Welcome to the homepage for the research project "How autonomous is syntax? A case study of Romance causation and perception" (CauRPe), a Leverhulme Research Project Grant (2024-2027).

How are language and meaning related? Does complex meaning exist independently or is it created by language? If the latter, do different languages convey subtly different meanings, with some meanings impossible to convey? We address these fundamental questions by considering causative ('make'/'let') and perception ('see'/'hear') verbs in Catalan, French, Italian, Occitan, Brazilian and European Portuguese, Romanian, Peninsular and Latin American Spanish, and a number of Extreme Southern Italian Dialects. These verbs are ideal for probing the syntax-semantics interface because they occur with a vast array of clausal complements across Romance, conveying subtly different meanings. This enables us to track the contribution grammar makes to meaning, with Romance languages an ideal initial testing ground for these wide-reaching questions.

How are we investigating this? We are currently carrying out a corpus study of a subset of the languages mentioned above. We then move onto phase 2 of the project which involves working with consultants. In phase 3 of the project, we will be collecting aceptability judgements. If you want to get involved, please watch this space as surveys will be hosted here!