Jeffrey Lidz

About

I am a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Maryland. I direct the Project on Children's Language Learning and the Infant and Child Studies Consortium. I am also on the Executive Committee of the Maryland Language Science Center and the Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program.

Along with my students and collaborators, I examine syntax and semantics through several lenses - infants and children's language acquisition, cross-linguistic comparisons, and the interface between language and other systems of mind. This kind of research often requires a broad set of tools, and students working with me receive training in a wide range of methods from developmental psychology, language processing, formal syntax & semantics, and computational linguistics. Our recent work examines infant event representations & verb learning, infants' discovery of syntactic dependencies, the role of syntax in acquiring verb meanings, and the psychophysics of number as a probe into quantifier meanings.

From 2012 to 2021, I was the Editor in Chief of Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics.

Lab

Researchers in the Project on Children's Language Learning address fundamental questions about how language is acquired. Employing a variety of tasks, we examine the acquisition and development of syntactic, semantic, phonological, and morphological knowledge in children ranging from 9 months to 6 years of age.

A large component of our research involves cross-linguistic comparisons. Our team has examined language acquisition in children learning English, French, Hindi, Japanese, Kannada, Korean, Malayalam, Mandarin, Russian and Tsez.

Visit the lab here.

Collaborators

Current PhD Students

Former PhD Students

Other Collaborators

Contact

Learning & Universal Grammar

Humans are unique in their ability to acquire language. This capacity likely derives in part from innate constraints on the range of possible languages. Such constraints are necessary but not sufficient to explain language acquisition. Learners must also use information in their linguistic environment to map their experience onto the appropriate representations. Our team is working toward explicit models of the innate contribution of the learner, paired with explicit models of how this contribution makes the input informative for learning a specific language. This work requires the combination of comparative formal linguistics, computational modeling and careful experimentation in the service of understanding learners' perceptual intake and how this intake, when combined with a representation of the space of possible grammars, allows for the growth of a particular grammar in the mind of the learner.

Publications

• Lidz, J. (2023) Parser-Grammar transparency and the development of syntactic dependencies. Language Acquisition PDF
• Perkins, L., N. Feldman & J. Lidz (2022) The Power of Ignoring: Filtering input for argument structure acquisition. Cognitive Science. PDF
• Huang, N., A.S. White, C.-H. Liao, V. Hacquard & J. Lidz (2021) Syntactic bootstrapping attitude verbs despite impoverished morphosyntax. Language Acquisition. PDF
• Knowlton, T. & J. Lidz (2021) Genericity signals the difference between "each" and "every" in child-directed speech. Proceedings of BUCLD 45. PDF
• J. Lidz (2020). “From structuralism to cognitive science: Lila Gleitman’s contributions to the study of language and learning.” in Gleitman, L. & Lidz, J. (ed). Sentence First, Arguments Afterwards: Essays on Language and Learning. Oxford University Press. PDF
• J. Lidz & L. Perkins (2018) The importance of input representations. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 8(6):743-748. PDF
• L. Perkins & J. Lidz (2018). “Syntax in Infancy,” in J. Sprouse (ed.). Experimental Approaches to Syntax. Oxford University Press. PDF
• Lidz, J. (2018) “The explanatory power of linguistic theory,” in N. Hornstein, H. Lasnik, P. Patel-Grosz & C. Yang (eds). Syntactic Structures after 60 Years: The Impact of the Chomskyan Revolution in Linguistics. De Gruyter: Berlin. PDF
• Lidz, J. & L. Perkins (2018) “Language Acquisition,” In J. Wixted (ed.) Stevens Handbook of Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience. Wiley. PDF
• Gagliardi, A., N. Feldman and J. Lidz. (2017) “Sources of statistical insensitivity: Optimal models of suboptimal performance.” Cognitive Science, 41:188-217. PDF
• Lidz, J., C.H. Han & J. Musolino (2016) “Endogenous Content: A Reply to Piantadosi & Kidd,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113.PDF
• Han, C.H., J. Musolino and J. Lidz. (2016) “Endogenous sources of variation in language acquisition.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113:942-947. PDF
• Lasnik, H. & J. Lidz. (2016) “Arguments from the Poverty of the Stimulus,” in I. Roberts (ed.). Oxford Handbook of Universal Grammar. Oxford University Press: Oxford. PDF
• Omaki, A. and J. Lidz. (2015) “Linking parser development to the acquisition of linguistic knowledge.” Language Acquisition, 22:158-192. PDF
• Lidz, J. & A. Gagliardi. (2015) “How Nature Meets Nurture: Universal Grammar and Statistical Learning.” Annual Review of Linguistics, 1:333-353. PDF
• Pearl, L. & J. Lidz (2013). “Parameters in Language Acquisition,” in C. Boeckx & K. Grohmann (eds.) Cambridge Handbook of Biolinguistics, 129-159. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. PDF
• Lidz, J. & Y. Kronrod. (2014) “Expanding our reach and theirs: When linguists go to high school,” Language and Linguistics Compass, 8:449-463. PDF
• Gagliardi, A. and J. Lidz. (2014) “Statistical insensitivity in the acquisition of Tsez Noun Classes.” Language, 90:1-32. PDF
• Hunter, T. and J. Lidz. (2013) “Conservativity and the Learnability of Determiners,” Journal of Semantics, 30:315-334. PDF
• Gagliardi, A., N. Feldman & J. Lidz. (2012) “When suboptimal behavior is optimal and why: Modeling the acquisition of noun classes in Tsez. Proceedings of the 2012 meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. PDF
• Gagliardi, A., E. Bennett, J. Lidz & N. Feldman. (2012) “Children's Inferences in Generalizing Novel Nouns and Adjectives,” Proceedings of the 2012 meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. PDF
• Viau, J. and J. Lidz. (2011) “Selective Learning in the Acquisition of Kannada Ditransitives,” Language, 87:679-714. PDF
• Lidz, J. (2011) “Parser-grammar interactions in the acquisition of syntax,” Proceedings of Tokyo Conference on Psycholinguistics 2011.
• Lidz, J. (2010) “Language Learning and Language Universals,” Biolinguistics 4:201-217. PDF
• Pearl, L, and J. Lidz. (2009) “When Domain General Learning Succeeds and When it Fails,” Language Learning and Development, 5:235-265. PDF
• Lidz, J. and A. Williams. (2009) “Constructions on Holiday,” Commentary on A. Goldberg, 2006, Constructions at Work, Cognitive Linguistics 20:177-190. PDF
• Takahashi, E. and J. Lidz. (2008) “Beyond Statistical Learning in Syntax,” Proceedings of Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition. PDF
• Lidz, J. and L. Pearl. (2007) “Language Learning Through Selection.” Review of C. Yang, 2006, The Infinite Gift, Science 315:332.
• Baier, R., W. Idsardi, and J. Lidz. (2007) “Two-month-olds are sensitive to lip-rounding in dynamic and static speech events,” Proceedings of International Conference of Audio-Visual Speech Processing. PDF
• Lidz, J. (2007) “The abstract nature of syntactic representations: Consequences for a theory of learning,” in E. Hoff & M. Shatz (eds.) Handbook of Language Development. Blackwell: Oxford. PDF
• Lidz, J. and L. Gleitman. (2004) “Yes, we still need Universal Grammar,” Cognition 94:85-93. PDF
• Lidz, J. and S. Waxman. (2004) “Reaffirming the Poverty of the Stimulus Argument: A reply to the replies,” Cognition 93:157-165. PDF
• Lidz, J. and L. Gleitman. (2004) “Argument Structure and the Child’s Contribution to Language Learning,” Trends in Cognitive Science 8(4):157-161. PDF
• Lidz, J., S. Waxman, and J. Freedman. (2003) “What Infants Know about Syntax but Couldn't have Learned: Experimental Evidence for Syntactic Structure at 18-months.” Cognition 89:B65-B73. PDF
• Lidz, J., H. Gleitman and L. Gleitman. (2003) “Understanding How Input Matters: The Footprint of Universal Grammar on Verb Learning,” Cognition 87:151-178. PDF
• Lidz, J. and J. Musolino. (2002) “Children’s Command of Quantification,” Cognition 84:113-154. PDF

Quantification

Languages allow us to refer to precise quantities and to make generalizations about sets of entities. How are such meanings represented and how are they acquired? What role do our extralinguistic capacities for representing quantities, individuals, and sets play in the acquisition of quantificational language?

One stream of research on quantification uses methods from psychophysics to try to pinpoint the precise representations that underlie linguistic quantification. We show how formally distinct but truth conditionally equivalent hypotheses about quantifier meanings can be distinguished psychologically.

A second stream examines ambiguities that arise when sentences contain multiple quantificational expressions. To what extent can such ambiguities reveal fundamental features of the syntax-semantics interface and about how sentence meanings are constructed in real time?

Finally, a third stream asks what the acquisition of quantificational language reveals about possible word meanings and the indirect inferences that allow children to connect concrete experiences with abstract meanings.

Publications

• Odic, D., T. Knowlton, A. Wellwood, P. Pietroski, J. Lidz & J. Halberda (2024) Observers Efficiently Extract the Minimal and Maximal Element in Perceptual Magnitude Sets: Evidence for a Bipartite Format. Psychological Science. PDF
• Knowlton, T., J. Halberda, P. Pietroski & J. Lidz (2023) Individuals vs. Ensembles and each vs. every: Linguistic framing affects performance in a change detection task. Glossa: Psycholinguistics. PDF
• Knowlton, T., J. Halberda, A. Williams, P. Pietroski & J. Lidz (2023) Psycholinguistic evidence for restricted quantification. Natural Language Semantics. PDF
• Yang, Y., D. Goodhue, V. Hacquard & J. Lidz (2022) Do children know wh-anything? 3-year-olds know the ambiguity of wh-phrases in Mandarin. Language Acquisition PDF
• Knowlton, T., P. Pietroski, J. Halberda, & J. Lidz (2021) The mental representation of universal quantifiers. Linguistics and Philosophy. PDF
• Knowlton, T., T. Hunter, D. Odic, A. Wellwood, J. Halberda, P. Pietroski & J. Lidz (2021) Linguistic Meanings as Cognitive Instructions. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. PDF
• Knowlton, T. & J. Lidz (2021) Genericity signals the difference between "each" and "every" in child-directed speech. Proceedings of BUCLD 45. PDF
• Knowlton, T., P. Pietroski, A. Williams, J. Halberda & J. Lidz (2020) Determiners are "conservative" because their meanings are not relations: Evidence from Verification. Proceedings of SALT 30. PDF
• Han, C.H., K. Kim, K. Moulton & J. Lidz (2020). Null objects in Korean: Experimental Evidence for the Argument Ellipsis Analysis. Linguistic Inquiry. PDF
• Odic, D., P. Pietroski, T. Hunter, J. Halberda & J. Lidz (2018) Individuals and Non-Individuals in Cognition and Semantics: the Mass/Count Distinction and Quantity Representation. Glossa, 3(1):61.1-20. PDF
• Lidz, J. (2018). “The Scope of Children’s Scope: Representation, Parsing and Learning,” Glossa, 3(1):33.1-14. PDF
• Kush, D., J. Lidz & C. Phillips (2017). “Looking forwards and backwards: The real-time processing of Strong and Weak Crossover.” Glossa: a journal of general linguistics. 2(1), p.70. PDF
• Hunter, T., J. Lidz, D. Odic & A. Wellwood (2017). “On how verification tasks are related to verification procedures.” Natural Language Semantics, 25:91-107. PDF
• Wellwood, A., A. Gagliardi and J. Lidz. (2016) “Syntactic and Lexical Inference in the Acquisition of Novel Superlatives.” Language Learning and Development, 12:262-279.PDF
• Tieu, L. & J. Lidz. (2016). “NPI Licensing and beyond: Children’s knowledge of the semantics of any.” Language Acquisition, 23:311-332. PDF
• Han, C.H., J. Musolino and J. Lidz. (2016) “Endogenous sources of variation in language acquisition.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113:942-947. PDF
• Lidz, J. (2016) “Quantification and Scope in Child Language,” in J. Lidz, W. Snyder & J. Pater (eds). Oxford Handbook of Developmental Linguistics. Oxford University Press: Oxford. PDF
• Kush, D., J. Lidz and C. Phillips. (2015) “Configuration Sensitive Retrieval: Resisting Interference in Processing Bound Variable Pronouns.” Journal of Memory and Language, 82:18-40. PDF
• Odic, D., P. Pietroski, T. Hunter, J. Lidz & J. Halberda. (2014) “Young Children’s Understanding of ‘More’ and Discrimination of Number and Surface Area.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 39:451-461. PDF
• Hunter, T. and J. Lidz. (2013) “Conservativity and the Learnability of Determiners,” Journal of Semantics, 30:315-334. PDF
• Pietroski, P., D. Odic, J. Halberda and J. Lidz. (2012) “Seeing what you mean, mostly,” in J. Runner (ed.) Experiments at the Interface. Emerald Press. PDF
• Wellwood, A., D. Odic, J. Halberda, T. Hunter, P. Pietroski & J. Lidz. (2012) “Meaning more or most: evidence from 3-and-a-half year-olds.” Proceedings of the Chicago Linguistics Society Annual Meeting. PDF
• Wellwood, A., D. Odic, J. Halberda & J. Lidz. (2012) “Choosing quantity over quality: Syntax guides interpretive preferences for novel superlatives,” Proceedings of the 2012 meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. PDF
• Viau, J. and J. Lidz. (2011) “Selective Learning in the Acquisition of Kannada Ditransitives,” Language, 87:679-714. PDF
• Lidz, J. P. Pietroski, T. Hunter & J. Halberda. (2011) “Interface Transparency and the Psychosemantics of Most.” Natural Language Semantics, 19:227-256. PDF
• Syrett, K. and J. Lidz. (2011) “Competence, Performance and the Locality of Quantifier Raising: Evidence from 4-year-old Children.” Linguistic Inquiry, 42:305-337. PDF
• Viau, J., J. Lidz and J. Musolino. (2010) “Priming of Abstract Logical Representations in 4-year-olds.” Language Acquisition, 17:26-50. PDF
• Pietroski, P., J. Lidz, T. Hunter & J. Halberda. (2009) “The Meaning of Most: Semantics, Numerosity & Psychology,” Mind & Language, 24:554-585. PDF
• Conroy, A., E. Takahashi, J. Lidz and C. Phillips. (2009) “Equal Treatment for All Antecedents: How Children Succeed with Principle B,” Linguistic Inquiry, 40: 446-486. PDF
• Syrett, K. and J. Lidz. (2009) QR in Child Grammar: Evidence from Antecedent Contained Deletion. Language Acquisition 16:67-81. PDF
• Conroy, A., J. Lidz and J. Musolino. (2009) “The Fleeting Isomorphism Effect.” Language Acquisition 16:106-117. PDF
• Han, C.H, J. Lidz & J. Musolino. (2009) “The acquisition of the placement of the verb in the clause structure of Korean,” in C. Lee, G. Simpson & Y. Kim (eds.) Handbook of East Asian Psycholinguistics, 72-92. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
• Hunter, T., J. Lidz, A. Wellwood, & A. Conroy. (2009) “Restrictions on the Meaning of Determiners: Typological Generalizations and Learnability.” Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory. PDF
• Hunter, T., J. Halberda, J. Lidz & P. Pietroski. (2008) “Beyond Truth Conditions: The Semantics of Most,” Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory. PDF
• Pietroski, P., & J. Lidz. (2008) Natural number concepts: No derivation without formalization. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 31:666-667.
• Halberda, J., L. Taing & J. Lidz. (2008) “The age of most comprehension and its potential dependence on counting ability in preschoolers,” Language Learning and Development 4:99-121. PDF
• Han, C.H., J. Lidz, and J. Musolino. (2007) “Verb-movement and Grammar Competition in Korean: Evidence from Quantification and Negation,” Linguistic Inquiry 38:1-47. PDF
• Lidz, J. and J. Musolino. (2006) “On the Quantificational Status of Indefinites: The View from Child Language.” Language Acquisition, 13, 73-102. PDF
• Musolino, J. and J. Lidz. (2006) “Why Children are not Universally Successful with Quantification.” Linguistics 44:817-852. PDF
• Lidz, J. (2006) “The Grammar of Accusative Case in Kannada,” Language 82:1-23. PDF
• Syrett, K. and J. Lidz. (2005) “Children Want to Access Every Interpretation Adults do,” Proceedings of North East Linguistics Society 35. GLSA: Amherst, MA.
• Lidz, J., E. McMahon, K. Syrett, J. Viau, F. Anggoro, J. Peterson-Hicks, E. Sneed, A. Bunger, T. Flevaris, A. Graham, K. Grohne, Y. Lee, and J. Strid. (2004) “Quantifier Raising in 4-year-olds,” Proceedings of 28th Boston University Conference on Language Development, 340-349. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge. PDF
• Musolino, J. and J. Lidz. (2003) "The Scope of Isomorphism: Turning Adults into Children." Language Acquisition 11:277-291. PDF
• Musolino, J. and J. Lidz. (2002) “Preschool Logic: Truth and Felicity in the Acquisition of Quantification,” Proceedings of 26th Boston University Conference on Language Development, 406-416. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge.
• Lidz, J. and J. Musolino. (2002) “Children’s Command of Quantification,” Cognition 84:113-154. PDF
• Bleam, T., C. Han and J. Lidz. (2000) “Grammatical Downsizing and the Redistribution of Semantic Wealth,” Proceedings of 24th Penn Linguistics Colloquium, Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 7.1:37-52. PDF
• Lidz, J. (1999) “The Morphosemantics of Object Case in Kannada,” Proceedings of West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics 18:325-336. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge.

Argument Structure

Learning words requires creating a link between sounds and concepts on the basis of limited experience. What information do learners use to determine the meanings of novel words? Our lab has been pursuing the hypothesis that the syntactic distribution of a word is informative about its meaning and that children, from the very beginning of word learning, are able to use syntax as a cue to meaning. We have been exploring this hypothesis in learners ranging from 10 months to 5 years of age.

In the domain of action verbs, we have been exploring the character of infants' syntactic representations through the role they play in verb learning. We have also been studying the role of on-line parsing mechanisms in syntax-guided word learning. And, we have been exploring young infants’ event representations so that we can better understand the conceptual structures that serve as the hypothesis space over which verb meanings are constructed.

Our group is also interested in how children acquire attitude verbs like think, want, and hope. We know from previous research that children begin to produce and understand these verbs relatively late, around 2.5-4 years of age. This delay is not surprising, given that attitude verbs refer to unobservable mental states, and given that children have non-linguistic difficulty reasoning about mental states. We have been using experimental and computational methods to investigate several related questions: What do children know about different attitude verbs at different ages? How does conceptual and pragmatic knowledge interact with children’s grammatical knowledge in their use of attitude verbs? What information is in principle available in the language that children hear that could help them learn the meanings of attitude verbs? Of the information that is available, what do children actually use?

Publications

• Perkins, L., T. Knowlton, A. Williams & J. Lidz (2024) Thematic Content, Not Number Matching, Drives Syntactic Bootstrapping. Language Learning & Development. PDF
• White, A.S. & J. Lidz (2022) Lexicalization in the Developing Parser. Glossa: Psycholinguistics. PDF
• Perkins, L., N. Feldman & J. Lidz (2022) The Power of Ignoring: Filtering input for argument structure acquisition. Cognitive Science. PDF
• Hacquard, V. & J. Lidz (2022) On the Acquisition of Attitude Verbs. Annual Review of Linguistics, 8, 193-212. PDF
• Huang, N., A.S. White, C.-H. Liao, V. Hacquard & J. Lidz (2021) Syntactic bootstrapping attitude verbs despite impoverished morphosyntax. Language Acquisition. PDF
• Liter, A. & J. Lidz. 2021. Non-actional passives can be comprehended by 4-year-olds. In Danielle Dionne & Lee-Ann Vidal Covas (eds.), BUCLD 45: Proceedings of the 45th annual Boston University conference on language development, vol. 2, 513–527. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. PDF
• J. Lidz (2021) “Children’s use of syntax in word learning,” in Papafragou, A., J.C. Trueswell & L. Gleitman (eds). Oxford Handbook of the Lexicon. Oxford University Press. PDF
• J. Lidz (2020) Learning, Memory and Syntactic Bootstrapping: A Meditation. Topics in Cognitive Science, 12, 78-90. DOI: 10.1111/tops.12411. PDF
• Perkins, L. & J. Lidz (2020). Filler-gap dependency comprehension at 15-months: The role of vocabulary. Language Acquisition, 27(1), 98-115. DOI: 10.1080/10489223.2019.1659274. PDF
• Harrigan, K., V. Hacquard & J. Lidz (2019) Hope for Syntactic Bootstrapping. Language, 95(4), 642-682. DOI: 10.1353/lan.2019.0069. PDF
• de Carvalho, A., A.X. He, J. Lidz & A. Christophe (2019) Prosody and Function Words Cue the Acquisition of Word Meanings in 18-month-old Infants. Psychological Science, 30, 319-332. DOI: 10.1177/0956797618814131. PDF
• Huang, N., C.H. Liao, V. Hacquard & J. Lidz (2018) Learning Attitude Verb Meanings in a Morphologically Poor Language. Proceedings of BUCLD 42.
• Hacquard, V. & J. Lidz (2018). “Children’s Attitude Problems: Bootstrapping Verb Meaning from Syntax and Pragmatics,” Mind and Language. DOI: 10.1111/mila.12192
• Harrigan, K., V. Hacquard & J. Lidz (2018) Three-year-olds’ understanding of desire reports is robust to conflict. Frontiers in Psychology: Language Sciences. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00119
• White, A., V. Hacquard & J. Lidz (2018). “Semantic information and the syntax of propositional attitude verbs.” Cognitive Science. DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12512
• Perkins, L., N. Feldman & J. Lidz (2017) Learning an input filter for argument structure acquisition. Proceedings of Cognitive Modeling and Computational Linguistics.
• Lidz, J., A.S. White, & R. Baier (2017). “The Role of Incremental Parsing in Syntactically Conditioned Word Learning,” Cognitive Psychology, 97:62-78. DOI: 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2017.06.002
• Lewis, S., V. Hacquard & J. Lidz (2017). “Think Pragmatically: Children’s Interpretations of Belief Reports.” Language Learning and Development. DOI: 10.1080/15475441.2017.1296768
• He, A.X. & J. Lidz (2017). “Verb learning in 14- and 18-month-old English-learning infants.” Language Learning and Development, 13:335-356.
• de Carvalho, A., J. Lidz, L. Tieu, T. Bleam & A. Christophe (2016) English-speaking preschoolers can use phrasal prosody for syntactic parsing. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 139:216-222.
• Wellwood, A., A. Gagliardi and J. Lidz. (2016) “Syntactic and Lexical Inference in the Acquisition of Novel Superlatives.” Language Learning and Development, 12:262-279.
• Harrigan, K., V. Hacquard and J. Lidz (2015). Syntactic bootstrapping and the acquisition of attitude verbs: think, want, and hope. Proceedings of WCCFL 33.
• Wellwood, A., A.X. He, J. Lidz & A. Williams (2015). Participant structure in event perception: Towards the acquisition of implicitly 3-place predicates. Proceedings of Penn Linguistics Colloquium. PDF
• White, A., R. Dudley, V. Hacquard & J. Lidz. (2014) “Discovering classes of attitude verbs using subcategorization frame distributions.” Proceedings of the Northeast Linguistics Society 43.
• Dudley, R., N. Orita, M. Moyer, V. Hacquard and J. Lidz (2014) ‘Factivity in three year olds’ understanding of know and think’. In Proceedings of BUCLD 38.
• Dudley, R., N. Orita, V. Hacquard and J. Lidz. (2014) “Three-year-olds’ understanding of know and think,” in F. Schwarz (ed.). Experimental Perspectives on Presupposition, 241-263. Springer.
• Lewis, S., V. Hacquard & J. Lidz. (2012) “The semantics and pragmatics of belief reports in preschoolers,” Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory 22.
• Trueswell, J., D. Kaufman, A. Hafri and J. Lidz. (2012) “Development of Parsing Abilities Interacts with Grammar Learning: Evidence from Tagalog and Kannada” Proceedings of the 36th Boston University Conference on Language Development. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge.
• Syrett, K. and J. Lidz. (2010) “30-month-olds use the distribution and meaning of adverbs to interpret novel adjectives.” Language Learning and Development 6:258-282.
• Syrett, K., C. Kennedy and J. Lidz. (2010) “Meaning and Context in Children’s Understanding of Gradable Adjectives,” Journal of Semantics, 27:1-35.
• Waxman, S.R., J. Lidz, I. Braun and T. Lavin. (2009) “24-Month-Old Infants' Interpretations of Novel Verbs and Nouns in Dynamic Scenes.” Cognitive Psychology, 59:67-95.
• Christophe, A., S. Millotte, S. Bernal and J. Lidz. (2008) “Bootstrapping Lexical and Syntactic Acquisition,” Language and Speech 51:61-75.
• Bernal, S., J. Lidz, S. Millotte and A. Christophe. (2007) “Syntax constrains the acquisition of verb meaning,” Language Learning and Development 3:325-341.
• Bunger, A. and J. Lidz. (2006) “Constrained flexibility in the extension of novel causative verbs,” Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. BLS: Berkeley.
• Bunger, A. and J. Lidz. (2006) “Constrained flexibility in the acquisition of causative verbs,” Proceedings of the 30th Boston University Conference on Language Development. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge.
• Lidz, J. and A. Williams. (2006) “On the lack of reflexive benefactives in Kannada,” in T. Battacharya (ed.) Yearbook of South Asian Languages and Linguistics, 237-254. Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin.
• Lidz, J. (2006) “Verb learning as a probe into children’s grammars,” in K. Hirsh-Pasek and R. Golinkoff (eds.) Action Meets Words. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
• Waxman, S.R. and J. Lidz. (2006) “Early Word Learning,” in D. Kuhn & R. Siegler (eds). Handbook of Child Psychology: Cognition, Perception and Language (6th Edition), 299-335. John Wiley & Sons: NY.
• Syrett, K., C. Kennedy, E. Bradley, and J. Lidz. (2005) “Shifting Standards: Children’s Understanding of Gradable Adjectives,” In K. Ud Deen, J. Nomura, B. Schulz and B. D. Schwartz (eds.) Proceedings of the Inaugural GALANA. MITWPL: Cambridge.
• Bunger, A. and J. Lidz. (2004) “Syntactic Bootstrapping and the Internal Structure of Causative Events,” Proceedings of 28th Boston University Conference on Language Development, 74-85. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge.
• Lidz, J., H. Gleitman and L. Gleitman. (2004) “Kidz in the ‘Hood: Syntactic Bootstrapping and the Mental Lexicon,” in Hall, D.G. and S.R. Waxman (eds.) Weaving a Lexicon, 603-636. MIT Press: Cambridge.
• Lidz, J. and L. Gleitman. (2004) “Argument Structure and the Child’s Contribution to Language Learning,” Trends in Cognitive Science 8(4):157-161. PDF
• Lidz, J., H. Gleitman and L. Gleitman. (2003) “Understanding How Input Matters: The Footprint of Universal Grammar on Verb Learning,” Cognition 87:151-178. PDF
• Lidz, J. (2003) “Causation and Reflexivity in Kannada,” in Dayal, V. and A. Mahajan (eds.) Clause Structure in South Asian Languages, 93-130. Kluwer: Dordrecht.
• Lidz, J. and A. Williams. (2002) “Reflexivity and Resultatives,” Proceedings of West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics 21:101-114. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge.
• Lidz, J. (2001) “The Argument Structure of Verbal Reflexives,” Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 19.2:311-353.
• Lidz, J. (2001) “Condition R ,” Linguistic Inquiry 32.1:123-140.
• Lidz, J. (1999) “Causativity, Late Insertion and the Structure of vP,” Papers from the UPenn/MIT Roundtable on the Lexicon. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 35:117-137.
• Lidz, J. (1998) “Constraints on the Syntactic Bootstrapping Procedure for Verb Learning,” Proceedings of 22nd Boston University Conference on Language Development, 488-498. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge.
• Lidz, J. (1995) “Morphological Reflexive-Marking: Evidence from Kannada,” Linguistic Inquiry 26.4:705-710.

Pronouns, Reference and Binding

A central area of research in the syntax-semantics interface concerns the interpretation of pronouns and the syntactic environments over which referential dependencies can and cannot occur. We have been examining children’s acquisition of constraints on reference in order to identify the age of acquisition of these constraints and of the syntactic features responsible for them. We have been investigating constraints on reflexives, pronominals and R-expressions in children ranging from 24-months to 4 years of age. In addition, we have been examining how children use their linguistic environment in fixing the grammatical constraints particular to the language they are acquiring.

Other work examines the nature of antecedent retrieval processes in on-line sentence understanding in both children and adults. This kind of research offers insights into the fidelity of on-line syntactic representations as well as the role such on-line representations play in shaping the input to a learner.

My earliest work examined the nature of reflexive systems in the world's languages, focusing particularly on verbal reflexive marking in Kannada, a Dravidian language spoken by ~30 million people.

Publications

• Lidz, J., C. Lukyanenko & M. Sutton (2021). The hunt for structure dependent interpretation: The case of Principle C. Cognition. PDF
• Orita, N., H. Ono, N. Feldman & J. Lidz (2021). Japanese children's knowledge of the locality of zibun and kare. Language Acquisition. DOI: 10.1080/10489223.2021.1899181 PDF
• Han, C.H., K. Kim, K. Moulton & J. Lidz (2020). Null objects in Korean: Experimental Evidence for the Argument Ellipsis Analysis. Linguistic Inquiry. DOI: 10.1162/ling_a_00342. PDF
• Gerard, J., J. Lidz, S. Zuckerman & M. Pinto (2018) Adjunct Control interpretation in four year olds is colored by the task. Glossa. DOI: 10.5334/gjgl.547 PDF
• Gerard, J., J. Lidz, S. Zuckerman & M. Pinto (2017). “Similarity-based interference and the acquisition of Adjunct Control,” Frontiers in Psychology: Language Sciences. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01822. PDF
• Kush, D., J. Lidz & C. Phillips (2017). “Looking forwards and backwards: The real-time processing of Strong and Weak Crossover.” Glossa: a journal of general linguistics. 2(1), p.70. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.280. PDF
• Kush, D., J. Lidz and C. Phillips. (2015) “Configuration Sensitive Retrieval: Resisting Interference in Processing Bound Variable Pronouns.” Journal of Memory and Language, 82:18-40. PDF
• Moyer, M., K. Harrigan, V. Hacquard and J. Lidz (2015). 2-year-olds’ comprehension of personal pronouns. Proceedings of BUCLD 39. PDF
• Lukyanenko, C., A. Conroy, and J. Lidz. (2014) “Is she patting Katie? Constraints on pronominal reference in 30-month-olds,” Language Learning and Development, 10:328-44. PDF
• Orita, N., McKeown, R., Feldman, N., Lidz, J., and Boyd-Graber, J. (2013). Discovering Pronoun Categories using Discourse Information. Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. PDF
• Sutton, M., M. Fetters, & J. Lidz. (2012) “Parsing for Principle C at 30-months,” Proceedings of the 36th Boston University Conference on Language Development. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge.
• Sutton, M., C. Lukyanenko & J. Lidz. (2010) “The Onset of Principle C at 30 Months: The Role of Vocabulary, Syntactic Development, and Processing Efficiency.” Proceedings of the 35th Boston University Conference on Language Development. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge.
• Conroy, A., E. Takahashi, J. Lidz and C. Phillips. (2009) “Equal Treatment for All Antecedents: How Children Succeed with Principle B,” Linguistic Inquiry, 40: 446-486. PDF
• Lidz, J. and A. Williams. (2006) “On the lack of reflexive benefactives in Kannada,” in T. Battacharya (ed.) Yearbook of South Asian Languages and Linguistics, 237-254. Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin. PDF
• Leddon, E. and J. Lidz. (2006) “Reconstruction Effects in Child Language,” Proceedings of the 30th Boston University Conference on Language Development. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge. PDF
• Lidz, J. and A. Williams. (2004) “C-locality and the Interaction of Reflexives and Ditransitives,” Proceedings of North East Linguistics Society 34. GLSA: Amherst, MA. PDF
• Lidz, J. (2003) “Causation and Reflexivity in Kannada,” in Dayal, V. and A. Mahajan (eds.) Clause Structure in South Asian Languages, 93-130. Kluwer: Dordrecht.
• Lidz, J. and A. Williams. (2002) “Reflexivity and Resultatives,” Proceedings of West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics 21:101-114. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge. PDF
• Lidz, J. (2002) “Review of Principle B, VP-ellipsis and Interpretation in Child Language by R. Thornton and K. Wexler,” Journal of Linguistics 38:459-462.
• Kennedy, C. and J. Lidz. (2001) “A (Covert) Long-distance Anaphor in English,” Proceedings of West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics 20:318-331. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge. PDF
• Lidz, J. (2001) “The Argument Structure of Verbal Reflexives,” Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 19.2:311-353.
• Lidz, J. (2001) “Condition R ,” Linguistic Inquiry 32.1:123-140. PDF
• Lidz, J. (2001) “Anti-antilocality,” in Cole, P., G. Hermon, and C-T.J. Huang (eds.) Syntax and Semantics 33: Long-distance Reflexives, 227-254. Academic Press: NY.
• Lidz, J. (2001) “Reflexivity in Kannada: Implications for Universal Grammar,” in Abbi, A, R.S. Gupta and A. Kidwai (eds.) Linguistic Structure and Language Dynamics in South Asia, 376-387. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers: Delhi.
• Lidz, J. and W. Idsardi. (1998) “Chains and Phono-Logical Form,” Proceedings of 22nd Penn Linguistics Colloquium. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 5.1:109-126.
• Lidz, J. (1997) “Chain-fusion and Shortest Move: When Derivations Fail,” GenGenP 5.1:36-42.
• Lidz, J. (1997) “When is a Reflexive not a Reflexive? Near Reflexivity and Condition R,” Proceedings of North East Linguistics Society 27, 251-261. GLSA: Amherst.
• Lidz, J. (1996) “On the Independence of Syntactic and Thematic Binding,” Geometric and Thematic Structure in Binding: 1st Linguist List On-line Conference.
• Lidz, J. (1995) “On the Non-Existence of Reflexive Clitics,” Papers from the 31st Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society: The Parasession on Clitics, 181-198.
• Lidz, J. (1995) “Morphological Reflexive-Marking: Evidence from Kannada,” Linguistic Inquiry 26.4:705-710.
• Lidz, J. (1993) “The Role of Spec-Head Agreement in Anaphor Identification”, Proceedings of Student Conference in Linguistics, MIT Working Papers in Linguistics, 20:161-175.

A-bar dependencies

One of the fundamental features of natural language is the displacement of constituents. In a wide range of structures, including wh-questions, relative clauses and quantification, we interpret some phrases as being dependent on other phrases that are not adjacent to them. Moreover, these dependencies are restricted in the environments over which they can occur. We have been exploring the acquisition of these dependencies in children ranging from 15-months to 5-years of age. One of the key problems our work aims to address concerns the interplay between on-line sentence understanding mechanisms and the course of language development. To what degree are children’s successes with these dependencies a reflection of adult-like knowledge states, and to what degree are their failures a reflection of fragile on-line parsing mechanisms?

Publications

• Gulrajani, A. & J. Lidz (2024) Reassessing a model of syntactic island acquisition. Proceedings of Society for Computation in Linguistics. PDF
• Lidz, J. (2023) Parser-Grammar transparency and the development of syntactic dependencies. Language Acquisition PDF
• Liter, A., E. Grolla & J. Lidz (2022) Cognitive inhibition explains children's production of medial wh-phrases. Language Acquisition. PDF
• Yang, Y., D. Goodhue, V. Hacquard & J. Lidz (2022) Do children know wh-anything? 3-year-olds know the ambiguity of wh-phrases in Mandarin. Language Acquisition PDF
• Perkins, L. & J. Lidz (2021) Eighteen-month-old infants represent nonlocal syntactic dependencies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PDF
• Perkins, L. & J. Lidz (2020). Filler-gap dependency comprehension at 15-months: The role of vocabulary. Language Acquisition, 27(1), 98-115. DOI: 10.1080/10489223.2019.1659274. PDF
• Atkinson, E., C. Phillips, M. Wagers, J. Lidz & A. Omaki (2018) Developing incrementality in filler gap dependency processing. Cognition. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.05.022 PDF
• Grolla, E. & J. Lidz (2018) A Performance Account for Medial Wh-Questions in Child English. Proceedings of BUCLD 42.
• Fetters, M. & J. Lidz (2017) Early Knowledge of Relative Clause Islands and Island Repair. Proceedings of BUCLD 41.
• Kush, D., J. Lidz & C. Phillips (2017). “Looking forwards and backwards: The real-time processing of Strong and Weak Crossover.” Glossa: a journal of general linguistics. 2(1), p.70. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.280.
• Gagliardi, A., T. Mease & J. Lidz. (2016) “U-shaped learning in the acquisition of filler-gap dependencies: Evidence from 15- and 20-month olds.” Language Acquisition, 23:234-260.
• Omaki, A., I.D. White, T. Goro, J. Lidz, and C. Phillips. (2014) “No fear of commitment: Children's incremental interpretations in English and Japanese wh questions.” Language Learning and Development, 10:206-233.
• Conroy, A. and J. Lidz. (2007) “A Production/Comprehension Asymmetry in Children’s Why-questions,” Proceedings of Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition in North America 2. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge. PDF
• Leddon, E. and J. Lidz. (2006) “Reconstruction Effects in Child Language,” Proceedings of the 30th Boston University Conference on Language Development. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge.
• Lidz, J. (1997) “Chain-fusion and Shortest Move: When Derivations Fail,” GenGenP 5.1:36-42.

Books

	Sentence First, Arguments Afterward. Essays in Language and Learning. L. Gleitman. (J. Lidz, ed). 2020. Oxford Univeristy Press
	The Oxford Handbook of Developmental Linguistics. J. Lidz, W. Snyder & J. Pater (eds). 2016. Oxford University Press.

Articles

• Perkins, L., T. Knowlton, A. Williams & J. Lidz (2024) Thematic Content, Not Number Matching, Drives Syntactic Bootstrapping. Language Learning & Development. PDF
• Gulrajani, A. & J. Lidz (2024) Reassessing a model of syntactic island acquisition. Proceedings of Society for Computation in Linguistics. PDF
• Odic, D., T. Knowlton, A. Wellwood, P. Pietroski, J. Lidz & J. Halberda (2024) Observers Efficiently Extract the Minimal and Maximal Element in Perceptual Magnitude Sets: Evidence for a Bipartite Format. Psychological Science. PDF
• Knowlton, T., J. Halberda, A. Williams, P. Pietroski & J. Lidz (2023) Psycholinguistic evidence for restricted quantification. Natural Language Semantics. PDF
• Knowlton, T., J. Halberda, P. Pietroski & J. Lidz (2023) Individuals vs. Ensembles and each vs. every: Linguistic framing affects performance in a change detection task. Glossa: Psycholinguistics. PDF
• Lidz, J. (2023) Parser-Grammar transparency and the development of syntactic dependencies. Language Acquisition PDF
• Yang, Y., D. Goodhue, V. Hacquard & J. Lidz (2022) Do children know wh-anything? 3-year-olds know the ambiguity of wh-phrases in Mandarin. Language Acquisition PDF
• Liter, A., E. Grolla & J. Lidz (2022) Cognitive inhibition explains children's production of medial wh-phrases. Language Acquisition. PDF
• Hacquard, V. & J. Lidz (2022) On the Acquisition of Attitude Verbs. Annual Review of Linguistics, 8, 193-212. PDF
• White, A.S. & J. Lidz (2022) Lexicalization in the Developing Parser. Glossa: Psycholinguistics. PDF
• Perkins, L., N. Feldman & J. Lidz (2022) The Power of Ignoring: Filtering input for argument structure acquisition. Cognitive Science. PDF
• J. Lidz (2022) “Children’s use of syntax in word learning,” in Papafragou, A., J.C. Trueswell & L. Gleitman (eds). Oxford Handbook of the Lexicon. Oxford University Press. PDF
• Perkins, L. & J. Lidz (2021) Eighteen-month-old infants represent nonlocal syntactic dependencies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PDF
• Knowlton, T., P. Pietroski, J. Halberda, & J. Lidz (2021) The mental representation of universal quantifiers. Linguistics and Philosophy. PDF
• Huang, N., A.S. White, C.-H. Liao, V. Hacquard & J. Lidz (2021) Syntactic bootstrapping attitude verbs despite impoverished morphosyntax. Language Acquisition. PDF
• Knowlton, T., T. Hunter, D. Odic, A. Wellwood, J. Halberda, P. Pietroski & J. Lidz (2021) Linguistic Meanings as Cognitive Instructions. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. PDF
• Zaitsu, A., J. Wehbe, V. Hacquard & J. Lidz (2021). Clause types and speech acts in speech to children. Proceedings of ELM 1. PDF
• Liter, A. & J. Lidz. (2021). Non-actional passives can be comprehended by 4-year-olds. In Danielle Dionne & Lee-Ann Vidal Covas (eds.), BUCLD 45: Proceedings of the 45th annual Boston University conference on language development, vol. 2, 513–527. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. PDF
• Lidz, J., C. Lukyanenko & M. Sutton (2021). The hunt for structure dependent interpretation: The case of Principle C. Cognition. PDF
• Orita, N., H. Ono, N. Feldman & J. Lidz (2021). Japanese children's knowledge of the locality of zibun and kare. Language Acquisition. DOI: 10.1080/10489223.2021.1899181 PDF
• Knowlton, T. & J. Lidz (2021) Genericity signals the difference between "each" and "every" in child-directed speech. Proceedings of BUCLD 45. PDF
• Kurokami, H., D. Goodhue, V. Hacquard & J. Lidz (2021). Children's interpretation of additive particles 'mo' and 'also' in Japanese and English. Proceedings of BUCLD 45. PDF
• Yang, Y., V. Hacquard & J. Lidz (2021). Acquisition of Belief Reports by Mandarin Speaking Children. Proceedings of BUCLD 45. PDF
• Goodhue, D., J. Wehbe, V. Hacquard & J. Lidz (2021). The effect of intonation on the illocutionary force of declaratives in child comprehension. Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 25. PDF



2016-2020

• Knowlton, T., P. Pietroski, A. Williams, J. Halberda & J. Lidz (2020). Determiners are conservative because their meanings are not relations: Evidence from verification. Semantics and Linguistic Theory, 30, 206-226.
• J. Lidz (2020) Learning, Memory and Syntactic Bootstrapping: A Meditation. Topics in Cognitive Science, 12, 78-90. DOI: 10.1111/tops.12411
• Perkins, L. & J. Lidz (2020). Filler-gap dependency comprehension at 15-months: The role of vocabulary. Language Acquisition, 27(1), 98-115. DOI: 10.1080/10489223.2019.1659274
• Han, C.H., K. Kim, K. Moulton & J. Lidz (2020). Null objects in Korean: Experimental Evidence for the Argument Ellipsis Analysis. Linguistic Inquiry. DOI: 10.1162/ling_a_00342
• J. Lidz (2020). “From structuralism to cognitive science: Lila Gleitman’s contributions to the study of language and learning.” in Gleitman, L. & Lidz, J. (ed). Sentence First, Arguments Afterwards: Essays on Language and Learning. Oxford University Press.
• Harrigan, K., V. Hacquard & J. Lidz (2019) Hope for Syntactic Bootstrapping. Language, 95(4), 642-682. DOI: 10.1353/lan.2019.0069
• de Carvalho, A., A.X. He, J. Lidz & A. Christophe (2019) Prosody and Function Words Cue the Acquisition of Word Meanings in 18-month-old Infants. Psychological Science, 30, 319-332. DOI: 10.1177/0956797618814131
• J. Lidz & L. Perkins (2018) The importance of input representations. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 8(6):743-748.
• L. Perkins & J. Lidz (2018). “Syntax in Infancy,” in J. Sprouse (ed.). Experimental Approaches to Syntax. Oxford University Press.
• Lidz, J. (2018) “The explanatory power of linguistic theory,” in N. Hornstein, H. Lasnik, P. Patel-Grosz & C. Yang (eds). Syntactic Structures after 60 Years: The Impact of the Chomskyan Revolution in Linguistics. De Gruyter: Berlin.
• Odic, D., P. Pietroski, T. Hunter, J. Halberda & J. Lidz (2018) Individuals and Non-Individuals in Cognition and Semantics: the Mass/Count Distinction and Quantity Representation. Glossa, 3(1):61.1-20. DOI: /10.5334/gjgl.409
• Lidz, J. (2018). “The Scope of Children’s Scope: Representation, Parsing and Learning,” Glossa, 3(1):33.1-14. DOI: 10.5334/gjgl.339
• Huang, N., C.H. Liao, V. Hacquard & J. Lidz (2018) Learning Attitude Verb Meanings in a Morphologically Poor Language. Proceedings of BUCLD 42.
• Hacquard, V. & J. Lidz (2018). “Children’s Attitude Problems: Bootstrapping Verb Meaning from Syntax and Pragmatics,” Mind and Language. DOI: 10.1111/mila.12192
• Harrigan, K., V. Hacquard & J. Lidz (2018) Three-year-olds’ understanding of desire reports is robust to conflict. Frontiers in Psychology: Language Sciences. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00119
• White, A., V. Hacquard & J. Lidz (2018). “Semantic information and the syntax of propositional attitude verbs.” Cognitive Science. DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12512
• Atkinson, E., C. Phillips, M. Wagers, J. Lidz & A. Omaki (2018) Developing incrementality in filler gap dependency processing. Cognition. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.05.022
• Grolla, E. & J. Lidz (2018) A Performance Account for Medial Wh-Questions in Child English. Proceedings of BUCLD 42.
• Brockman, S., S. McConnell, V. Hacquard & J. Lidz (2018). Children's comprehension of pronouns and definites. Are children sensitive to contextual requirements? Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 22.
• Fetters, M. & J. Lidz (2017) Early Knowledge of Relative Clause Islands and Island Repair. Proceedings of BUCLD 41.
• Kush, D., J. Lidz & C. Phillips (2017). “Looking forwards and backwards: The real-time processing of Strong and Weak Crossover.” Glossa: a journal of general linguistics. 2(1), p.70. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.280.
• Perkins, L., N. Feldman & J. Lidz (2017) Learning an input filter for argument structure acquisition. Proceedings of Cognitive Modeling and Computational Linguistics.
• Lidz, J., A.S. White, & R. Baier (2017). “The Role of Incremental Parsing in Syntactically Conditioned Word Learning,” Cognitive Psychology, 97:62-78. DOI: 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2017.06.002
• Lewis, S., V. Hacquard & J. Lidz (2017). “Think Pragmatically: Children’s Interpretations of Belief Reports.” Language Learning and Development. DOI: 10.1080/15475441.2017.1296768
• He, A.X. & J. Lidz (2017). “Verb learning in 14- and 18-month-old English-learning infants.” Language Learning and Development, 13:335-356.
• Kush, D., J. Lidz & C. Phillips (2017). “Looking forwards and backwards: The real-time processing of Strong and Weak Crossover.” Glossa: a journal of general linguistics. 2(1), p.70. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.280.
• Hunter, T., J. Lidz, D. Odic & A. Wellwood (2017). “On how verification tasks are related to verification procedures.” Natural Language Semantics, 25:91-107.
• Lidz, J. & L. Perkins (2017) “Language Acquisition,” In J. Wixted (ed.) Stevens Handbook of Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience. Wiley.
• Gagliardi, A., N. Feldman and J. Lidz. (2017) “Sources of statistical insensitivity: Optimal models of suboptimal performance.” Cognitive Science, 41:188-217.
• Lidz, J., C.H. Han & J. Musolino (2016) “Endogenous Content: A Reply to Piantadosi & Kidd,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113.
• Han, C.H., J. Musolino and J. Lidz. (2016) “Endogenous sources of variation in language acquisition.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113:942-947.
• Lasnik, H. & J. Lidz. (2016) “Arguments from the Poverty of the Stimulus,” in I. Roberts (ed.). Oxford Handbook of Universal Grammar. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
• Tieu, L. & J. Lidz. (2016). “NPI Licensing and beyond: Children’s knowledge of the semantics of any.” Language Acquisition, 23:311-332.
• Han, C.H., J. Musolino and J. Lidz. (2016) “Endogenous sources of variation in language acquisition.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113:942-947.
• Lidz, J. (2016) “Quantification and Scope in Child Language,” in J. Lidz, W. Snyder & J. Pater (eds). Oxford Handbook of Developmental Linguistics. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
• de Carvalho, A., J. Lidz, L. Tieu, T. Bleam & A. Christophe (2016) English-speaking preschoolers can use phrasal prosody for syntactic parsing. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 139:216-222.
• Wellwood, A., A. Gagliardi and J. Lidz. (2016) “Syntactic and Lexical Inference in the Acquisition of Novel Superlatives.” Language Learning and Development, 12:262-279.
• Gagliardi, A., T. Mease & J. Lidz. (2016) “U-shaped learning in the acquisition of filler-gap dependencies: Evidence from 15- and 20-month olds.” Language Acquisition, 23:234-260.



2011-2015

• Harrigan, K., V. Hacquard and J. Lidz (2015). Syntactic bootstrapping and the acquisition of attitude verbs: think, want, and hope. Proceedings of WCCFL 33.
• Wellwood, A., A.X. He, J. Lidz & A. Williams (2015). Participant structure in event perception: Towards the acquisition of implicitly 3-place predicates. Proceedings of Penn Linguistics Colloquium. PDF
• Kush, D., J. Lidz and C. Phillips. (2015) “Configuration Sensitive Retrieval: Resisting Interference in Processing Bound Variable Pronouns.” Journal of Memory and Language, 82:18-40.
• Omaki, A. and J. Lidz. (2015) “Linking parser development to the acquisition of linguistic knowledge.” Language Acquisition, 22:158-192.
• Lidz, J. & A. Gagliardi. (2015) “How Nature Meets Nurture: Universal Grammar and Statistical Learning.” Annual Review of Linguistics, 1:333-353.
• Omaki, A., I.D. White, T. Goro, J. Lidz, and C. Phillips. (2014) “No fear of commitment: Children's incremental interpretations in English and Japanese wh questions.” Language Learning and Development, 10:206-233.
• Lidz, J. & Y. Kronrod. (2014) “Expanding our reach and theirs: When linguists go to high school,” Language and Linguistics Compass, 8:449-463.
• Gagliardi, A. and J. Lidz. (2014) “Statistical insensitivity in the acquisition of Tsez Noun Classes.” Language, 90:1-32.
• Odic, D., P. Pietroski, T. Hunter, J. Lidz & J. Halberda. (2014) “Young Children’s Understanding of ‘More’ and Discrimination of Number and Surface Area.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 39:451-461.
• White, A., R. Dudley, V. Hacquard & J. Lidz. (2014) “Discovering classes of attitude verbs using subcategorization frame distributions.” Proceedings of the Northeast Linguistics Society 43.
• Dudley, R., N. Orita, M. Moyer, V. Hacquard and J. Lidz (2014) ‘Factivity in three year olds’ understanding of know and think’. In Proceedings of BUCLD 38.
• Dudley, R., N. Orita, V. Hacquard and J. Lidz. (2014) “Three-year-olds’ understanding of know and think,” in F. Schwarz (ed.). Experimental Perspectives on Presupposition, 241-263. Springer.
• Pearl, L. & J. Lidz (2013). “Parameters in Language Acquisition,” in C. Boeckx & K. Grohmann (eds.) Cambridge Handbook of Biolinguistics, 129-159. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
• Hunter, T. and J. Lidz. (2013) “Conservativity and the Learnability of Determiners,” Journal of Semantics, 30:315-334.
• Gagliardi, A., N. Feldman & J. Lidz. (2012) “When suboptimal behavior is optimal and why: Modeling the acquisition of noun classes in Tsez. Proceedings of the 2012 meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.
• Gagliardi, A., E. Bennett, J. Lidz & N. Feldman. (2012) “Children's Inferences in Generalizing Novel Nouns and Adjectives,” Proceedings of the 2012 meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.
• Pietroski, P., D. Odic, J. Halberda and J. Lidz. (2012) “Seeing what you mean, mostly,” in J. Runner (ed.) Experiments at the Interface. Emerald Press.
• Wellwood, A., D. Odic, J. Halberda, T. Hunter, P. Pietroski & J. Lidz. (2012) “Meaning more or most: evidence from 3-and-a-half year-olds.” Proceedings of the Chicago Linguistics Society Annual Meeting.
• Wellwood, A., D. Odic, J. Halberda & J. Lidz. (2012) “Choosing quantity over quality: Syntax guides interpretive preferences for novel superlatives,” Proceedings of the 2012 meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.
• Lewis, S., V. Hacquard & J. Lidz. (2012) “The semantics and pragmatics of belief reports in preschoolers,” Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory 22.
• Trueswell, J., D. Kaufman, A. Hafri and J. Lidz. (2012) “Development of Parsing Abilities Interacts with Grammar Learning: Evidence from Tagalog and Kannada” Proceedings of the 36th Boston University Conference on Language Development. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge.
• Viau, J. and J. Lidz. (2011) “Selective Learning in the Acquisition of Kannada Ditransitives,” Language, 87:679-714.
• Lidz, J. P. Pietroski, T. Hunter & J. Halberda. (2011) “Interface Transparency and the Psychosemantics of Most.” Natural Language Semantics, 19:227-256.
• Syrett, K. and J. Lidz. (2011) “The Locality of QR: Evidence from Children’s interpretations of Antecedent Contained Deletion.” Linguistic Inquiry, 42:305-337.
• Viau, J. and J. Lidz. (2011) “Selective Learning in the Acquisition of Kannada Ditransitives,” Language, 87:679-714.
• Lidz, J. (2011) “Parser-grammar interactions in the acquisition of syntax,” Proceedings of Tokyo Conference on Psycholinguistics 2011.



2006-2010

• Lidz, J. (2010) “Language Learning and Language Universals,” Biolinguistics 4:201-217.
• Viau, J., J. Lidz and J. Musolino. (2010) “Priming of Abstract Logical Representations in 4-year-olds.” Language Acquisition, 17:26-50.
• Syrett, K. and J. Lidz. (2010) “30-month-olds use the distribution and meaning of adverbs to interpret novel adjectives.” Language Learning and Development 6:258-282.
• Syrett, K., C. Kennedy and J. Lidz. (2010) “Meaning and Context in Children’s Understanding of Gradable Adjectives,” Journal of Semantics, 27:1-35.
• Waxman, S.R., J. Lidz, I. Braun and T. Lavin. (2009) “24-Month-Old Infants' Interpretations of Novel Verbs and Nouns in Dynamic Scenes.” Cognitive Psychology, 59:67-95.
Pietroski, P., J. Lidz, T. Hunter & J. Halberda. (2009) “The Meaning of Most: Semantics, Numerosity & Psychology,” Mind & Language, 24:554-585.
• Conroy, A., E. Takahashi, J. Lidz and C. Phillips. (2009) “Equal Treatment for All Antecedents: How Children Succeed with Principle B,” Linguistic Inquiry, 40: 446-486.
• Syrett, K. and J. Lidz. (2009) Quantifier Raising in 4-year-olds. Language Acquisition 16:67-81.
• Conroy, A., J. Lidz and J. Musolino. (2009) “The Fleeting Isomorphism Effect.” Language Acquisition 16:106-117.
• Han, C.H, J. Lidz & J. Musolino. (2009) “The acquisition of the placement of the verb in the clause structure of Korean,” in C. Lee, G. Simpson & Y. Kim (eds.) Handbook of East Asian Psycholinguistics, 72-92. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
• Hunter, T., J. Lidz, A. Wellwood, & A. Conroy. (2009) “Restrictions on the Meaning of Determiners: Typological Generalizations and Learnability.” Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory.
• Pearl, L, and J. Lidz. (2009) “When Domain General Learning Succeeds and When it Fails,” Language Learning and Development, 5:235-265.
• Lidz, J. and A. Williams. (2009) “Constructions on Holiday,” Commentary on A. Goldberg, 2006, Constructions at Work, Cognitive Linguistics 20:177-190.
• Takahashi, E. and J. Lidz. (2008) “Beyond Statistical Learning in Syntax,” Proceedings of Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition.
• Hunter, T., J. Halberda, J. Lidz & P. Pietroski. (2008) “Beyond Truth Conditions: The Semantics of Most,” Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory.
• Pietroski, P., & J. Lidz. (2008) Natural number concepts: No derivation without formalization. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 31:666-667.
• Halberda, J., L. Taing & J. Lidz. (2008) “The age of most comprehension and its potential dependence on counting ability in preschoolers,” Language Learning and Development 4:99-121.
• Christophe, A., S. Millotte, S. Bernal and J. Lidz. (2008) “Bootstrapping Lexical and Syntactic Acquisition,” Language and Speech 51:61-75.
• Bernal, S., J. Lidz, S. Millotte and A. Christophe. (2007) “Syntax constrains the acquisition of verb meaning,” Language Learning and Development 3:325-341.
• Han, C.H., J. Lidz, and J. Musolino. (2007) “Verb-movement and Grammar Competition in Korean: Evidence from Quantification and Negation,” Linguistic Inquiry 38:1-47.
• Lidz, J. and L. Pearl. (2007) “Language Learning Through Selection.” Review of C. Yang, 2006, The Infinite Gift, Science 315:332.
• Baier, R., W. Idsardi, and J. Lidz. (2007) “Two-month-olds are sensitive to lip-rounding in dynamic and static speech events,” Proceedings of International Conference of Audio-Visual Speech Processing.
• Lidz, J. (2007) “The abstract nature of syntactic representations: Consequences for a theory of learning,” in E. Hoff & M. Shatz (eds.) Handbook of Language Development. Blackwell: Oxford.
• Conroy, A. and J. Lidz. (2007) “A Production/Comprehension Asymmetry in Children’s Why-questions,” Proceedings of Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition in North America 2. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge.
• Lidz, J. and J. Musolino. (2006) “On the Quantificational Status of Indefinites: The View from Child Language.” Language Acquisition, 13, 73-102.
• Musolino, J. and J. Lidz. (2006) “Why Children are not Universally Successful with Quantification.” Linguistics 44:817-852.
• Lidz, J. (2006) “The Grammar of Accusative Case in Kannada,” Language 82:1-23.
• Bunger, A. and J. Lidz. (2006) “Constrained flexibility in the extension of novel causative verbs,” Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. BLS: Berkeley.
• Bunger, A. and J. Lidz. (2006) “Constrained flexibility in the acquisition of causative verbs,” Proceedings of the 30th Boston University Conference on Language Development. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge.
• Lidz, J. and A. Williams. (2006) “On the lack of reflexive benefactives in Kannada,” in T. Battacharya (ed.) Yearbook of South Asian Languages and Linguistics, 237-254. Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin.
• Lidz, J. (2006) “Verb learning as a probe into children’s grammars,” in K. Hirsh-Pasek and R. Golinkoff (eds.) Action Meets Words. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
• Waxman, S.R. and J. Lidz. (2006) “Early Word Learning,” in D. Kuhn & R. Siegler (eds). Handbook of Child Psychology: Cognition, Perception and Language (6th Edition), 299-335. John Wiley & Sons: NY.



2001-2005

• Syrett, K., C. Kennedy, E. Bradley, and J. Lidz. (2005) “Shifting Standards: Children’s Understanding of Gradable Adjectives,” In K. Ud Deen, J. Nomura, B. Schulz and B. D. Schwartz (eds.) Proceedings of the Inaugural GALANA. MITWPL: Cambridge.
• Syrett, K. and J. Lidz. (2005) “Children Want to Access Every Interpretation Adults do,” Proceedings of North East Linguistics Society 35. GLSA: Amherst, MA.
• Lidz, J. and L. Gleitman. (2004) “Yes, we still need Universal Grammar,” Cognition 94:85-93.
• Lidz, J. and S. Waxman. (2004) “Reaffirming the Poverty of the Stimulus Argument: A reply to the replies,” Cognition 93:157-165.
• Lidz, J. and L. Gleitman. (2004) “Argument Structure and the Child’s Contribution to Language Learning,” Trends in Cognitive Science 8(4):157-161.
• Lidz, J., E. McMahon, K. Syrett, J. Viau, F. Anggoro, J. Peterson-Hicks, E. Sneed, A. Bunger, T. Flevaris, A. Graham, K. Grohne, Y. Lee, and J. Strid. (2004) “Quantifier Raising in 4-year-olds,” Proceedings of 28th Boston University Conference on Language Development, 340-349. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge.
• Bunger, A. and J. Lidz. (2004) “Syntactic Bootstrapping and the Internal Structure of Causative Events,” Proceedings of 28th Boston University Conference on Language Development, 74-85. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge.
• Lidz, J., H. Gleitman and L. Gleitman. (2004) “Kidz in the ‘Hood: Syntactic Bootstrapping and the Mental Lexicon,” in Hall, D.G. and S.R. Waxman (eds.) Weaving a Lexicon, 603-636. MIT Press: Cambridge.
• Lidz, J. and L. Gleitman. (2004) “Argument Structure and the Child’s Contribution to Language Learning,” Trends in Cognitive Science 8(4):157-161.
• Lidz, J., H. Gleitman and L. Gleitman. (2003) “Understanding How Input Matters: The Footprint of Universal Grammar on Verb Learning,” Cognition 87:151-178. PDF
• Lidz, J. (2003) “Causation and Reflexivity in Kannada,” in Dayal, V. and A. Mahajan (eds.) Clause Structure in South Asian Languages, 93-130. Kluwer: Dordrecht.
• Musolino, J. and J. Lidz. (2003) "The Scope of Isomorphism: Turning Adults into Children." Language Acquisition 11:277-291.
• Lidz, J., S. Waxman, and J. Freedman. (2003) “What Infants Know about Syntax but Couldn't have Learned: Experimental Evidence for Syntactic Structure at 18-months.” Cognition 89:B65-B73.
• Lidz, J., H. Gleitman and L. Gleitman. (2003) “Understanding How Input Matters: The Footprint of Universal Grammar on Verb Learning,” Cognition 87:151-178.
• Lidz, J. and J. Musolino. (2002) “Children’s Command of Quantification,” Cognition 84:113-154.
• Musolino, J. and J. Lidz. (2002) “Preschool Logic: Truth and Felicity in the Acquisition of Quantification,” Proceedings of 26th Boston University Conference on Language Development, 406-416. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge.
• Lidz, J. and J. Musolino. (2002) “Children’s Command of Quantification,” Cognition 84:113-154.
• Lidz, J. and A. Williams. (2002) “Reflexivity and Resultatives,” Proceedings of West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics 21:101-114. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge.
• Lidz, J. (2001) “The Argument Structure of Verbal Reflexives,” Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 19.2:311-353.
• Lidz, J. (2001) “Condition R ,” Linguistic Inquiry 32.1:123-140.
• Lidz, J. (2001) “Echo Reduplication in Kannada and the Theory of Word Formation,” The Linguistic Review 18:375-394.



1995-2000

• Lidz, J. (2000) “A Three-legged Chicken,” Snippets 1.1:13-14.
• Bleam, T., C. Han and J. Lidz. (2000) “Grammatical Downsizing and the Redistribution of Semantic Wealth,” Proceedings of 24th Penn Linguistics Colloquium, Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 7.1:37-52.
• Lidz, J. (1999) “The Morphosemantics of Object Case in Kannada,” Proceedings of West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics 18:325-336. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge.
• Lidz, J. (1999) “Causativity, Late Insertion and the Structure of vP,” Papers from the UPenn/MIT Roundtable on the Lexicon. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 35:117-137.
• Lidz, J. (1998) “Constraints on the Syntactic Bootstrapping Procedure for Verb Learning,” Proceedings of 22nd Boston University Conference on Language Development, 488-498. Cascadilla Press: Cambridge.
• Lidz, J. (1997) “Chain-fusion and Shortest Move: When Derivations Fail,” GenGenP 5.1:36-42.
• Lidz, J. (1995) “Morphological Reflexive-Marking: Evidence from Kannada,” Linguistic Inquiry 26.4:705-710.

Blog Posts & Videos

• Inside the Language Acquisition Device ABRALIN AO VIVO - Linguists On Line. April 29, 2021.
• Second-year Syntax: Discovering Dependencies CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, March 4, 2021.
• Chomsky's Theory of Language Learning Dead? Not so fast. Scentific American. November 25, 2016.
• The Generative Death March, Part 3. Sept 13, 2016. Faculty of Language.
• The Generative Death March, Part 2. September 12, 2016. Faculty of Language.
• The Generative Death March, Part 1. September 10, 2016. Faculty of Language
• Parents can help, but children take a DIY approach to learning language. The Conversation. January 17, 2016.
• There's no poverty of the stimulus? PISH. November 23, 2014. Faculty of Language.
  
  
• The MandoLinguist

Elements

i = 0;

while (!deck.isInOrder()) {
    print 'Iteration ' + i;
    deck.shuffle();
    i++;
}

print 'It took ' + i + ' iterations to sort the deck.';