Basic information
Position: assistant professor
Field: linguistics
Specializations: generative syntax, corpus linguistics, psycholinguistics
E-mail: <marcin.opacki@uw.edu.pl>
Office Address: Faculty of Modern Languages, UW, ul. Dobra 55, 00-312 Warsaw, Poland, Room: 3.237
Academic profile
I am a linguist and an assistant professor at the Faculty of Modern Languages, University of Warsaw. My research interests are founded upon three pillars: theoretical linguistics (syntax and syntactic theories), natural language processing (corpus linguistics), and psycholinguistics (grammaticality judgements, cross-linguistic influence, bilingualism, and SLA).
One can say that I am mainly interested in how linguistic knowledge and linguistic information can be represented through the use of descriptive grammars. I am also interested in rule- and constraint-based systems in general. I consider experimental research a crucial proving ground for linguistic theories, a much needed bridge between the empirical and the rational, hence my participation in the LingLab team.
Research interests
Some overarching questions that define my academic exploits include:
- How do the various structures (“layers”) of natural language (e.g. syntax, semantics, pragmatics) constrain and regulate each other?
- What factors contribute to the perception of grammaticality, well-formedness, and acceptability?
- To what extent are the aforementioned factors related to cross-linguistic influence and prior language knowledge?
- How can we use linguistic theories of grammar to operationalize the abstract structures of natural language for the purpose of linguistic research?
- How do different methods of operationalization (especially the aforementioned descriptive grammars) influence construct validity?
- How does the information load of particular linguistic signs influence language processing, language acquisition, and language learning?