Research Interests
My main research interests lay in the field of theoretical syntax. My current work–approached from a minimalist and biolinguistics perspective–falls broadly in the domain of unpronounced, or null, arguments. The work in my dissertation centers around the phenomenon of adjunct control, the study of null subjects of non-finite clauses, and the syntax of the VoiceP edge. I present a novel observation of an undiscussed type of adjunct control structure involving pronominal clitics controlling into Voice’ adjuncts that, I argue, challenges an established generalization regarding the licensing of control. The study of these structures results in theoretical implications surrounding a traditionally difficult question regarding the positions of multiple specifiers in the verbal domain (Voice), for which I propose a relationship between the size of a DP and its phase-edge position. Extending beyond specifiers and control, my research program also encompasses work on other types of null arguments and morphemes, including patterns of comparative morphology found within different classes of anticausative verbs in Polish, as well as the syntax of structures involving unpronounced objects, particularly Across-the-Board Movement and parasitic gaps, phenomena that I have previously worked on and am returning to from a new theoretical perspective involving the nature of copies, repetitions, and deletion in the framework of Simplest Merge.
Publications
VanDyne, Katie. (2022). Object control into temporal adjuncts: the case of Spanish clitics. In Bullock, Barbara E.,Russi, Cinzia & Toribio, Almeida Jacqueline (eds.), A half century of Romance linguistics: Selected proceedings of the 50th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages. (Open Romance Linguistics 2) Berlin: Language Science Press
VanDyne, Katie. (2020). The interaction of adjunct control and parasitic gaps in Spanish. In J. Colomina-Almiñana and S. Sessarego (Eds.), Language patterns in Spanish and beyond: Structure, context and development. Routledge
Fellowships
Dissertation Completion Fellowship, UIUC School of Literatures Cultures and Linguistics (2023-2024)
Timothy J. Rogers Memorial Fellowship, UIUC Department of Spanish & Portuguese (2023)
Summer Research Fellowship, UIUC Department of Spanish & Portuguese (2019)
Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) Academic Year Fellowship to study Quechua, US Department of Education/ UIUC Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (2017-2018)
Summer Research Fellowship, UIUC Department of Spanish & Portuguese (2017)
conference Presentations
VanDyne, Katie. (2024). Relating the size and the specifier: Contrasts in intermediate wh-movement, Linguistic Society of America (LSA) Annual Meeting. January 4-7, 2024. New York, NY.
Dees, Joshua, VanDyne, Katie, and Anna Romaniuk. (2024). The CΔG and Polish causative/anticausative deadjectival verbs. Linguistic Society of America (LSA) Annual Meeting. January 4-7, 2024. New York, NY.
Dees, Joshua, VanDyne, Katie, and Anna Romaniuk. (2023). For better or for worse: An analysis of allomorphic variation in Polish anticausative deadjectival verbs. Western Conference on Linguistics (WECOL), November 11‑12, 2023. California State University, Fresno (online).
VanDyne, Katie. (2023). Examining the theoretical contradiction of Merge-over-Move and MERGE, Chicago Linguistics Society (CLS), April 28-30, 2023. Chicago, IL.
VanDyne, Katie. (2023). On the structural differences between shifted objects and clitic movement in Spanish. Linguistic Society of America (LSA) Annual Meeting, January 7, 2023. Denver, CO. (Poster)
VanDyne, Katie. (2022). Isolating the vP positions of Spanish proclitics and shifted objects Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (HLS) , November 5, 2022. Arizona State University (online)
VanDyne, Katie and Jonathan E. MacDonald (2022) Control in Romanian and se constructions. Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL) , April 23, 2022. UW-Madison (online)
VanDyne, Katie. (2020) Optionality in Spanish clitic positions: Observations from control Going Romance, November 27, 2020. Paris (online)
VanDyne, Katie. (2020). Adjunct control by object clitics in Spanish: an argument against control as movement, Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), July 3, 2020. UT-Austin (online)
VanDyne, Katie. (2018). The interaction of adjunct control and parasitic gaps in Spanish, Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (HLS), October 25, 2018. UT-Austin
VanDyne, Katie. (2017). Passive parasitic gaps in Spanish, Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (HLS), October 26, 2017. Texas Tech University
Katie VanDyne 