Professor; Department Chair
he/his
Office Information:
Department of Linguistics
University of Michigan
440A Lorch Hall (Chair's Office)
458 Lorch Hall (Faculty Office)
611 Tappan St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1220
phone: 734.764.0353 department main office
Syntax; Psycholinguistics; Bilingualism; Acquisition; Staff; Linguistics; Language Variation; Morphosyntax; Tenure-track
Education/Degree:
Ph.D., University of Maryland, College ParkAbout
Acrisio Pires is Professor of Linguistics. His research and teaching focus on linguistic theory and Minimalism syntax, comparative syntax, language change, language acquisition and bilingualism. Among some questions that have guided his work are: What constitutes an appropriate theory of human linguistic knowledge, considering syntax and areas with which it interfaces? How can cross-linguistic variation in syntax and morphosyntax be explained? What contributions can comparative syntax research make to the development of explanatory models of language? How does language acquisition interact with language change? What factors can explain different effects of bilingualism, language contact and second language acquisition?
Professor Pires has advised or co-advised Ph.D. students carrying out research in syntactic theory, Minimalism, comparative syntax, language acquisition and bilingualism/language contact, and a particular empirical focus on languages including English, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Greek, Sinhala, Berber, Hawaiian, Croatian and Korean.
Professor Pires is particularly interested in research either on (i) syntactic theory and minimalism, also with a focus on comparative syntax, syntactic variation and syntax interfaces, OR on (ii) bilingualism/multilingualism across the lifespan, including second language acquisition/learning, heritage/immersion bilingualim, and language contact/language change. The empirical focus of this research is more likely to be on languages he has more familiarity with, including the Romance Languages (Spanish, French, Catalan, Portuguese and Italian), English, German, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Greek.
He has been the (co-)chair of 18 Ph.D. dissertations, of advisees including:
- Hamid Ouali (Professor, U. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
- Sujeewa Hettiarachchi (Senior Lecturer [=Associate Professor in US system], Newcastle University)
- David J. Medeiros (Associate Professor, California State University, Northridge)
- Tim Chou (Associate Professor, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan)
- Rawan Bonais (Linguist, Advantis Global)
- Alan Ke (Visiting Assistant Professor, Michigan State University)
- Gerardo Fernandez-Salgueiro (Associate Professor, National Taiwan Normal University)
- Andrew McInnerney (Postdoctoral fellow, University of Michigan)
- Yushi Sugimoto (Postdoctoral fellow, University of Tokyo, Japan)
- Yourdanis Sedarous (Lecturer, University of Michigan)
- Marcus Berger (sociolinguist, US Census Bureau)
- Tridha Chatterjee (Lecturer, San Jose State University)
- Dina Kapetangianni (Senior Lecturer, University of North Texas)
- Andrea Stiasny (Lecturer, Romance Languages, University of Michigan).
Professor Pires has also advised many undergraduate honors students who worked on syntactic theory, Minimalism and/or syntactic change and went on to pursue careers in linguistics and related fields.
Current PhD (co-)advisees:
- Lucy Chiang
- Aliaksei Akimenka
- Cecilia Solis-Barroso
- Ahmed Farahat
- Danuta Allen
- Aya Halabi
Affiliation(s)
- Linguistics
- Weinberg Institute for Cognitive Science
- Romance Languages and Literatures (faculty affiliate)
- Latin American and Caribbean Studies (faculty affiliate)
Field(s) of Study
- Syntactic theory
- Minimalism
- Comparative syntax and morphosyntax
- Syntactic variation and change
- Language acquisition
- Bilingualism
- Syntax-semantics interface
Current Courses
LING 515-001
Generative Syntax
About
Acrisio Pires is Professor of Linguistics. His research and teaching focus on linguistic theory and Minimalism syntax, comparative syntax, language change, language acquisition and bilingualism. Among some questions that have guided his work are: What constitutes an appropriate theory of human linguistic knowledge, considering syntax and areas with which it interfaces? How can cross-linguistic variation in syntax and morphosyntax be explained? What contributions can comparative syntax research make to the development of explanatory models of language? How does language acquisition interact with language change? What factors can explain different effects of bilingualism, language contact and second language acquisition?
Professor Pires has advised or co-advised Ph.D. students carrying out research in syntactic theory, Minimalism, comparative syntax, language acquisition and bilingualism/language contact, and a particular empirical focus on languages including English, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Greek, Sinhala, Berber, Hawaiian, Croatian and Korean.
Professor Pires is particularly interested in research either on (i) syntactic theory and minimalism, also with a focus on comparative syntax, syntactic variation and syntax interfaces, OR on (ii) bilingualism/multilingualism across the lifespan, including second language acquisition/learning, heritage/immersion bilingualim, and language contact/language change. The empirical focus of this research is more likely to be on languages he has more familiarity with, including the Romance Languages (Spanish, French, Catalan, Portuguese and Italian), English, German, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Greek.
He has been the (co-)chair of 18 Ph.D. dissertations, of advisees including:
- Hamid Ouali (Professor, U. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
- Sujeewa Hettiarachchi (Senior Lecturer [=Associate Professor in US system], Newcastle University)
- David J. Medeiros (Associate Professor, California State University, Northridge)
- Tim Chou (Associate Professor, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan)
- Rawan Bonais (Linguist, Advantis Global)
- Alan Ke (Visiting Assistant Professor, Michigan State University)
- Gerardo Fernandez-Salgueiro (Associate Professor, National Taiwan Normal University)
- Andrew McInnerney (Postdoctoral fellow, University of Michigan)
- Yushi Sugimoto (Postdoctoral fellow, University of Tokyo, Japan)
- Yourdanis Sedarous (Lecturer, University of Michigan)
- Marcus Berger (sociolinguist, US Census Bureau)
- Tridha Chatterjee (Lecturer, San Jose State University)
- Dina Kapetangianni (Senior Lecturer, University of North Texas)
- Andrea Stiasny (Lecturer, Romance Languages, University of Michigan).
Professor Pires has also advised many undergraduate honors students who worked on syntactic theory, Minimalism and/or syntactic change and went on to pursue careers in linguistics and related fields.
Current PhD (co-)advisees:
- Lucy Chiang
- Aliaksei Akimenka
- Cecilia Solis-Barroso
- Ahmed Farahat
- Danuta Allen
- Aya Halabi
Affiliation(s)
- Linguistics
- Weinberg Institute for Cognitive Science
- Romance Languages and Literatures (faculty affiliate)
- Latin American and Caribbean Studies (faculty affiliate)
Field(s) of Study
- Syntactic theory
- Minimalism
- Comparative syntax and morphosyntax
- Syntactic variation and change
- Language acquisition
- Bilingualism
- Syntax-semantics interface