Dr. Ivona Kučerová is the Director of ARiEAL (since July 1, 2021; reappointed for 2026–2031) and Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Languages at McMaster University, where she leads the Syntax Lab. She received her PhD in Linguistics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007 and held a postdoctoral appointment in Psychology and Language Sciences at University College London before joining McMaster in 2009. In 2026 she received the Linguistic Society of America’s C.L. Baker Award for research excellence in syntax, the discipline’s international award in syntactic theory, conferred every two years on a single mid-career scholar.
Dr. Kučerová’s research asks how the structure of sentences relates to their meaning. She argues that syntax is the autonomous core of the human language faculty and develops diagnostics that separate what syntax does from what the interfaces do, testing the model on genetically unrelated languages (Czech and other Slavic languages, Icelandic, German, Italian, Levantine Arabic, Inuktitut and Mohawk). Her current theoretical work concerns φ-features and grammatical gender, Agree and labelling, copular clauses and anaphora, and nominal integration in associative and comitative structures (SSHRC Insight Grant, 2025–2030). In the Syntax Lab, equipped for EEG and eye-tracking research through CFI and Ontario Research Fund support, she and her students test the timing predictions of this model experimentally (SSHRC Insight Development Grant Syntax in the brain, 2023–2026).
Since 2016 Dr. Kučerová has also worked with Mohawk, Oneida and Tuscarora communities in Ontario, Quebec and New York State on adult immersion and language reclamation, funded by SSHRC and the New Frontiers in Research Fund. This community-led work produced Tehatiwennathe’tányons (2025), an open-access resource hub for Indigenous adult immersion programs, and McMaster’s Diploma in Indigenous Language Revitalization (with Dr. Anna Moro; opened 2024), and was featured by The New York Times and CBC News in 2023. She serves on the editorial board of Cambridge Elements in Generative Syntax and received McMaster’s President’s Award for Excellence in Graduate Supervision (2016) and the LSA’s Linguistic Service Award (2020).
LRW Wilson Hall, Room 4021 Togo Salmon Hall, Room 509 McMaster University 1280 Main Street West Email: kucerov@mcmaster.ca
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Director, ARiEAL Research Centre, McMaster University Professor, Department of Linguistics & Languages, McMaster University Director, Syntax Lab, ARiEAL Research Centre, McMaster University Member, Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition
Kučerová, I., & A. Szczegielniak. (2023). Underspecification of nominal functional categories in semitic and slavic. Journal of Slavic Linguistics, 30(FASL 29 extra issue), 1-18.
Kučerová, I., & A. Szczegielniak. (2023). Remnant licensing and structural economy in VP ellipsis: Evidence from Czech. Journal of Slavic Linguistics, 31(FASL 30 issue), 1-20.
Kučerová, Ivona & Adam Szczegielniak. (2022). (equal contribution). Between pronouns and R-expressions: Pronoun-like lexical noun phrases. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 67(3), 302–327.
Bartošová, J., Chapman, C., Kučerová, I., & Service, E. (2021). Making semantic commitments can be delayed: Evidence from aspectual processing. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale, 75(1), 77–92.
Kučerová, Ivona & Adam Szczegielniak. (2021). (equal contribution). Polish Politeness Markers As a Window into Person-Feature Valuation. Journal of Slavic Linguistics, vol. 29, no. FASL extra issue, Dec. 2021, http://ojs.ung.si/index.php/JSL/article/view/152.
Kučerová, I. (2020). Labeling as two-stage process: Evidence from semantic agreement. In Jeroen van Craenenbroeck, Cora Pots, and Tanja Temmerman (eds.), Recent Developments in Phase Theory. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 183-212.
Kučerová, I. (2019). On the role of person in the mapping of syntactic features onto their interpretable counterparts. Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 64(4), 649–672.
Kučerová, I., & Szczegielniak, A. (2019). Roots, their structure and consequences for derivational timing. Linguistic Review, 36(3), 365–387.
Kučerová, I. (2018). ɸ-Features at the Syntax-Semantics Interface: Evidence from Nominal Inflection. Linguistic Inquiry, 49(4), 813–845.
Kučerová, I. (2018). The double life of gender and its structural consequences: A case study from Standard Italian. In Eric Mathieu (ed.) Gender. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
DeClaire, R., Johns, A., & Kučerová, I. (2017). On optionality in Mohawk noun incorporation. Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics, 39 (A special issue on indigenous languages), 1–10.
Johns, A. & Kučerová, I. (2017). On the morphosyntactic reflexes of information structure in the ergative patterning of the Inuit language. In Coon, J., Massam, D., & Travis, L. D. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Ergativity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 397–418.
Kučerová, I. (2017). On labeling of DP coordinations and the lack of φ-feature resolution in syntactic Agree. In Lamont, A & Tetzloff, K (eds.) NELS 47: Proceedings of the Forty-Seventh Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society. Amherst: University of Massachusetts.
Kučerová, I. (2017). Beyond Russian: On Dnom, Person and Case. In Halpert, C., Kotek, H., & Urk, C. van (eds.) A Pesky Set: Papers for David Pesetsky. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Bartošová, J. & Kučerová, I. (2015). Instrumental Situations: On Case Marking in Copular Clauses in Czech. In Oseki, Y., Esipova, M., & Harves, S. (eds.) Proceedings of the 24th Meeting of Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics. Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications, 1–21.
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