Welcome to my homepage!
I am a postdoctoral researcher in the General Linguistics group at Bielefeld University, working with Prof. Dr. Jutta Hartmann. My research focuses on the syntax of information structure in natural language and its interface with morphology and semantics. I am particularly interested in phenomena such as focus and focus sensitivity, question formation, islandhood, resumption, and ellipsis in West African languages
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By examining understudied languages (through original fieldwork), my research aims to motivate cross-linguistic generalizations as well as identify parameters that illuminate the human cognitive capacity of language.
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Previously, I worked as a research assistant as part of the DFG-funded project on the “VP-periphery of the Mabia languages”, spoken in Ghana (PI: Prof. Dr. Katharina Hartmann). I received my PhD in linguistics from Goethe University Frankfurt in 2025, supervised by Katharina Hartmann and Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine.
News & Upcomings
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My doctoral dissertation on "Focus Sensitivity in Mabia and Yoruboid" is finally available!
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You can download it from LingBuzz.​
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Publication alert!
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My WCCFL42 proceeding paper on "Towards a Propositional Concord Approach for Exclusives in Kasem" is finally out! You can find the paper here.
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My paper on "The syntax of focus in ÌkálèÌ£" has been published by the Language Science Press as part of a collection titled Crossdisciplinary approaches to Information Structure in Niger-Congo languages, Eds: Akinlabi, A., S. Korsah, S. Rose, and A.-R. Sulemana.
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Upcoming Presentations​
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24-27/02/2026: I will give a talk on "Anti-pied-piping and focus marking mismatches in Kasem (Gur/Mabia)" at the Workshop on Tracing Mismatches: Deviations from One-to-one Patterns to be held during the 48th Annual Conference of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS), University of Trier, Germany.
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19-20/03/2026: I will give a talk on "Mismatches between syntax and information structure: towards an analysis for morphosyntactic focus languages, Kasem as a case study" at the Young Africanists’ Research Network (YARN) inaugural workshop, University of Göttingen.​
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20/04/2026: We (with Philipp Weisser) will give a talk on "Gapping in Yorùbá and why it licenses non-canonical word order" at the GLOW48 Syntax Workshop in Florence.
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20-23/05/2026: I will give a talk on "Revisiting exclusive association with focus in Yorùbá: Towards an Operator-Particle Approach" at the 57th Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL 57) at the University of Buffalo.
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20-23/05/2026: We (with Samuel Acheampong) will give a talk on "(Pseudo)-sluicing in Likpakpaanl and the Isomorphic condition" at the 57th Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL 57) at the University of Buffalo.