Peter Peterson

Biography

My major research interest area is English syntax, with particular focus on complex sentence structures including relative clauses, coordination, apposition and associated syntactic phenomena. I have established a theoretical account of coordination within a Lexical Functional framework, based on a (non-headed) set analysis of coordinate structures. This has led to a broader investigation of alternatives to endocentric (headed) configurations, leading to innovative analyses of apposition and certain sub-classes of relative clauses. I am also engaged in research in Second Language Acquisition. A major project in this area has been the creation of a large database of learner English, a collection of taped conversations in English with migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds, probably the largest such collection in Australia. It has been used for undergraduate and Honours students research projects, as well as in my own research and teaching in Second Language Acquisition. The two branches of my research interests form a natural unity since my central concern with Second Language Acquisition is in the development of morphological and syntactic structures in learner English. 

Research Interest

linguistics