross-Linguistic Perspectives, Hillsdale, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. [pdf]

1993

• Hyams, N. & Wexler, K. 1993. The Grammatical Basis of Null Subjects in Child Language, Linguistic Inquiry, 24. [pdf]

1992

• Sigurjónsdóttir, S. & Hyams, N. 1992. The Subset Principle and the Acquisition of the 'Long Distance' Reflexive SIG in Icelandic, in Proceedings of ESCOL IV, Ohio State University. [pdf]

• Hyams, N. 1992. Morphological Development in Italian and its Relevance to Parameter- setting models: Comments on the Paper by Pizzuto and Caselli, Journal of Child Language 19.3. [pdf]

1990

• Sigurjónsdóttir, S. and N. Hyams. 1990. The Development of 'Long Distance Anaphora': A Cross Linguistic Comparison with Special Reference to Icelandic, Language Acquisition, 1,2 [pdf]

1988

• Hyams, N. 1988. A Principles and Parameters Approach to the Study of Child Language, Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, 27:153 161, Stanford University Press, Stanford University. Reprinted in Cunyforum: A Festschrift for D. T. Langendoen. [pdf]

• Hyams, N. 1988. The Core/Periphery Distinction in Language Acquisition, Proceedings of the Eastern States Conference on Linguistics, vol. 4. [pdf]

1984

• Hyams, N. 1984. Semantically Based Child Grammars: Some Empirical Inadequacies, Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, 23:58 65, Stanford University Press, Stanford University. [pdf]

• Hyams, N. 1984. The Acquisition of Infinitival Complements: A reply to Bloom, Tackeff and Lahey, Journal of Child Language, 11:679 683. [pdf]

1983

• Hyams, N. 1983. The Pro Drop Parameter in Child Grammars, Proceedings of the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, vol. 2. [pdf]

1981

• Hyams, N. 1981. Agreement and the Choice of Auxiliary in Italian, Proceedings of the North Eastern Linguistics Society, vol. 11, reprinted as Thematic Constraints on the Choice of Auxiliary, in Studi di Grammatica Italiana, Academic della Crusca, Florence, Italy. [pdf]

Doctoral Students

• Sharon Hilles, Professor, CalPoly Pomona University, California
  PhD 1989: Access to Universal Grammar in Second Language Acquisition


• Sigga Sigurjónsdóttir, Professor, University of Reykavijk, Iceland
  PhD 1992: Binding in Icelandic: Evidence from Language Acquisition


• Tetsuya Sano, Professor, Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan
  PhD 1995: Roots in Language Acquisition: A Comparative Study of Japanese and European Languages


• Jeannette Schaeffer, Professor, Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva, Israel
  PhD 1997: Direct Object Scrambling in Duthc and Italian Child Language


• John Grinstead, Associate Professor, Ohio State University
  PhD 1998: Subjects, Sentential Negation and Imperatives in Child Spanish and Catalan


• Misha Becker, Associate Professor, University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill
  PhD 2000: The Development of the Copula in Child English: The Lightness of be


• Kamil Ud Deen, Associate Professor, University of Hawai'i, Honolulu Hawai'i
  PhD 2002: The Acquisition of Nairobi Swahili: The Morphosyntax of Inflectional Prefixes and Subjects


• Jill Gilkerson, Director of Language Research, Infoture, Boulder, Colorado
  PhD 2006: Acquiring English Particle Verbs: Age and transfer effects in L2 acquisition


• Ana Lucia Santos, Assistant Professor, University of Lisbon, Portugal
  PhD 2006: Ellipsis and Focus in the Acquisition of Portuguese


• Shigeko Sekine, Assistant Professor, California State University/ Monterrey, California
  PhD 2006: The Effects of Phonological and Lexical Factors on the Perception of Adult L2 Perception: A cross-linguistic study


• Reiko Okabe, Assistant Professor, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
  PhD 2008: The Acquisition of Japanese Causatives


• Robyn Orfitelli
  MA 2008: Null Subjects in Child Language: The Competing Roles of Competence and Performance; PhD in progress

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Last updated June. 20, 2005