My research falls into  two main areas – (1) the emergence of tense-aspect-modality systems in second language acquisition/second dialect acquisition and (2) the emergence of different relative clause structures  in learners’ use of discourse and pragmatics.

In my early research, these were  presented as two separate domains. The first domain focused on the emergence of tense-aspect systems by learners of English as a second language (speakers of Spanish and Haitian Creole) and learners of English as a second dialect (speakers of English-lexified Creoles and African-American English). The second focused on the analysis of how paratactic structures emerged as learners acquired various kinds of relative clauses in their English interlanguage.

As I continue to research these areas, I have become increasingly cognizant of how tense-aspect interfaces with different types of relative clauses in both interlanguage discourse and interlanguage pragmatics.