Dr Graciela Tesan

Ph.D. in Linguistics

Macquarie Center of Cognitive Science

Macquarie University, Australia

My research interests extend from Language Acquisition -with a focus on parameter theory- to language processing and theoretical syntax. I am interested in children's implicit (or innate) knowledge of principles and parameters, how this innate knowledge unfolds from the initial stage to the steady stage, and how this innate knowledge is instantiated in the brain.

Togetther with Dr Rosalind Thornton, we have investigated the unfolding of parameter values (i.e. functional categories) in child English. In my dissertation, I investigated the possibility that the apparent grammatical omissions and pronoun mistakes some English speaking children produce (e.g. she dances vs. she s dance vs. she dance) are a byproduct of parameter (mis) setting and morphogical categorization. We are currently elaborating on our initial findings, extending these ideas to VP-ellipsis, fragments, and questions.

My interests in Generative Linguistics started when I found out that it sucks to read Shakespeare in Spanish (the same way it sucks to read Julio Cortazar in English) . Different reasons led me to start studying English, and not Biology, my childhood interest. In my second year of college, I found an optimal combination of these two areas: Language meets Biology in a Generative wormhole, stirred but not shaken. Since then, I have been hung up on the Linguistics tree, specially in the Psycholinguistic side.

I'm from Argentina, more precisely, from Rio Negro, Patagonia Argentina, where I attended the Universidad Nacional del Comahue.