• Supporting materials (sample stimuli, R scripts, datasets, etc.) for modal acquisition studies are available at this link (we are updating gradually): https://osf.io/v9ure/

(in preparation) Cournane, Ailís & Sandrine Tailleur. Where do maybes come from? Evidence from English, French and Norwegian. [Click for slides from CLA2021]

Cournane, Ailís and Klævik-Pettersen, Espen. 2023. The role of the conservative learner in the rise and fall of V2. Journal of Historical Syntax. [click for pdf][Click for slides from DiGS21]

Cournane, Ailís, Dieuleveut, Anouk and Valentine Hacquard. 2023. Assessing how the linguistic input affects children’s mastery of modals. Proceedings of the 47^th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD47). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. [click for pdf]

[Plenary speaker] Learning is changing: modeling and testing the role children play in change across domains. 3^rd AMC Symposium: “Change in syntax and phonology: the same or different?” at the Angus McIntosh Centre for Historical Linguistics. Edinburgh, Scotland. December 5-7, 2022. [Click here for slides from AMC3]

Cournane, Ailís, Hirzel, Mina, and Valentine Hacquard. 2023. Mapping modals to meanings: an elicited production study on ‘force’ and ‘flavor’. Language Acquisition. DOI: 10.1080/10489223.2023.2173074 [click for pdf]

Cournane, Ailís, Dieuleveut, Anouk and Valentine Hacquard. 2023. Assessing how the linguistic input affects children’s mastery of modals. Proceedings of the 47^th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD47). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. [click for pdf]

Cournane, Ailís and Valentine Hacquard. 2022. Adapting acquisition methodologies to study modality in underdescribed languages. In Vander Klok, Jozina, Ferriera Rech, Núbia, Guesser, Simone and Eduardo Correa Soares (Eds.). Modality in Underdescribed Languages: Methods and Insights. Berlin: DeGruyter. 10.1515/9783110721478-006 [click for pdf]

 van Dooren, Annemarie, Dieuleveut, Anouk, Cournane, Ailís and Valentine Hacquard. 2022. Figuring out root and epistemic uses for modals: The role of the input. Journal of Semantics. [click for pdf]

Cournane, Ailís and Dunja Veselinović. 2022. If you must, you will: Children overcommit to likelihood inferences from deontic modal use. Glossa, 7. [click for pdf]

Grosu, Ioana & Ailís Cournane. The changing facts of children’s counterfactual reasoning. Proceedings of the 46^th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD46). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. [click for pdf]

Dieuleveut, Anouk, van Dooren, Annemarie, Cournane, Ailís and Valentine Hacquard. 2022. Finding the force: How children discern possibility and necessity modals. Natural Language Semantics. [click for pdf]

Cournane, Ailís. 2021. Revisiting the Epistemic Gap: It’s not the thought that counts. Language Acquisition, 28(3): 215-240. [click for pdf]

• Awarded journal’s «Best Paper by an Untenured Scientist» for 2021.

Dieuleveut, Anouk, van Dooren, Annemarie, Cournane, Ailís, and Valentine Hacquard. 2021. Finding the force: a novel word learning experiment with modals. Proceedings of ELM1: Experiments in Linguistic Meaning. [click for pdf ]

Cournane, Ailís and Sandrine Tailleur. 2021. La production épistémique chez l’enfant francophone: une étude comparative. [Epistemic production in francophone children: a comparative study]. Arboressences 10 : 47-72. [click for pdf]

Tulling, Maxime A., Law, Ryan, Cournane, Ailís, and Liina Pylkkanen. 2020. Neural correlates of modal displacement and discourse-updating under (un)certainty. eNeuro 8(1): 1-19. [click for pdf][press release from NYU][click for Youtube video by The Joe Show (he nails it!)][click for article from The National, UAE]

Cournane, Ailís. 2020. Learning Modals: A Grammatical Approach. Language and Linguistics Compass 14(10): 1-22. [click for pdf]

Veselinović, Dunja and Ailís Cournane. 2020. The grammatical source for missing epistemic meanings for modal verbs in child BCS. In Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics (FASL 26). Michigan Slavic Publications. [click for pdf]

Cournane, Ailís and Ana Teresa Pérez-Leroux. 2020. Leaving obligations behind: Epistemic incrementation in preschool English. Language Learning and Development 16(3), 270-291. [click for pdf][Click for BUCLD43 Poster ] 

• Awarded journal’s «Peter Jusczyk Best Paper Award» for 2020.

Parrish, A. V. and Ailís Cournane. 2020. A within-subjects comparison of the acquisition of quantity-related inferences. Proceedings of the 94^thAnnual Meeting of the Linguistics Society of America (LSA94). [click for pdf]

Cournane, Ailís. 2019. A developmental view on incrementation in language change. Theoretical Linguistics 45(3-4): 127–150. Special issue on Historical Linguistics. [Target paper] [click for pdf]

Cournane, Ailís. 2019. Grammatical Representations vs. Productive Patterns in Change Theories. Theoretical Linguistics 45(3-4): 287–297. Special issue on Historical Linguistics. [Response paper] [click for pdf]

Tulling, Maxime & Ailís Cournane. 2019. The role of “fake” past tense in acquiring counterfactuals. Proceedings of the 2019 Amsterdam Colloquium. [click for pdf]

Dieuleveut, Anouk, van Dooren, Annemarie, Cournane, Ailís and Valentine Hacquard. 2019. Figuring out modal force: evidence from children’s production and input. Proceedings of the 2019 Amsterdam Colloquium. [click for pdf] 

Dieuleveut, Anouk, van Dooren, Annemarie, Cournane, Ailís, and Valentine Hacquard. 2019. Acquiring the force of modals: sig you guess what sig means?. Proceedings of the 42^nd annual to the Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD42). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. [click for pdf]

van Dooren, Annemarie, Tulling, Maxime, Cournane, Ailís, and Valentine Hacquard. 2019. Lexical aspect as a crosslinguistic cue to modal meaning: evidence from Dutch. Proceedings of the 42^nd annual to the Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD42). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. [click for pdf]

van Dooren, Annemarie, Dieuleveut, Anouk, Cournane, Ailís and Valentine Hacquard. 2017. Learning what must and can must and can mean. Proceedings of the 2017 Amsterdam Colloquium. [click for pdf]

Cournane, Ailís. 2017. In defense of the child innovator. In Mathieu, Éric and Robert Truswell (eds), Micro Change and Macro Change in Diachronic Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. 10-24. [click for pdf]

Hacquard, Valentine and Ailís Cournane. 2016. Themes and variations in the expression of modality. Proceedings of the 46^th Annual Meeting of the Northeastern Linguistics Society (NELS 46). [click for pdf]

Cournane, Ailís. 2016. Functional category omissions as evidence for upwards reanalysis. Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics (TWPL). http://twpl.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/twpl/issue/view/ [click for pdf]

Cournane, Ailís. 2015. Modal Development: Input-Divergent L1 Acquisition in the Direction of Diachronic Reanalysis. PhD Dissertation. University of Toronto. [click for pdf]

• Awarded annual prize for «Best Paper by an Untenured Scientist» for 2014.

Tailleur, Sandrine and Ailís Cournane. 2014. L’interrogation partielle en français laurentien et en portugais brésilien: évolutions et microvariation comparatives. In Remysen, Wim (ed), Voies du français, pp. 291-305. Québec: Laval. [click for pdf]

• English: Wh-questions in Laurentian French (Canada) and Brazilian Portuguese: change and comparative microvariation.

Cournane, Ailís. 2012. Book Review:  Elly van Gelderen, ed. 2009.  Cyclical Change. In the series Linguistik Aktuell 146. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. pp. 329. Canadian Journal of Linguistics Vol.57(2).

Cournane, Ailís. 2010. Using synchronic microvariation to understand pathways of change: Subject clitic doubling in Romance dialects. 2010 CLA/ACL Conference Proceedings. Concordia University, Montreal QC.