Taika Nagano’s personal website
Hello, there! I am a PhD student of linguistics at the University of Osaka (Div. of Language and Culture, Graduate School of Humanities). My research interests lie in syntax, morphology, and their interface.
I am interested in how cross-linguistic variation in allomorphy interacts with other phenomena. For example, English is a language that has several past tense allomorphs conditioned by a verbal root but seldom overtly marks the transitivity of ergative verbs. The opposite holds in Japanese. It clearly marks the transitivity of causative–inchoative alternating verbs but has no irregular past tense suffix. I am curious about why such variation is observed across languages and wonder what determines allomorphy and whether it is closely linked to other grammatical phenomena. This is the starting point of my research. Motivated by this, I am also investigating syntactic phenomena related to argument structure such as causative, passive, and applicative constructions from theoretical and typological perspectives. Additionally, I love joint research. I am working on a variety of benefactive (applicative) expressions in Japanese, comparing them with some Bantu and Austronesian languages (joint work with Akitaka Yamada, Keio University) and affixal negation in English and Japanese (joint work with Kanta Tateno, University of Connecticut).
Alongside my research, I teach English to Japanese teenagers. I am currently a part-time lecturer at Setsunan University, where I teach several courses for first-year students.
In my spare time, I enjoy playing classic Pokémon games, going on drives with friends, and shopping (but only when I’m not broke).
News
Selected as a JSPS Research Fellow
Published:
I have been selected as a JSPS Research Fellow.
Presented at SICOGG 27
Published:
I gave a poster presentation at SICOGG 27 on “Decomposing Causative/Passive Morphemes in Japanese”.
Presented at ConSOLE 33
Published:
I gave an oral presentation at ConSOLE 33 with my colleague Kanta Tateno.
Recent Publications
Proceeding of ConSOLE 33
Nagano, Taika and Kanta Tateno (2025) "Morpho-semantic notes on unhappier", in Proceedings of the 33rd Edition of the Conference of the Student Organisation of Linguistics in Europe (ConSOLE 33), Federica Longo, Leonardo Russo Cardona, Tommaso Sgrizzi, and Hadis Tamleh Eds., Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL), pp. 248-257.
Proceeding of SICOGG 27
Nagano, Taika (2025) "Decomposing causative/passive morphemes in Japanese," in Proceedings of the 27th Seoul International Conference on Generative Grammar (SICOGG 27), A. Kang, Ed., The Korean Generative Grammar Circle, pp. 182--191.
Proceeding of WAFL 17
Yamada, Akitaka and Taika Nagano (2024) "Not always introducing arguments: The syntax of high-applicative constructions in Japanese," in Proceedings of Workshop on Altaic Formal Linguistics 17 (WAFL 17), E.-O. Tumen-Ochir, J. Sinitsyna, and S. Miyagawa, Eds., MIT Working Papers in Linguistics, pp. 299--306.
Recent Presentations
SICOGG 27
Poster at Sogang University, Seoul, South Korea
ConSOLE 33 (w/ Kanta Tateno)
Oral presentation at University of Gottingen, Gottingen, Germany
LSJ 169
Poster at Hokkaido University, Hokkaido, Japan