Michael Yoshitaka ERLEWINE (mitcho)

Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine mitcho

France Researcher CNRS.

Hello!

I am a Researcher in linguistics at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and Nantes University’s Laboratoire de Linguistique de Nantes. I received my Ph.D. from MIT in 2014. My work investigates the structure of sentences (syntax) and how these structures map to meaning (semantics), with particular interest in understudied languages of (Southeast) Asia. I am an Associate Editor of the Journal of Semantics and Natural Language and Linguistic Theory and Editor of the SEALEGS book series (Southeast Asian Languages: Empirical Grammatical Studies) with Language Science Press.

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:

Mandarin Chinese; Vietnamese; Japanese; English; Singlish (Colloquial Singapore English);
Austronesian: Toba Batak, Rejang (Sumatra), Bikol, Kapampangan, Pangasinan, Tagalog (Philippines), Desa, Kayan, Lebo’ Vo’ (Borneo), and Squliq Atayal (Taiwan);
Tibeto-Burman: Tibetan and Burmese;
Mayan: Kaqchikel and Chuj (Guatemala)

See the Projects page for descriptions of projects and downloadable papers.

March 2027: Invited talk at the DGfS 49 workshop on information structure, Jena, 3–5 March 2027
June 2027: Invited talk at TEAL 16, Leiden, 10–12 June 2027
September 2027: Invited talk at Current issues in comparative syntax: Competing grammars and emergent syntax, Tokyo

Paper published, October 2026: “Locality and (minimal) search” with Kenyon Branan has appeared in the Cambridge Handbook of the Minimalist Program
NEW: I am starting a new book series, SEALEGS: Southeast Asian Languages: Empirical Grammatical Studies, with Language Science Press!
Paper accepted, July 2026: “Japanese contrast sluicing and pair-list questions” with Teruyuki Mizuno, in Linguistic Inquiry!
Talks, June+ 2026:
- “Word order and interpretation order in Japanese scrambling”, invited talk at WAFL 19
- “Learning the A- vs Ā- movement distinction” at RALFe 9
- “Emergence of passive voice in Central Borneo” with Alex Smith, JLAO 39
Talk, April 2026: “Atayalic subjects and the nature of nominative”, at GLOW 48
Talk, March 2026: “Learning to move,” at the Formal Linguistics in the Nordic Countries (FLiNC) colloquium
I have moved! I am now a CNRS Researcher (chargé de recherche) at CNRS & Nantes University’s Laboratoire de Linguistique de Nantes. (My previous nus.edu.sg email does not work.)

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