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I am a student in the first year at the Master of English Linguistics at the University of Bucharest, Romania. I am particularly interested in syntax and language acquisition. In the area of syntax, my main area of concern has been the class of modal verbs in English, whose odd behaviour has fascinated me. Can one truly offer a sound syntactic account of the difference between epistemic and deontic modals or necessity and possibility modals (Picallo (1990), Cormack &Smith (2002), Butler (2003) a.o.) ? In my degree paper, entitled “Modals and Negation in English”, coordinated by Larisa Avram, I have tried to make sense of such issues and others. My main concern, however, has been related to the behaviour of modals with respect to negation, which is particularly troublesome, given the fact that sometimes modals scope above negation and sometimes below. Apart from modality, I have also been interested in the acquisition of vocabulary, especially in the “conflict” between the syntactic bootstrapping hypothesis and the semantic bootstrapping hypothesis. I find the experiments used to test such hypotheses (such as the preferential looking paradigm) particularly interesting, and fun. Language acquisition, I believe, draws one nearer to a possible UG. Since children do not yet have a fully-developed IG, testing various linguistic hypotheses on them brings the scientist closer to the incredible mystery of language. Children are also incredible “creators” of language, making new compounds such as “fire-dog” (meaning “a dog sitting by the fire”), for example. How do they do it? What is behind this ever-amazing creative power? Trying to find an answer to such questions is something that I want to make a profession of, combining syntax and language acquisition. Moreover, I love children. I was an English teacher at a school for some months, and I cannot but say that children are the greatest miracle in this world. Working with them in the attempt of discovering things about language would be a pleasure and an honour. My plan for the near future is to write an MA paper combining the study of compounds and language acquisition, and I have just been accepted in Venice next year with an Erasmus scholarship. Accepting me in Poland would be marvellous. It would offer me the chance of learning more about what truly interests me. I have never been to EGG before, and my collegues in Bucharest have told me it is truly worth it. I think it would be a great opportunity for me. |