Research
My research mainly focuses on child language acquisition of morphology as well as the use of non-standard verb forms across children and adults.
Overregularization
My main line of research examines how children apply regular linguistic patterns to forms that are irregular in adult speech. My dissertation examined children's overregularization of Spanish irregular past participles and 2sg preterit verbs.
Frequency effects
I examine child language acquisition from a usage-based lens. My research highlights, among other things, the effects of lexical frequency and language background on children's development and overregularization of complex morphological forms
Non-standard forms and linguistic attitudes
Similarly, I am interested in the ways input speech affects children's language development, especially when related to the acquisition of a stigmatized form, such as fuistes, and how these non-standard forms are perceived in the community.
I examine child language acquisition from a usage-based lens. I incorporate both corpus as well as experimental data in my research. I generally rely on quantitative analyses but also do some qualitative analyses.
Research Lab at UTEP
I am currently working on setting up my lab at the University of Texas at El paso. I am excited to work on projects and mentor students interested in child language acquisition of morphosyntax, heritage language acquisition, acquisition and use of non-standard forms, input effects and frequency effects in child language acquistion, and more!