| I was born in Jerusalem, a city which is as troubled as it is
ancient, but found myself much more at home in Tel-Aviv, where I did my BA in Linguistics.
After completing my BA I spent a magical year in Edinburgh, doing an MSc in
psycholinguistics under the supervision of Martin Pickering and Holly Branigan. I am
currently a fifth year PhD student in the Linguistics department at Stanford University,
exchanging the grey Scottish sky for some California sunshine... You can find my CV
here |
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| Research |
My research is motivated by two fundamental questions: How is grammatical
knowledge represented, and how is it acquired. Those questions are closely
linked - models of representation are constrained by what children can learn;
models of acquisition are guided by what we think adults know. I use
psycholinguistic findings from both development and processing to investigate
the nature of linguistic knowledge. I focus on the acquisition and processing
of syntactic and morpho-syntactic relations (e.g. unbounded dependencies,
grammatical gender), and am especially interested in the way grammatical
relations emerge, and are learned, from patterns of usage.
The role of multi-word phrases in learning and use. My
dissertation focuses on the role of multi-word phrases in the process of
language learning and use. Despite doing worse than adults on various cognitive
tasks, children seem to be better language learners. Previous accounts have
focused on cognitive or biological differences between children and adults. In
my research, I focus instead on the linguistic units children learn from to
argue that they are better at certain aspects of language learning because they
are ‘Starting Big’ - children, more than adults, rely on multi-word chunks
(like what-is-that) in learning and this leads to a better learning of
grammar.I use studies of child production, adult processing, and adult
artificial language learning to investigate these ideas.
Continuity of processing: children's use of disributional
cues. I use naturalistic speech and experiments with children and
adults to ask whether children are affected by the same factors influence adult processing.
My work on Hebrew shows that children, like adults, are sensitive to the
distributional properties of relative clauses. Together with Marie-Catherine de
Marneffe, Scott Grimm and Joan Bresnan we are looking at the factors that
govern children's dative alternations.
Expectations in language processing. I'm currently working with
Hal Tily, Joan Bresnan, Neal Snider and Ahubha Kothari on the way syntactic probabilities influence articulation, and with
Barbara Hemforth, Neal Snider, Hal Tily, and Tom Wasow on how those
expectations influence online processing. I've also worked with the wh-group at
Stanford (Philip Hoffmeister, Florian Jaeger, Ivan Sag, and Neal Snider)
investigating the nature and source of Superiority effects.
I recently co-organizied (with Eve Clark) the 33rd Child Language Research
Forum. The topic was: Experience and Variation in Learning a First Language.You
can find more details here
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| teaching |
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Spring 2008, TA for Ling 144: Introduction to Cognitive and Information
Sciences (Instructor Todd Davies) |
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Fall 2007,TA for Ling240: First Language Acquisition (Instructor
Eve Clark) syllabus |
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Fall 2006,TA for Ling1: Introduction to Linguistics (Instructors
Penny Eckert and Ivan Sag) |
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| education |
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2004-now: PhD Linguistics, Cognitive Science
designation, Stanford University |
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2003-2004: MSc Psycholinguistics, with distinction,
Edinburgh University |
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2000-2003: B.A. Linguistics, Summa cum Laude,
Tel-Aviv University, Israel |
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| scholarships and awards |
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2004-2009: PhD funding, Stanford
University |
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2003-2004: British Council Chevening Award |
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2001: Dean Award, Tel-Aviv University |
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2000: Honorary scholarship for academic excellence, Tel- Aviv University |
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| publications |
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Arnon, i. & Ramscar, M. (in press). Granularity and the acquisition of
grammatical gender: How order-of-acquisition affects what gets learned. Proceedings of
the 31st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Amsterdam, pp xx-xx. |
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Arnon, I. & Snider, N. (in press). More than words: frequency effects for
multi-word phrases. Journal of Memory and Language > |
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Arnon, I (in press). Re-thinking child
difficulty: The effect
of NP type
on child processing of relative clauses in
Hebrew.Journal of Child Language |
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Tily, H., Gahl, S., Arnon, I., Kothari, A., Snider, N., & Bresnan, J. (to
appear). Pronunciation reflects syntactic probabilities: Evidence from spontaneous speech.
Language and Cognition 2(1) |
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Sag, Ivan A., Inbal Arnon, Bruno Estigarribia, Philip
Hofmeister, T. Florian Jaeger, Jeanette Pettibone, and Neal Snider. Processing Accounts for Superiority Effects. Under review |
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Arnon, I., Snider, N., Hofmeister, P., Jaeger, T. F., & Sag,
I. A. (to appear). Cross-linguistic variation in a processing
account: The case of multiple wh-qustions. To appear in
Proceedings of BLS 32 |
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Hofmeister, P., Jaeger, F., Arnon, I., Sag, I., &
Snider, N. (2007).Locality and Accessibility in Wh-questions. In
Linguistic Evidence: Empirical, Theoretical, and
Computational Perspectives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter |
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Arnon, I. (2005). Relative clause acquisition in Hebrew: Toward a processing-oriented account. In A. Brugos, M. R. Clark-Cotton & S. Ha (eds.), Proceedings of the Twenty-ninth Boston University Conference on Language Development. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press |
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| presentations |
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Arnon, I. & Clark, V. E. (2009). Words in frames: why on your feet
is better than feet. The 83rd Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, SF |
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Arnon, I. & Snider, N. (2009). More than words: speakers are sensitive to the
frequency of multi-word sequences. The 83rd Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of
America, SF |
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Arnon, I. & Ramscar, M. (2009). How order-of-acquisition shapes learning: the case
of grammatical gender. The 33rd Boston University Conference on Language Development,
Boston. |
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Tily, H., Hemforth, B., Arnon, I., Shuval, N., Snider, N. & Wasow, T.
(2008).Eye movements reflect comprehenders' knowledge of syntactic structure probability. The
14th Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing, Cambridge, UK. |
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Arnon, I. & Clark, E. V. (2008). Learning
irregular plurals - why irregulars are like regulars. The 11th International Association of
Child Language, Edinburgh, UK. |
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Arnon, I. (2008). Children's sensitivity to distributional patterns: re-thinking the
path of relative clause acquisition. Special workshop on Language and Cognition in the Third International
Conference on Cognitive Science, Moscow, Russia. |
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Tily, H., Arnon, I., Bresnan, J., Kothari, A., & Snider, N. (2007). What makes a construction predictable?
Using semantic and contextual cues to better model phonetic reduction. Paper presented at The 20th Annual CUNY Conference on
Human Sentence Processing, San-Diego M\
arch 2007 |
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Arnon, I. (2006). Re-thinking child difficulty: The effect
of NP type on child processing of relative clauses in
Hebrew. Paper presented at The 12th Annual Conference on
Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing, Nijmegen,
August, 2006 |
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Arnon, I. (2006). Re-thinking
child difficulty: The effect
of NP type on child processing of relative clauses in
Hebrew. Poster presented at The 19th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence
Processing, CUNY, March 2006 |
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Hofmeister, P., Jaeger, T. F., Arnon, I., Sag, I. A, & Snider,
N. (2006). Locality and accessibility in wh-questions. International Conference on Linguistic
Evidence. 2006. Feb. 1-4. University of Tubingen, Germany. |
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Snider, N., Arnon, I., Hofmeister, P., Jaeger, F. T., & Sag,
I. A. (2006). Processing accounts for gradience
in acceptability: The case of multiple wh-questions. BLS. 2006. Feb. 10-12. |
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Arnon, I. (2005). The processing of object relative clauses in young Hebrew speakers. Poster presented at the Xth International Congress for the Study of Child Language, Berlin, July, 2005 |
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Arnon, I. (2005). On the use of resumptive pronouns in child and adult Hebrew. Talk given at the Xth International Congress for the Study of Child Language, Berlin, July, 2005 |
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Hofmeister, P., Snider, N., Arnon, I., Estigarribia, B., Hofmeister, P., Jaeger, F., Pettibone, J., & Sag, I (2005). Processing Accounts for Superiority. Talk given at the S-TREND conference, Stanford University, April 2005 |
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Arnon, I., Pickering, M. J., & Branigan, H. (2005). Passives are not always harder: On the interaction of syntactic structure and thematic fit. Poster presented at The 18th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, University of Arizona, March 2005 |
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Arnon, I., Estigarribia, B., Hofmeister, P., Jaeger,
F., Pettibone, J., Sag, I. & Snider, N. (2005). Rethinking Superiority effects – A processing model. Poster at The 18th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, University of Arizona, March 2005 |
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Arnon, I., Estigarribia, B., Hofmeister, P., Jaeger,
F., Pettibone, J., Sag, I. & Snider, N. (2005). Processing explains Superiority effects. Poster presented at HOWL 3: Hopkins Workshop on Language. John Hopkins University, January, 2005 |
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Arnon, I. (2004). Relative clause acquisition in Hebrew: Toward a processing-oriented account. Talk given at the 29th Boston University Conference on Langauge Development, Boston, USA, November, 2004 |
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Arnon, I. (2004). The
processing of
object
relative clauses in young
Hebrew speakers. Poster presented at AMLAP-2004, Aix-en-Provence, France, September,
2004 |
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Arnon, I. (2004). Child Acquisition of Relative Clauses in Hebrew. Talk given at the Postgraduate Conference, Linguistics department, Edinburgh University, May 2004 |
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Arnon, I. (2004). Is movement all it’s about? The acquisition of relative clauses in Hebrew. Talk given at the Interdisciplinary Tea, School of Informatics, Edinburgh University, May 2004 |
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| other |
Family
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My dad Arie Arnon |
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When my mom, Ruth Butler, finally gets a webpage she'll be added on... |
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Some politics
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Reports of Machsom Watch on human rights violations in
checkpoints in the occupied territories |
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Support Israeli refusniks: Refusal Solidarity Network |
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Follow La Otra Campana (the Other Campaign) the new phase in
the Zapatista struggle in Mexico. |
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| Inbal Arnon |
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Stanford Department of Linguistics
Margaret Jacks Hall
Building 460
Stanford CA 94305-2150
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(650) 723-9019 |
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inbalar at stanford dot edu |
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