(Ph.D. University of Iowa, 2010)

Research (my ORCID)

I was promoted to the rank of Professor effective August 2024.

I specialize in syntax, which means that I study sentence structure and word order. In my research, I seek to discover insight on how language structure is represented within the human mind—in monolinguals as well as bilinguals/multi-linguals. I do this by focusing on a variety of constructions in language. 

My current research interests include the syntactic reflexes of information structure, interrogative constructions that encode negation, the processing of control and raising in Brazilian Portuguese, subject-verb agreement mismatches, the prosody of contrast and CLLD in Galician and Spanish, the properties of grammatical subjects in Caribbean Spanish, and the L2 acquisition and processing of that-trace effects in English and Spanish. In addition to syntactic and cartographic tests, I additionally employ a variety of experimental methods based on second language acquisition and psycholinguistic research (e.g. acceptability questionnaires, processing/reaction time studies) in order to elicit quantitative judgment data, which in turn, provides insight on the mental grammar.

publications

Peer-reviewed journal articles and conference proceedings

1. Gupton, T., and Merchant, D. (accepted). On the acceptability of agreeing infinitives in Brazilian Portuguese. Applied Psycholinguistics.

2. Gupton, T. (2026). Information structure, subject positions, and the cartography of the preverbal field in Cibaeño Dominican Spanish. Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics, 12(1), 1-38.

3. Merchant, D.C. and Gupton, T. (2025). Processing dissociations between raising and control in Brazilian Portuguese. Journal of Linguistics 61(2), 301-337.

4. Gupton, T., and Gravely, B. (2024). What formal approaches to syntactic interfaces can tell us about the syntax of preverbal and prenominal constituents in Galician. Languages 9(8),267.

5. Hodges, L., Knouse, S., and Gupton, T. (2023). La lingüística y sus beneficios para la enseñanza del español. Hispanic Studies Review 7(2), 1-22.

6. Gupton, T. (2023). El foco, la estructura informativa y el ser focalizador en el español cibaeño. Revista Internacional de Lingüística Iberoamericana 41, 143-166.

7. Levishna, N., Namboodiripad, S., Allassonnière-Tang, M., Kramer, M., Talamo, L., Verkerk, A., Wilmoth, S., Garrido Rodriguez, G., Gupton, T., Kidd, E., Liu, Z., Naccarato, C., Nordlinger, R., Panova, A., and Stoynova, N. (2023). Why we need a gradient approach to word order. Linguistics: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the Language Sciences 61(4), 825-883.

8. Gupton, T., and Sánchez-Calderón, S. (2023). Focus at the syntax-discourse interface in Spanish: Optionality and unaccusativity reconsidered. Second Language Research 39(1), 185-229.

9. Gravely, B., and Gupton, T. (2022). Nanoparameters in Western Iberian Romance: Null copulas in Galician and Asturian. Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics 8(1)/16, 1-31.

10. Knouse, S., Gupton, T., and Abreu, L. (2015). Teaching Hispanic Linguistics: Strategies to Engage Learners. Hispania 98(2), 319-332.

11. Gupton, T. (2014). Preverbal Subjects in Galician: Experimental Data in the A vs. A’ Debate. Probus 26(1), 135-175.

12. Gupton, T., and Lowman, S. (2013). An F Projection in Cibeño Dominican Spanish. In Cabrelli Amaro, J., Lord, G., de Prada Pérez, A. and Aaron, J. (eds.). Selected Proceedings of the 16th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, 338-348. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. 

13. Gupton, T., and Leal Méndez, T. (2013). Experimental Methodologies: Two Case Studies Investigating the Syntax-Discourse Interface. Studies in Hispanic & Lusophone Linguistics 6(1), 139-164.

14. Gupton, T. (2012). Object Clitics in Galician and Complications for Clausal Analyses. In Geeslin, K. and Díaz-Campos, M. (eds.), Selected Proceedings of the 14th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, 272-284. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.

Books
1. Gupton, T. (2014). The syntax-information structure interface: Clausal word order and the left periphery in Galician. DeGruyter/Mouton.

Edited Volumes
1. Gupton, T., and Gielau, E. (2021). East and West of the Pentacrest: Linguistic studies in honor of Paula Kempchinsky. John Benjamins [OPEN ACCESS BOOK].

Peer-reviewed book chapters
1. Gravely, B., and Gupton, T. (2024). The left-peripheral syntax of Brazilian Portuguese cadê. In Guesser, S. et al. (eds.) Wh-exclamatives, imperatives and wh-questions: Issues on Brazilian Portuguese, 387-408. DeGruyter.

2. Gupton, T. (2021). Aligning syntax and prosody in Galician, In Gupton, T., & Gielau, E., (eds), East and West of the Pentacrest: Linguistic studies in honor of Paula Kempchinsky, 41-67. John Benjamins.

3. Leal, T., and Gupton, T. (2021). Acceptability experiments in Romance Languages. In Goodall, G. (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Syntax, 448-476. Cambridge University Press. 

4. Gravely, B., and Gupton, T. (2020). Verbless DP interrogative constructions and enclisis in Galician. In Colomina-Almiñana, J.J. and Sessarego, S. (eds.), Language Patterns in Spanish and Beyond: Structure, Context and Development. 97-121. Routledge.

5. Gupton, T. (2018). Syntax and Its Interfaces. In Geeslin, K. (ed.). The Cambridge Handbook of Spanish Linguistics, 392-414. Cambridge University Press. 

6. Gupton, T. (2017). Early minority language acquirers of Spanish exhibit focus-related interface asymmetries: Word order alternation and optionality in Spanish-Catalan, Spanish-Galician, and Spanish-English bilinguals. In Lauchlan, F. and Parafita-Couto, M.C. (eds.). Bilingualism and Minority Languages in Europe, 214-241. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 

Press interviews

1. Judkis, M. (2021, August 6). Can these dogs really talk, or are they just pushing our buttons? Washington Post. 

Book reviews
1. Gupton, T. (2021). review of Lusophone, Galician, and Hispanic Linguistics, Rei-Doval, G. & Tejedo-Herrero, F. (eds.) Studies in Hispanic & Lusophone Linguistics 14(2), 497-507.

2. Gupton, T. (2018). Focus-related Operations at the Right Edge in Spanish: Subjects and Ellipsis by Iván Ortega-Santos (review). Language 94(1), 225-228. 

Upcoming and recent conference presentations
1. "Intonation and convergence in Galicia: Comparing bilingual Galician and Galician Spanish". Invited talk, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Apr. 17, 2026.

2. “Declarative intonation among Galician-Spanish bilinguals: Evidence for convergence". 28th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ. Nov. 13, 2025. (with María Morado-Vázquez)

2. "Exploring convergence in Galician Spanish-dominant bilingual intonation". 55th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages. Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra (PUCMM), Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Sept. 10-12, 2025. (with María Morado-Vázquez)

3. "Evidence for convergence in the intonation of Galician Spanish-dominant bilinguals”. International Symposium on Monolingual and Bilingual Speech (ISMBS) 2025. Chania, Greece. June 16, 2025. (with María Morado-Vázquez) (SLIDESHOW)

4. “Language dominance at the syntax-intonation interface in Galician and Galician Spanish”. Invited contributor to panel on Linguistic Dominance. 15th Workshop on Immigrant Languages in the Americas (WILA 15). University of Georgia, Sept. 27, 2024

5. “Interrogatives and speaker objection in metalinguistic negation”. 25^th Seoul International Conference on Generative Grammar (SICOGG). Dongguk University, Seoul, S. Korea. Aug. 16, 2023. (with Brian Gravely)

Projects in various stages of development
1.  "Language typology, change, and innovation: The preverbal field in Cibaeño Dominican Spanish" (solo book-length project)

2.  "Aligning syntax and prosody in the Spanish of Galicia" (with María Morado-Vázquez, conference communications, conference proceedings in preparation)

3.  "Re-examining that-trace and the L2 acquisition of Spanish" (with Rocío Jiménez-Segura & Mario Juárez-Sánchez, in development)

mentoring & teaching

Past and present students, either under my direction or as part of a committee on which I served, have studied the following topics: the influence of anxiety in SLA, the present perfect construction in heritage Brazilian Portuguese, subjects of infinitives in Peninsular and Caribbean Spanish, Spanish clitic doubling, student-directed input and the L2 acquisition of Spanish intransitive predicates, the L3 acquisition of morpho-syntax in Brazilian Portuguese (L1 English/L2 Spanish and L1 Spanish/L2 English), diachronic analysis of Galician clitics and complementizers, idiom processing in English, clitic left-dislocation in Spanish and other Romance languages, partitive clitics and clitic doubling in Spanish, L2 acquisition of (in)alienable possession in Spanish, cliticization in Old Spanish and Galego-Portuguese, the syntax of ello and overt subjects in Dominican Spanish, nominalized infinitives in Spanish, morpho-syntax and phonology of Quechua-Spanish bilinguals, and bare nominals in Spanish. Feel free to email me with questions! If you haven't read it, I also strongly recommend the book Surviving Linguistics by Monica Macaulay. 

Potential graduate students: Are you considering graduate studies in linguistics or Hispanic linguistics? Unsure of what that entails or what you can study related to syntax? Please send me an email so we can explore the possibilities.

Current PhD students under my direction as major professor (*co-major professor)

Caitlin Samples (ABD; dissertating)

James Fenton Gardner (ABD, dissertating)

Rocío Jiménez Segura (ABD, dissertating)

Vanessa Revheim Cunha (ABD, dissertating)

Devon Fischer* (QP2 in progress)

Joshua Craig* (coursework)

Current MA STUDENTS UNDER MY DIRECTION AS MAJOR PROFESSOR (*co-major professor)

*{confidential} (MA comprehensive exams successfully defended)

Renee McCorkle (coursework)

Graduate placements of students under my direction as major professor 

María González-Ferrer (2025), Assistant Teaching Professor, Brown University

Caitlin Samples (forthcoming), Lecturer, Stanford University

Ningxian Li (2024), Instructor, University of Georgia (Lecturer at Barnard College starting in Fall 2026!)

María Morado Vázquez (2022), Lecturer, The Ohio State University

Diogo Cosme, PhD (2021), Assistant Professor, Salt Lake Community College

Brian Gravely, Jr., PhD (2021), Visiting Assistant Professor, Emory University

Douglas Merchant, PhD (2019), Lecturer, University of Michigan

Brycen Lee, MA (2025), Instructor, University of Georgia

Daniel Noh, MA (2024), Language Lab Coordinator, University of North Georgia

Steve Vazquez, MA (2024), Spanish teacher, Hilton Head Preparatory School (Hilton Head, SC)

Eva Morón, MA (2018), English Instructor, Colegio Internacional Ánfora (Zaragoza, Spain)

Devon Fischer, MA (2017), PhD student, UGA Linguistics & Spanish Teacher, Brookwood High School (Snelville, GA)

Mary Virginia Rockwell (née Hahn), MA (2017), Spanish teacher, Grayson High School (Loganville, GA)

I am also faculty co-advisor for the Delta Gamma chapter of Sigma Delta Pi, the Spanish Honors Society at UGA.  I taught for UGA en Costa Rica in summer 2014 and 2015, and directed UGA en Buenos Aires (UGABA) 2016-2022. 

For Undergrads: CURO projects 

I typically only do CURO projects/directed readings (HONS 4960H, 4970H) with former students of mine. However, I occasionally make exceptions in the case of highly recommended syntax students. See my CV for past CURO students and project summaries. Please email me if you have a project in mind!

Courses taught in the past five years: (Want to know more? You can find past syllabi for my classes and any UGA course here!)

FYOS 1001 - Galicia: Language, History, and Culture (fall most years, in English)

SPAN 2001 - Intermediate Spanish Conversation (fall 2025)

SPAN 3050 - Introduction to Spanish Linguistics (spring 2020, 2021, 2024, fall 26)

SPAN 3050E - Introduction to Spanish Linguistics (online, summer 2022, 2025, 2026)

SPAN 4120 - Topics in Linguistics: La adquisición de segunda lengua (fall 2021)

SPAN 4120/6120 - Linguistic transfer and Third Language (L3/Ln) Acquisition (summer 2023)

SPAN 4651 - Advanced Spanish Grammar (spring 2022)

SPAN 4652 - Spanish Dialectology and Variation (fall 2020, 2022, 2024, spring 2026)

SPAN 4750 - Spanish Syntax (spring, odd-number years)

SPAN 4750/6750 - Spanish Syntax (fall semester)

SPAN 6350/ROML 6350 - Romance Linguistics: Theory and Analysis (fall 2020, 2022, 2024)

ROML 8000/LING 8280 - Generative Second Language Acquisition (spring 2019 in English)

SPAN 8010 - Topics: Heritage Spanish (spring 2021, 2025)

SPAN 8010 - Generative Second Language Acquisition and Bilingualism (spring 2023)

SPAN 8750 - Advanced Spanish Syntax (spring, even-number years)

Note: I teach in the Department of Romance Languages and my SPAN linguistics classes are taught in Spanish, although I occasionally teach ROML/LING courses in English. In short, students who do not know Spanish will find it difficult to take courses with me.