Dr. Alison Biggs is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Languages at McMaster University. She received her Ph.D. in theoretical linguistics from the University of Cambridge. Before arriving at McMaster, she held research and teaching positions at the University of Oxford, University of Pennsylvania, and Georgetown University.
Dr. Biggs’s research focuses on the formal characterization of speaker knowledge of language. Her main area of investigation is syntax and its interfaces with morphology, semantics, and lexicon. Her research also examines linguistic variation, both cross-linguistic (the possible and impossible ways in which languages and dialects can vary from each other) and inter-individual variability.
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Togo Salmon Hall, Room 506, McMaster University
1280 Main Street West
Email: biggsa2@mcmaster.ca
Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics and Languages, McMaster University
Biggs, A. & Embick, D. (2022) On the event-structural properties of the English get-passive. Linguistic Inquiry 53(2), 211-254.
Biggs, A. & Luo, Z. (2022) Adjective classifiers in Shantou Teochew. Proceedings of Chicago Linguistic Society 56, 25-37.
Biggs, A. (2021). The Done-State Derived Stative: A Case Study in Building Complex Eventualities in Syntax. Syntax 24(3), 297–333.
Biggs, A. (2020). Past/passive participles and locality of attachment. In A. Bárány, T. Biberauer, J. Douglas, & S. Vikner (Eds.), Syntactic Architecture and its Consequences: Synchronic and Diachronic Perspectives, Vol. 1, 319-334.
Biggs, A. (2019). Objects in motion verb phrases. Glossa 4(1), Article 98, 1-31.
Biggs, A. (2018). Locating variation in the dative alternation. In Constantine Lignos, Laurel Mackenzie, and Meredith Tamminga (Eds.), The Locus of Linguistic Variation, 1-32. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Jeoung, H. & Biggs, A. (2017). Variants of Indonesian prepositions as intra-speaker variability at PF. In A. Goodwyn-Davies & K. Djarv (Eds.), University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 23(1), Article 11.
Biggs, A. (2017). Different paths in Directed Manner of Motion. In Kaplan, A. et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics 34, 81–88.
- Haiyang Liu, PhD Student, Cognitive Science of Language Program, McMaster University
- Braulio Lopes, PhD Student, Cognitive Science of Language Program, McMaster University
- Derya Sonmez, Msc Student, Cognitive Science of Language Program, McMaster University
- Jacob Rice, Bachelors, Cognitive Science of Language Program, McMaster University