[Latest
update (08/10/08)]
: My picture, research interests
and on-going projects have been updated.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[About me] -
click here to see my CV (in pdf,
last edited March 2008)
I am
a fourth-year PhD student at the University of Maryland
Linguistics Department. My current adviser is Colin
Phillips, and I work in the Cognitive
Neuroscience of Language (CNL) Laboratory.
Before I came
here, I did my MA (advisor: Bonnie D. Schwartz) in the Department
of Second Language Studies (SLS) at the University of Hawai'i, and BA in English/Linguistics
at Sophia University
(Tokyo, Japan).
I grew up in a city called Hakodate
in Hokkaido, Japan. I love Hakodate! If you have a chance to visit Hokkaido,
please visit there- you'll love the great seafood (especially squid!),
beautiful nightview from Mt. Hakodate, Yunokawa hot springs, streetcars,
and the scenic streets with European-style buildings.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[My research
interests]
My research projects range from sentence processing to first or second
language acquisition as well as theoretical syntax, but they are all
driven by one question: How do language learners process the input and
acquire the grammar of their target language while having a non-target-like
grammar? Just saying "Oh, innate knowledge helps" is no sufficient
answer, and a serious inquiry into this question requires one to look
into a) the nature of learners' linguistic knowledge, b) the mechanism
of sentence processing in language learners, and c) how these two things
interact in order for language development to take place.
As a first step to this problem, my current major project focuses on
investigatiosns of child language processing, in particular on processing
of wh-dependencies in children. Using a visual world eye-tracking method,
we are investigating whether children try to actively complete long-distance
dependencies like adults do, and if not, when such processing behaviors
emerge. Finding out a developmental profile of active comprehension
will also shed light on the nature of the predictive mechanism in sentence
processing.
In relation to the psycholinguistic development in children, I'm also getting interested in
child brain development and how that informs language development. I wrote a review paper on
child EEG research on language development with David Poeppel (see below for a link).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[On-going projects]
1.
[processing/acquisition] Active dependency completion in pre-schoolers,
using eyetracking
(w/ Stacey Conroy, Hana Quon &
Matt Wagers)
2. [syntax] Crossing undercover: On the amelioration of WCO under sluicing.
(w/ Masaya Yoshida)
3. [syntax] Cross-linguistic variations (or lack thereof) in island
constraints, with particular focus on Scandinavian languages
(w/ Dave Kush)
4. [L2 acquisition] Use of island constraints in second language
processing
(w/ Barbara Schulz)
...and many more to come soon...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Selected Papers
/ Presentations]
Omaki,
A., Conroy, C., & Lidz, J. (2008). An experimental investigation
of referential/non-referential asymmetries in syntactic reconstruction.
Paper presented at Quantitative Investigations in Theoretical Linguistics
3, Helsinki. [slides available in PDF
File]
Omaki, A. (2008). Verbal morphology: Return of the affix hopping approach.
In Proceedings of NELS 38 [PDF
File].
Poeppel, D., & Omaki, A. (2008). Language acquisition and ERP
approaches: Prospects and challenges. In A. Friederici & G. Thierry
(Eds.), Early language development: Bridging brain and behavior.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [PDF
File] [link to the book page]
Omaki, A., Dyer, C., Malhotra, S., Sprouse, J., Lidz, J., & Phillips,
C. (2007). The time-course of anaphoric processing and syntactic reconstruction.
Paper presented at CUNY 2007, San Diego. [slides available in PDF
File]
Omaki, A. (2007). Revisiting revived Syntactic Structures:
The extended hybrid approach to verbal morphology. In University
of Maryland Working Papers in Linguistics 16. [PDF
File]
(See Omaki 2008 for a non-lexicalist approach to the same problems,
based on the revision of this paper)
Bullock, G., Omaki, A., Schulz, B., Schwartz, B. D., & Tremblay,
A. (2006). Where do L2ers attach interclausal adverbials? In A. Belletti,
E. Bennati, C. Chesi, E. Di Domenico, & I. Ferrari (Eds.), Language
acquisition and development: Proceedings of GALA 2005 (pp. 82-95). Cambridge,
Cambridge Scholars Press. [PDF
file]
Miyao, M., & Omaki, A. (2006). No ambiguity about it: Korean
learners of Japanese have a clear attachment preference. To appear in
Proceedings of the 30th Annual Boston University Conference on Language
Development Supplement. [Paper;
Stimuli
(in Japanese) used in Experiment 2 (both in pdf)]
Omaki, A., & Ariji, K. (2005). Testing and attesting the use
of structural information in L2 sentence processing. In L. Dekydtspotter,
R. A. Sprouse & A. Liljestrand (Eds.), Proceedings of the 7th
Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Conference (pp.
205-218). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
[Go to the GASLA7
Proceedings website, where you can download the paper]
Ariji, K., Omaki, A., & Tatsuta, N. (2004). Psycholinguistic
evidence on RTO constructions in Japanese. In K. Moulton & M. Wolf (Eds.),
Proceedings of NELS 34 (pp. 105-116). Amherst, MA: GLSA.
Edited volume
Omaki, A., Ortega-Santos, I., Sprouse, J., & Wagers, M (Eds.).
(2007). University of Maryland Working Papers in Linguistics 16.
[link to the
UMDWPiL16 page]
MA thesis [at University of Hawaii. Advisor: Bonnie D Schwartz]
Omaki, A. (2005). Working memory and relative clause attachment
in first and second language processing. [PDF
file]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Teaching]
- Ling 240: language and mind (Summer 2, 2007)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Non-academic
things]
- Pictures
