Research areas:
- Development of interpretive knowledge: phrasal semantics, lexical semantics and grammatically computed pragmatic inferences
- Sentence processing: information integration in L2 processing
I am interested in second language learners' knowledge of the interpretations available to a sentence that are not grammatical in the learner's native language and in the precise manner in which second language learners interpret sentences of the target language input, with special interest in the integration of information from context, pragmatics, prosody, semantics and syntax.
In a string of experiments, I have investigated the extent to which context can override syntactic information in the manner in which second language learners perceive sentences.
Research Interests:
- Psycholinguistics: behavioral (judgments, reading times, reaction times, etc.) and brain (electroencephalography) measures
- Grammatical area: phrasal semantics and grammatically computed pragmatic inferences
- Second language theory: Fundamental properties of second language grammar and processing, and parser-grammar relations
Most of Dekydtspotter's research addresses second language learners' interpretation of sentences. His primary interests reside in the role of natural language syntax in the real-time integration of information from context, pragmatics, prosody, lexical and semantics involved in interpreting a second language.
Professor Dekydtspotter’s primary research foci lie in the degrees to which second language learners can acquire sentence types that are not grammatical in the learner's native language as well as with the precise manner in which second language perceivers in various stages of development go about interpreting sentences of the target language input, with special interest in the integration of information from various domains: context, pragmatics, prosody, semantics and syntax.
Research Interests: syntax-semantics interface; second-language acquisition research; syntactic and semantic theory
