Dominique Sportiche - Department of Linguistics

Research

Dominique Sportiche specializes in formal syntax and the syntax–semantics interface. His research examines how constituent structure and the properties of sentence formation relate to meaning, grammar, and human cognition. Much of his work focuses on French and the Romance languages, exploring how these languages inform the general architecture of syntactic theory.

He has published studies on phrase structure, agreement, clitics, and reconstruction phenomena. His current theoretical interests include the functional sequence, the internal structure of verb phrases (VPs), binding theory, and the mechanisms underlying reconstruction in syntax.

From an empirical perspective, Sportiche’s research focuses on the syntax of English, French, and other Romance languages, addressing topics such as complementizers, relative pronouns, reflexive constructions, and binding principles, and more recently some agreement phenomena.

In addition to theoretical syntax, his work explores the connection between linguistic theory and areas such as:

Linguistic impairment, especially in Huntington’s disease
Early acquisition of syntax in children
Empirical methods for testing theoretical claims, particularly regarding binding theory and the French complementizer system

He is also the co-author of [Introduction to Syntactic Analysis and Theory], an introductory textbook on modern syntactic analysis.

Publications

- - (2025) On Semantic Agreement (with Isabelle Charnavel). ms. UNIGE and UCLA.
  - (2025) Conjunction Agreement as Semantic Agreement (with Isabelle Charnavel), appeared in The Ziggurat of Grammar, L. Baunaz, G. Bocci, and A. Nevins (Eds.), Series: Language Faculty and Beyond. John Benjamins, Amsterdam.
  - (2025) Who am I to (dis)agree? Interpretation Sensitive Agreement: Experimental evidence from French relatives (with Isabelle Charnavel, Anouk Dieuleveut, Tom Meadows and David Mueller). To appear in the proceedings of SALT 35.
  - (2025) Meaningful agreement features: evidence from indexical binding (with Isabelle Charnavel and Tom Meadows). In proceedings of NELS 55.
  - (2024) How (not) to control PRO, ms. UCLA.
  - (2024) The Coordinate Structure Constraint: not a constraint on movement. ms. UCLA.
  - (2024) Indexical binding, presuppositions and agreement (with Isabelle Charnavel). In Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 28.
  - (2023) One self only (with Isabelle Charnavel). In Proceedings of NELS 53
  - (2023) Binding relativized. ms. UCLA.
  - (2023) Constraints on Reflexivization. ms. UCLA.
  - (2022) Treating Greek o eaftos mu as a regular anaphor: Theoretical Implications. (with Nikos Angelopoulos) Linguistic Inquiry, 631-661. Prepublication version here.
  - (2022) Unifying Intensifiers Ourselves (with Isabelle Charnavel). In proceedings of NELS 52. Preprint http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/006618
  - (2022) Experimental evidence for the Condition C argument-adjunct asymmetry in English questions (with Richard Stockwell, Aya Meltzer-Asscher). To appear in proceedings of NELS 52.
  - (2021) Taking a Strong Position on Strictly Read Reflexives (with Isabelle Charnavel). Presented at WCCFL 39. Appeared in WCCFL 42 Proceedings.
  - (2021) There is reconstruction for Condition C in English questions (with Richard Stockwell, Aya Meltzer-Asscher). In Proceedings of NELS 51, GLSA, University of Massachusetts.
  - (2021) Some (but not all) movement types systematically violate islands. In Rich descriptions and simple explanations in morphosyntax and language acquisition, Oxford University Press.
  - Sportiche Dominique. (2021) Rethinking French Dative Clitics (in Light of Frozen Scope Effects). In Syntactic Architecture and its Consequences. Language Science Press.
  - (2020) Clitic Dislocations and Clitics in French and Greek: From Interpretation to Structure (with Nikolaos Angelopoulos). Language and Linguistic Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-020-09500-z
  - (2019) Somber Prospects for Late Merger. Linguistic Inquiry, 50(2): 416–424. (Prepublication version here).
  - (2018) Resumed Phrases are always moved, even with in-island resumption. In Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 14, John Benjamins.
  - (2017) (Im)possible intensionality. Wiener Linguistische Gazette, Vienna.
  - (2017) Reconstruction, Binding and Scope. In M. Everaert & H. van Riemsdijk (eds.), Syncom: The Syntax Companion. Blackwell Publishers.
  - (2017) Fewer Adjuncts, More Relatives. In LaCara, Moulton & Tessier (eds.), A Schrift to Fest Kyle Johnson. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.7275/R57D2S95
  - (2017) Simplex yet Local (with Isabelle Charnavel). Proceedings of NELS 47.
  - (2017) Relative Clauses. ms. UCLA.
  - (2016) Unifying Long Distance Binding: Icelandic sig is clause-bound or logophoric (with Isabelle Charnavel). In Proceedings of BLS 42.
  - (2016) Neglect (or doing away with Late Merger and Countercyclicity). Ms. UCLA.
  - (2016) Anaphor Binding – What French Inanimate Anaphors Show (with Isabelle Charnavel). Linguistic Inquiry 47(1). (Prepublished version: here)
  - (2014) The que/qui Alternation: New Analytical Directions (with Hilda Koopman). In Functional Structure from Top to Toe. Oxford University Press.
  - (2014) Assessing Unaccusativity and Reflexivity. Linguistic Inquiry 45(2), 305–321. (Prepublication version: here)
  - (2014) Introduction to Syntactic Theory and Analysis (with Hilda Koopman and Edward Stabler). Blackwell Publishers.
  - (2014) Local Binding Indeed. In Connectedness, UCLA Working Papers in Linguistics, no. 18.
  - (2013) Grounding Syntactic Variation: A plea to develop SSWL. Slides presented at “Advances in Phylogenetic Linguistics,” Ragusa, July 2013.
  - (2013) Binding Theory Structure Sensitivity of Referential Dependencies. In Lingua 130, 187–208.
  - (2013) French Reflexive se: Binding and Merge Locality. In Celebrating Locality, Oxford University Press.
  - (2012) En deça de la frontiere de Frege? (with Isabelle Charnavel). UCLA Working Papers in Linguistics 17.
  - (2012) The role of the striatum in sentence processing: Disentangling syntax from working memory in Huntington’s disease. Neuropsychologia 50(11), 2625–2635.
  - (2012) Re Re again. In Functional Heads: The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, vol. 7. Oxford University Press.
  - (2011) The van Riemsdijk Williams Paradox: in the Footsteps of de Fourier. Slides of a talk at USC.
  - (2011) French Relative qui. Linguistic Inquiry 42(1), 83–124.
  - (2011) Menace under the microscope: control and control shift. In Structure Preserved, John Benjamins.
  - (2008) Inward Bound: splitting the wh-paradigm and French relative qui.
  - (2006) NP Movement: How to Merge and Move in Tough-Constructions.
  - (2005) Division of Labor between Merge and Move: Strict Locality of Selection and Apparent Reconstruction Paradoxes. In Proceedings of the Workshop Divisions of Linguistic Labor.
  - (2005) “Cyclic NP Structure and the Interpretation of Traces.” In Organizing Grammar. Mouton de Gruyter.
  - (2003) Reconstruction, Binding and Scope. Appeared in The Blackwell Companion to Syntax (2006).
  - (1998) Partitions and Atoms of Clause Structure. Routledge, London.
  - (1998) Pronominal Clitic Dependencies. In Language Typology: Clitics in the European Languages. Mouton de Gruyter.
  - (1997) Subject Clitics in French and Romance. In Studies in Comparative Syntax. Kluwer.
  - (1995) Sketch of a Reductionist Approach to Syntactic Variation and Dependencies. In Evolution and Revolution in Linguistic Theory. Georgetown University Press.
  - (1995) French Predicate le and Clausal Structure.” In Small Clauses. Syntax and Semantics vol. 28. Academic Press.
  - (1995) Clitic Constructions.” In Phrase Structure and the Lexicon. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
  - (1994) “Agreement, Word Order and Conjunction in Several Varieties of Arabic.” (with J. Aoun and E. Benmamoun) Inquiry 25(2).
  - (1993) Sketch of a Reductionist Approach to Syntactic Variation and Dependencies. In Evolution and Revolution in Linguistic Theory.
  - (1992) Clitic Constructions. In Phrase Structure and the Lexicon.
  - (1991) The Position of Subjects. (with H. Koopman) Lingua 85.2/3.
  - (1990) Movement, Case and Agreement. ms. UCLA.
  - (1989) Pronouns, Logical Variables and Logophoricity in Abe. (with H. Koopman) Linguistic Inquiry 20.4.
  - (1989) “Le Mouvement Syntaxique: Constraintes et Parametres.” Langages 95.
  - (1988) “A Theory of Floating Quantifiers and its Corollaries for Constituent Structure.” Linguistic Inquiry 19.2.

Courses

Undergraduate:

Introduction to the Study of Language (Ling 1)
Introductory Syntax ( Ling. 120B )
Advanced Syntax ( Ling. 165B )

Graduate

Graduate Introduction to Syntax I ( Ling. 200B ), II ( Ling. 206 ) or III ( Ling. 216 ),
Syntax Seminars on Current Topics (Ling 252)
Syntax and Semantics (Ling 262): a discussion group meeting weekly usually on Fridays 2-4pm.