Ken Hiraiwa

Research Interests

My research areas of interests are:

Linguistic Typology (qualitative and quantitative)
Syntax
Linguistic Theory
Fieldwork and Endangered and Less Familar Languages
Interfaces with Syntax (Morphology, Semantics, Phonology)

Some research topics include: Clausal Architecture (CP/DP Parallelism, Articulated Clausal Structure), Syntactic Operations, A-bar phenomena (Focus, Prediate Cleft, Topic, Wh), A phenomena (Case/Agreement, movement, Merge/Agree), EPP, Spell-Out (Syntax/PF), Ellipisis, Grammaticalization, Serial Verbs, Nominalization, Ellipsis, Scrambling, Existential constructions, among others.

Some languages of interest include: Japanese, Ryukyuan languages, East Asian languages, West African languages (Gur and Kwa), Native American languages (Athabaskan), Germanic languages (Icelandic) etc.

 

Teaching

Assistant Professor, Meiji Gakuin University Curent-09/2009.
Assistant Professor of Linguistics, University of Victoria (BC, Canada), 05/2009-01/2008.
JSPS Research Fellow, 2008-2005.
Ph.D in Linguistics: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 2005.

 

Grants and Fellowship

2008: University of Victoria, Internal Research Grant. "The A-bar Syntax of the Shuri Okinawan Language and Universal Grammar: A Preliminary Study". University of Victoria [$4,000].
2008-2005: JSPS Research Fellowship
2008-2005: The Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows (No. 1710271): [$33,000]
2007-2005: JSPS Fellowship for Research Abroad (awarded, but declined)
2004-2003: Ken Hale Fellowship for Linguistic Field Research, MIT (used for my fiedlwork in Ghana): [$4,000]
2001: LSA Institute Fellowship. University of California, Santa Barbara, CA.: [$1,500]
2005, 2003-1999: MIT Research Fellowship.
2001-1999: Rotary Japan Foundation Fellowship (awarded, but declined)

 

Services

Editorial Board for Syntax (2011~2008)

Chief Language Editor for SSWL (The Syntactic Structures of World's Languages) (2010~2009)

 

[Ad hoc]

Book/Journal/Grant Reviewer for JEAL, LI, Lingua, NLLT, SAL, Studia Linguistica, Syntax, Mouton de Gruyter, MITWPL, NYUWPL, Gengokenkyuu, CJL/RCL, National Science Foundation (NSF), and others.

Conference Reviewer for NELS, J/K, and others.

 

Fieldwork

Dagbani (2009)
Okinawan (current-2008)
Buli (2004-2003)
Moore (2004-2003)
Gurene (2004-2003)
Dagaare (current-2003)
Kabiye (2006-2005)

 

References

Noam Chomsky (MIT)
Chris Collins (NYU)
Alec Marantz (NYU)
Akira Watanabe (U. of Tokyo)