Hello! My name is Taika Nagano ([tɐꜜikɐ nɐꜜɡɐno] in standard Japanese and often pronounced /ˈtaɪkə nəˈɡɑːnoʊ/ by English speakers). I am a PhD student at the University of Osaka (Div. of Language and Culture, Graduate School of Humanities) and and currently a JSPS Research Fellow (DC2). I major in linguistics, with a special emphasis on syntax, morphology, and their interface.

Here’s my latest CV.

My research interests lie mainly in the verbal domain. I am especially interested in argument structure and related phenomena, including argument alternations (e.g., causative–inchoative and dative alternations), causative, passive, and applicative constructions. While my research is not limited to any particular language, I often take my native language, Japanese, as a starting point and explore these phenomena from a cross-linguistic perspective.

I also enjoy collaborative research. I am currently working with Akitaka Yamada on benefactive applicative constructions in Japanese and their cross-linguistic parallels, and with Kanta Tateno on several topics in morphology and semantics, such as affixal negation and nominalization. In addition, I have been conducting experimental research on language acquisition under the supervision of Chie Nakamura, using eye-tracking methods.

Outside of linguistics, I enjoy going for drives with my friends, playing with my Chihuahua, and shopping at outlet malls (but only when I’m feeling “rich”!).

News

Talk: WECOL 2026

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Published: October 07, 2026

I will give a talk at Western Conference on Linguistics (WECOL) 2026 on “A Distributed Morphology Analysis of Verbs of Giving in Japanese.”

Talk & Poster : JK 33

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Published: August 09, 2026

I gave a talk at The 33rd Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference on “Reanalyzing the Japanese ECM Construction as a Serial Verb Construction.”

Talk: DM meets NANO II

less than 1 minute read

Published: July 10, 2026

I gave a talk at DM meets Nano II on “A Nanosyntactic Analysis of Causative-Inchoative Alternations in Japanese”

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Recent Publications

Theoretical Approaches to Natural Language 2025

Nagano, Taika (2026) Toward a High Applicative Analysis of Direct Passives: A Preliminary Proposal. The Project on Language and Culture 2025: Theoretical Approaches to Natural Language, pp. 31--40.

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.

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Recent Presentations

JK 33

August 08, 2026

Oral presentation at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, US

JK 33 (w/ K. Tateno)

August 07, 2026

Poster presentation at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, US

DM meets Nano II

July 07, 2026

Oral presentation at Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia

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