Martina Gracanin-Yuksek
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Foreign Language Education
Middle East Technical University


Contact info
Email: mgy "AT" alum "DOT" mit "DOT" edu
Middle East Technical University
Department of Foreign Language Education
06531 Ankara, Turkey
Office phone: +90 312 210-7530
Research Interests
  • Theoretical Syntax, Agreement, Multidominance, Linearization, Slavic languages
Publications and Manuscripts
  • 2024. Psycholinguistic investigations on the non-local referential properties of kendisi and o (with Orhan Demir and Bilal Kirkici). Turkic Languages 28:2, 225-245.
  • 2023. Negation that isn't. Languages 8(4), 250; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8040250
  • 2022. Agreement in Turkish relative clauses. In Andrew Nevins, Anita Peti-Stantic, Mark de Vos, and Jana Willer-Gold (eds) Angles of Object Agreement, 340-362. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
  • 2021. Merge: Binarity in (Multidominant) Syntax. (with Barbara Citko) Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • 2020. The interpretation of syntactically unconstrained anaphors in Turkish heritage speakers. (with Sol Lago, Duygu Fatma Safak, Orhan Demir, and Bilal Kirkici) Second Language Research 36: 475-501.
  • 2020. Conjunction saves multiple sluicing: How *(and) why?. (With Barbara Citko) Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 5(1), 92. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.1112
  • 2019. Clitics that don't climb. Rasprave: Casopis Instituta za hrvatski jezik i jezikoslovlje 45: 401-416.
  • 2019. Straight from the horse's mouth: Agreement attraction with Turkish possessors (with Sol Lago, Duygu Fatma Safak, Orhan Demir, Bilal Kirkici, and Claudia Felser) Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism. 9:3, 398-426.
  • 2017. Conjoined wh-questions. In Martin Everaert and Henk van Riemsdijk (eds) The Companion to Syntax (second edition), 1127-1161. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell.
  • 2017. The interaction of contextual and syntactic information in the processing of Turkish anaphors. (with Sol Lago, Duygu Fatma Safak, Orhan Demir, and Bilal Kirkici) Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 46:6, 1397–1425.
  • 2017. Negation in Croatian. In A Pesky Set: Papers for David Pesetsky. Claire Halpert, Hadas Kotek, and Coppe van Urk (eds). MIT Working Papers in Linguistics, 223-232.
  • 2017. On Variation in Comp & wh Coordination Structures. (With Barbara Citko) In A Pesky Set: Papers for David Pesetsky. Claire Halpert, Hadas Kotek, and Coppe van Urk (eds). MIT Working Papers in Linguistics, 203-212.
  • 2016. Alternative questions in Turkish. Dilbilim Arastirmalari 2016/1, 39-68.
  • 2016. Agreement and the structure of relative clauses. (with Boban Arsenijevic) Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 1(1): 17. 1–16, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.12
  • 2016. Syntax/Semantics/Pragmatics of Yes/No Questions in Second Language Turkish. (With Bilal Kirikici) In Ayse Gurel (ed.) Second Language Acquisition of Turkish, 165-191. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  • 2016. Size Matters: The Syntax of Disjunctive Questions. Linguistic Inquiry 47:2, 283-305.
  • 2016. Multiple (Coordinated) (Free) Relatives. (with Barbara Citko) Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 34: 393-427.
  • 2015. A note on -mAdAn (önce). Dilbilim Arastirmalari. 2015/I, 25-42.
  • 2013. Linearizing Multidominance Structures. In Theresa Biberauer and Ian Roberts (eds) Challenges to linearization, 269-294. Berlin-New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • 2013. The Syntax of Relative Clauses in Croatian. The Linguistic Review 30, 25-49.
  • 2013. Towards a New Typology of Coordinated Wh-Questions. (with Barbara Citko) Journal of Linguistics 49, 1-32.
  • 2012. Clitic Placement and Multidominance. In Myriam Uribe-Etxebarria and Vidal Valmala Elguea (eds) Ways of Structure Building, 93-113. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
  • 2011. Movement of Bare Objects in Turkish. (with Selçuk Issever) Dilbilim Arastirmalari 2011/I, 33-49.
  • 2010. On a Matching Effect in Headed Relative Clauses. In Wayles, B., Cooper, A., Fisher, A., Kesici, E., Predolac, N., and Zec, D. (eds) Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics #18: The Cornell Meeting 2009. Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications, 193-209.
  • 2009. What and Why Can't Be Shared. Ms.
  • 2008. Morphosyntax of Movement Dependencies in Haitian Creole. (with Shoichi Takahashi) Syntax 11:2, 223-250.
  • 2008. Free Relatives in Croatian: Arguments for the COMP Account. Linguistic Inquiry 39:2, 275-294.
  • 2007. About Sharing. Doctoral dissertation, MIT.
  • 2006. Double Object Construction in Croatian: Arguments Against Appl. In Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics 15: The Toronto Meeting 2006. Compton, Goledzinowska, and Savchenko (eds). Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications, 94-112.
  • 2006. V-N Compounds in Italian: Agreement in Word Formation. In New Perspectives in Romance Linguistics: Vol. 1: Morphology, Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics. Nishida, Chiyo and Jean-Pierre Y. Montreuil (eds). Amsterdam: John Benjamins (CILT), 113-126.
  • 2005. Morphosyntax of Movement Dependencies in Haitian Creole. (with Shoichi Takahashi) In Proceedings of the Thirty-Fifth Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society. Bateman, Leah and Cherlon Ussery (eds). Amherst, MA: GLSA Publications.
Education
  • 2007 Ph.D. in Linguistics, MIT
  • 2002: MA in Linguistics, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
  • 1998: BA in English and Italian Languages and Literature, Zagreb University, Zagreb, Croatia
  • Curriculum Vitae (PDF)
Conference Presentations and Invited Talks
  • 2024. Kendisi ve o'nun Yerel Olmayan Gönderimsel Özelliklerine Psikodilbilimsel Bir Bakis [A psycholinguistic view of long-distance co-referential properties of kendisi and o] (with Orhan Demir and Bilal Kirkici). Paper presented at 37. Ulusal Dilbilim Kurultayi, Kocaeli Üniversitesi, May, 16-17.
  • 2024. Adjuncts and complements beyond English (with Ana Werkmann Horvat and Matea Birtic). Poster presented at Linguistic Evidence 2024, University of Potsdam, February, 22-23.
  • 2024. On the Interaction of Multidominance and Ellipsis (with Barbara Citko). Poster presented at the LSA Annual meeting, New York City, Sheraton NY Times Square, January, 4-7.
  • 2023. Nothing to share: Why and when (not) to elide multidominant structure? (joint work with Barbara Citko). How many mothers? Multidominance in syntax. Workshop held as part of the LSA Institute 2023, University of Massachusetts, June, 24-25.
  • 2023. Coordinated wh-questions: A response to Boškovic (2022) (with Barbara Citko). FASL 32, Indiana University, May, 19-21.
  • 2022. WH and/or WH? The effects of coordination strategy (disjunction vs. conjunction) on coordinated wh-constructions (with Barbara Citko). FDSL 15, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany, October, 5-7.
  • 2022. The syntax of Turkish ne... ne... construction. TU+ 7 (Seventh workshop on Turkic and langauges in contact in Turkic), University of Connecticut, February 18-19. (invited talk)
  • 2019. Complementizer agreement in Turkish relative clauses. Workshop on Altaic Formal Linguistics 15, Lomonosov Moscow State University, September 26-28. (invited talk)
  • 2019. Merge in (multidominant) syntax. (joint work with Barbara Citko) Lomonosov Moscow State University Colloquium series, September 25. (invited talk)
  • 2019. Relativization of (non-)subjects in Turkish. Object Agreement across Barriers, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia, September, 16-17. (invited talk)
  • 2018. Clitics that don’t climb. Sixth Croatian syntax days, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Osijek and Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics, Osijek, Croatia, May, 17-19.
  • 2018. Coordination of wh-phrases in sluicing constructions. (with Barbara Citko) FASL 27, Stanford University, CA, May, 4-6.
  • 2018. Zaman Gösteren Tümcelerin İkinci Dilde Edinimi: before ve after. (Second language acquisition of time clauses introduced by before and after.) (with Bilal Kirkici) UDK 32, Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Turkey, May, 3-4.
  • 2017. Auxiliary clitics in coordinated subjects: AGREE - SPLIT - REPEAT. (with Boban Arsenijevic) FDLS 12.5, Nova Gorica, Slovenia, December, 7-9.
  • 2017. Structural Syncretism and the Binarity Constraint on Merge. (with Barbara Citko) NELS 48, Reykjavik, Iceland, October, 27-29.
  • 2017. Anaphor interpretation in Turkish heritage speakers. (with Sol Lago, Duygu Safak, Orhan Demir, Bilal Kirkici & Claudia Felser) Poster presented at ISB 11, University of Limerick, Ireland, June 11-15.
  • 2017. Contextual and syntactic information jointly affect the processing of Turkish anaphors. (with Sol Lago, Duygu Safak, Orhan Demir, Bilal Kirkici & Claudia Felser) Poster presented at CUNY, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA, March 30-April 1.
  • 2017. The Effect of Contextual Bias on Anaphor Resolution in Turkish. (with Sol Lago, Duygu Safak, Orhan Demir, Bilal Kirkici & Claudia Felser) ICTL 2017, Cukurova University, Adana, February 24-26.
  • 2017. On Variation in WH and COMP Coordination Structures. (with Barbara Citko) Poster presented at the Workshop in honor of David Pesetsky’s 60th birthday, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA, February 11.
  • 2016. Kendisi ve o’nun Öncüllere Gönderimi Üzerine Ruhdilbilimsel Deneyler. (Psycholinguistic experiments on referential possibilities of kendisi and o.) (with Orhan Demir, Duygu Safak, and Bilal Kirkici) UDK 30, Ankara University, Turkey, May, 13-14.
  • 2016. Agreement attraction in Turkish. (with Sol Lago, Duygu Safak, Orhan Demir, Bilal Kirkici & Claudia Felser) Poster presented at AMLAP 16, Basque Center on Cognition, Brain, and Language, Bilbao, Spain, September, 1-3.
  • 2016. If if and wh, then why not that and wh?. (with Barbara Citko) FASL 25, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, May, 13-15.
  • 2014. Turkish Alternative Questions. ICTL 17, Universite de Rouen, France, September 3-5.
  • 2014. Alternative Questions in Turkish. WAFL 10, MIT, Cambridge, USA, May 2-4.
  • 2013. Ikinci Dil Olarak Türkçede Soru Tümcelerinin Sözdizimsel, Anlambilimsel ve Edimbilimsel Özellikleri Üzerine. (On the Acquisition of Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics of Yes-No questions in L2 Turkish) (with Bilal Kirkici) UDK 27, Antalya, Turkey, May, 2-4.
  • 2013. Multiple Coordinated Relative Clauses. (with Barbara Citko) LSA 87, Boston, USA, January, 3-6.
  • 2012. Wh-Coordination in Free Relatives. (with Barbara Citko) NELS 43, New York, USA, October, 19-21.
  • 2012. Patterns of Agreement in Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian Relative Clauses. (with Boban Arsenijevic) Sinfonija 5, Vienna, Austria, September, 27-29.
  • 2012. The Syntax of Dusjunctive Questions. Sinfonija 5, Vienna, Austria, September, 27-29.
  • 2012. Interrogative particle mI in Turkish. International Conference on Turkish Linguistics, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey, September, 18-21.
  • 2011. Properties of Negation in Croatian. Workshop on Functional Categories and Parametric Variation, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey, October, 6-7. (invited talk)
  • 2011. The status of the Constraint on Sharing. Multidominance Workshop, UMass, Amherst, MA, April, 8-9. (invited talk)
  • 2010. Movement of bare objects in Turkish. (with Selçuk Issever) Mediterranean Syntax meeting 3, Athens, Greece, October, 8-10.
  • 2010. Türkçede Çiplak Nesneler ve Tasima. (with Selçuk Issever) 24. Ulusal Dilbilim Kurultayi, METU, Ankara, May, 17-18.
  • 2010. What can teach teach us about T?. FASL 19, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, April, 23-25. (Skype presentation)
  • 2010. Multiple guises of multiple coordinated wh-questions. (with Barbara Citko) LSA Annual Meeting 2010, Baltimore, MD, January 7-10.
  • 2009. Ways of wh-coordination. (with Barbara Citko) NELS 40, MIT, Cambridge, MA, November 13-15.
  • 2009. Coordinated Questions in Slavic and Beyond. (with Barbara Citko) SLG 4 and SinFonIJA 2, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, September 24-26.
  • 2009. On a Matching Effect in Headed Relative Clauses. FASL 18, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, May, 15-17.
  • 2009. Matching and Resumption. Ankara Linguistic Circle, Ankara University, Ankara, Turkey, April, 17.
  • 2008. Clitic JE in Croatian and Multidominance. Ways of Structure Building, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain, November 13-14.
  • 2008. First Conjunct Agreement in Croatian. Ankara Linguistic Circle, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey, May 30. (invited talk)
  • 2008. What Clitic JE in Croatian Tells Us about Multidominance. BCGL 3, Brussels, Belgium, May 21-23.
  • 2008. Guises of Multidominance. University of Crete, Greece, April 15. (Invited lecture)
  • 2008. Linearizing Multidominance Structures. GLOW 31, Workshop on Linearization, Newcastle, Great Britain, March 29. (First alternate)
  • 2008. Linearizing Multidominance Structures. METU Cognitive Science Department Colloquia Series, March 21. (Invited talk)
  • 2007. Coordinated Wh-Questions as Multidominance Structures. METU Cognitive Science Department Colloquia Series, November 5. (Invited talk)
  • 2006.Double Object Construction in Croatian: Argument against Appl. FASL 15. University of Toronto, Canada, May 12-14.
  • 2006.Free Relatives in Croatian: Arguments for the COMP Account. LSA Annual Meeting 2006. Albuquerque, New Mexico, January 5-8.
  • 2005.Free Relatives in Croatian: Arguments for the COMP Account. FDSL 6. University of Potsdam, November 30-December 1.
  • 2005.Croatian Free Relatives: What you see is what you get. Syracuse University Colloquia series, November 11. (Invited talk)
  • 2005.Italian V-N Compounds and Agreement. LSRL 35. University of Texas at Austin, February 24-27.
  • 2004.Morphosyntax of Movement Dependencies in Haitian Creole. (with Shoichi Takahashi) NELS 35. UConn, October 22-24.