Viviane Déprez

About

Dr. Viviane Déprez is a native of Paris, France, who grew up in German-speaking Switzerland and completed her PhD in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT. After graduating, she joined the Rutgers Department of Linguistics and became a research affiliate of the Cognitive Science Lab at Princeton University until 1993. She is also a member of the Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Sciences, the Rutgers Graduate Faculty of Psychology, and currently a member of the Lab on Language, Brain and Cognition in Lyon. Her academic background is in theoretical syntax, with research primarily focused on the structure of nominal constituents, the syntax-semantic interface of determiners, number systems, negative concord, and the interactions between questions and quantifiers. Her current research aims to understand micro-parametric variations and the relationships between semantics/pragmatics and the grammaticalization of features such as definiteness, specificity, person, number, and negation in Romance languages, Creole languages, and second language acquisition. In recent years, Dr. Déprez has developed a more experimental approach to her research, combining corpus search, psycholinguistic experiments in second language acquisition, and ERP studies in collaboration with colleagues. She is also interested in broader cognitive issues related to the evolution of language, particularly exploring potential parallels between language syntax and the motor system.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Philosophy
• Linguistics
• Mathematics
• Psychology
• Cognitive science
• Programming language

Selected publications

• Relating (Un)acceptability to Interpretation. Experimental Investigations on Negation

  Frontiers in Psychology · 2018-02-02 · 79 citations

  articleOpen access

  Although contemporary linguistic studies routinely use unacceptable sentences to determine the boundary of what falls outside the scope of grammar, investigations far more rarely take into consideration the possible interpretations of such sentences, perhaps because these interpretations are commonly prejudged as irrelevant or unreliable across speakers. In this paper we provide the results of two experiments in which participants had to make parallel acceptability and interpretation judgments o…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Plurality and definiteness in Mauritian and Haitian creoles

  Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages · 2019-11-25 · 5 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract In addition to plurality, creole plural morphemes impart an additional meaning of definiteness or specificity to the nominal expressions they mark. As of yet, there is no precise characterization either empirical or theoretical of the semantic/pragmatic dimensions they convey. Furthermore, the question of whether this added meaning is largely fixed across distinct creoles and plural morphemes, or subject to variations has never been examined. With the goal of bringing new insights intot…

  PublisherDOI

• Valeurs sémantiques et pragmatique des pluriels créoles : Une comparaison des pluriels mauriciens et haïtiens

  Études créoles · 2019-01-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  En plus de la notion de pluriel qu’ils expriment, les morphèmes pluriels créoles attribuent un sens ajouté de définitude ou de spécificité aux expressions nominales qu’ils déterminent. Toutefois, les valeurs sémantiques et pragmatiques mises en jeu par ces morphèmes restent jusqu’à présent largement floues et demandent à être clarifiées pour permettre une meilleure compréhension de ce phénomène. De surcroit, on ignore encore tout sur la question de la valeur comparative de ce sens ajouté dans di…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• What is negative in Haitian Creole? Negative Concord Items, sentential, constituent and expletive negation

  Contact language library · 2018-11-27 · 3 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Negative sentences in Creole languages, provocatively claimed to be the world ‘simplest languages’ (Mc Whorter 2001) , commonly present a puzzling multiplicity of redundant negative expressions with a single negative interpretation that appear to systematically violate logical compositionality. An intriguing solution to this puzzle proposes that, contrary to appearances, negation is entirely abstract in Creoles, i.e. solely represented by a phonologically null operator dubbed NEG ( Home…

  PublisherDOI

• Editorial: What Are (Un)Acceptability and (Un)Grammaticality? How Do They Relate to One Another and to Interpretation?

  Frontiers in Psychology · 2020-12-03 · 2 citations

  editorialOpen access

  International audience

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Anne Cheylus

  Inserm

  39 shared

• Michel Hoen

  19 shared

• Yves Paulignan

  15 shared

• Tatjana A. Nazir

  Sciences Cognitives et Sciences Affectives

  15 shared

• Peter Ford Dominey

  Université de Bourgogne

  14 shared

• Anne Reboul

  Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive

  12 shared

• Ludivine Dupuy

  Institut des Sciences Cognitives

  11 shared

• M. Teresa Espinal

  Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

  11 shared

Labs

• Comparative and Experimental Linguistics Lab (CELL)PI

Similar researchers at Rutgers University

• Ryan Walter Smithh-43
• Mark Bakerh-41
• Kristen Syretth-22