🏳️Michael Yoshitaka ERLEWINE (mitcho)

Website faviconmitcho.com

Linguist, National University of Singapore: syntax, semantics, languages of Asia

Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine mitcho Singapore Associate Professor National University of Singapore.

Hello!

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I am an Associate Professor (Presidential Young Professor) in **Linguistics** at the [National University of Singapore](https://fass.nus.edu.sg/elts/) and currently a Core Fellow at the University of Helsinki’s [Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies](https://www.helsinki.fi/en/helsinki-collegium-advanced-studies). I received my Ph.D. from [MIT Linguistics](http://linguistics.mit.edu/) in 2014. [**My lab**](/lab) investigates the structure of sentences (**syntax**) and how these structures map to meaning (**semantics**). Much of our work is based on the study of **historically understudied languages**, especially of **Southeast Asia**. I serve as Associate Editor of the [_Journal of Semantics_](https://academic.oup.com/jos/) and on the Editorial Boards of [_Natural Language & Linguistic Theory_](https://www.springer.com/journal/11049) and [_Journal of East Asian Linguistics_](https://www.springer.com/journal/10831).

Areas of interest

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*   Syntax, semantics, and their interface; grammatical variation, learning, and change; languages of (Southeast) Asia

*   Movement: (anti-)locality, (anti-)pied-piping, extraction restrictions, interactions with case and agreement, the interpretation of movement chains

*   Focus and alternatives: focus particles, questions, _wh_\-quantification, disjunction, discourse organization (QUDs), implicature calculation

My work has investigated:

*   Austronesian: [Toba Batak](https://google.com/search?q=Toba Batak site:mitcho.com inurl:\(projects|research\) -inurl:blog filetype:html), [Rejang](https://google.com/search?q=Rejang site:mitcho.com inurl:\(projects|research\) -inurl:blog filetype:html) (Sumatra), [Bikol](https://google.com/search?q=Bikol site:mitcho.com inurl:\(projects|research\) -inurl:blog filetype:html), [Kapampangan](https://google.com/search?q=Kapampangan site:mitcho.com inurl:\(projects|research\) -inurl:blog filetype:html), [Pangasinan](https://google.com/search?q=Pangasinan site:mitcho.com inurl:\(projects|research\) -inurl:blog filetype:html), [Tagalog](https://google.com/search?q=Tagalog site:mitcho.com inurl:\(projects|research\) -inurl:blog filetype:html) (Philippines), [Desa](https://google.com/search?q=Desa site:mitcho.com inurl:\(projects|research\) -inurl:blog filetype:html), [Kayan](https://google.com/search?q=Kayan site:mitcho.com inurl:\(projects|research\) -inurl:blog filetype:html), [Lebo’ Vo’](https://google.com/search?q=Lebo’ Vo’ Kenyah site:mitcho.com inurl:\(projects|research\) -inurl:blog filetype:html) (Borneo), and [Squliq Atayal](https://google.com/search?q=Atayal site:mitcho.com inurl:\(projects|research\) -inurl:blog filetype:html) (Taiwan);

*   Tibeto-Burman: [Tibetan](https://google.com/search?q=Tibetan site:mitcho.com inurl:\(projects|research\) -inurl:blog filetype:html) and [Burmese](https://google.com/search?q=Burmese site:mitcho.com inurl:\(projects|research\) -inurl:blog filetype:html);

*   Mayan: [Kaqchikel](https://google.com/search?q=Kaqchikel site:mitcho.com inurl:\(projects|research\) -inurl:blog filetype:html) and [Chuj](https://google.com/search?q=Chuj site:mitcho.com inurl:\(projects|research\) -inurl:blog filetype:html) (Guatemala);

*   [Mandarin Chinese](https://google.com/search?q=Mandarin Chinese site:mitcho.com inurl:\(projects|research\) -inurl:blog filetype:html); [English](https://google.com/search?q=English site:mitcho.com inurl:\(projects|research\) -inurl:blog filetype:html); [Japanese](https://google.com/search?q=Japanese site:mitcho.com inurl:\(projects|research\) -inurl:blog filetype:html); [Vietnamese](https://google.com/search?q=Vietnamese site:mitcho.com inurl:\(projects|research\) -inurl:blog filetype:html); [Singlish](https://google.com/search?q=Singlish site:mitcho.com inurl:\(projects|research\) -inurl:blog filetype:html); [Turkish](https://google.com/search?q=Turkish site:mitcho.com inurl:\(projects|research\) -inurl:blog filetype:html)…

See the [Projects](/projects) page for descriptions of projects and downloadable papers.

Upcoming talks

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*   **March 18:** [CRLAO](http://crlao.ehess.fr/), presenting on Tibetan and Austronesian relativization

*   **April 7:** Lund University, presenting on Mandarin disjunction

*   **July 8–10:** plenary talk at the [38th Journées de linguistique d’Asie orientale (JLAO)](http://crlao.ehess.fr/index.php?2499)

Recent

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*   **Paper accepted, February 2025:** [“Focus intervention, multiple association, and the unity of focus and _wh_ alternatives”](/research/focus-wh.html), in _Linguistics and Philosophy_

*   **Paper online, February 2025:** [“Toba Batak _manang_: Notes on its uses and form”](/research/manang.html), “online first” in _Studies in Language_

*   **Paper accepted, January 2025:** [“On the role of causation in sufficiency and excess”](/research/sufficiency.html), to appear in the volume _Generative Perspectives on Degrees: The Semantics and Morphosyntax of Scalarity_

*   **New paper, December 2024:** [“Bornean passives in comparative perspective”](/research/lebo-vo-passive.html) with Alex Smith; comments welcome!

*   **Paper accepted, December 2024:** [“Japanese contrast sluicing and pair-list questions”](/research/contrast-sluicing.html) with [Teruyuki Mizuno](https://teruyuki-mizuno.github.io/) accepted with revisions in _Linguistic Inquiry_

*   **New paper, December 2024:** [“Interpreting Tagalog clitic cluster combinations”](/research/clitics-triplea.html) with Henrison Hsieh

*   **September 2024:** Presented “On the unity of _wh_ and focus alternatives” at Sinn und Bedeutung 29

*   **Paper accepted, September 2024:** [“Interrogative and standard disjunction in Mandarin Chinese”](/research/haishi.html) accepted with revisions with _Journal of Semantics_

*   **August 2024:**

    *   [Silvio Cruschina](https://silviocruschina.wordpress.com/) and I organized a workshop on Mismatches in Information Structure at the SLE annual meeting in Helsinki

    *   Presenting [“Emergence of passive voice in Central Borneo”](/research/talk-sle-passive.html) with Alex Smith at the SLE workshop on passivization

*   **Revised paper, August 2024:** [“Voice and extraction in Malayic”](/research/malayic.html) with [Carly Sommerlot](https://sites.google.com/view/cjsommerlot)

*   **Paper published, July 2024:** [“Ingredients of excess: A study of Vietnamese _quá_”](/research/vietnamese-qua.html) with Anne Nguyen in _Asian Languages and Linguistics_

*   **Talk, June 2024:** [“On the syntax of the analytic passive in Kenyah”](/research/talk-isbl-kenyah.html) with Alex Smith, at the [First International Symposium on Bornean Linguistics (ISBL1)](https://indoling.com/isbl/)

*   **Paper published, May 2024:** [“Voice and pronominal forms in Kayan (Uma Nyaving)”](/research/kayan.html) with Alex Smith and Carly Sommerlot in _Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society_

*   **Paper published, April 2024:** [“Ā-probing for the closest DP”](/research/closest-dp.html) with [Kenyon Branan](https://sites.google.com/view/kbranan/home) in _Linguistic Inquiry_

Less recent but still pretty good

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*   [“Anti-pied-piping”](/research/anti-pied-piping.html) with [Kenyon Branan](https://sites.google.com/view/kbranan/home) in _Language_, 2023

*   [“Bikol clefts and topics and the Austronesian extraction restriction”](https://mitcho.com/research/bikol.html) with Cheryl Lim, in _Natural Language & Linguistic Theory_, 2023