Ailis Cournane

Ailis Cournane is an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at New York University, with an affiliated appointment in the Department of Psychology. She leads the Child Language Lab at NYU, focusing on how children learn meaning in language and its connection to historical language change. Her research emphasizes linguistic modality (e.g., 'must,' 'maybe') and counterfactuality (e.g., hypothetical scenarios).

Dr. Cournane is co-Principal Investigator (with Valentine Hacquard, UMD) on the NSF-funded project 'Acquiring the Language of Possibility,' which investigates relationships between language variation, change, and child language acquisition through modal expressions. This work explores how children navigate open possibilities, likelihoods, and non-actual situations in language.

• Lab Affiliation: Child Language Lab @ NYU
• Funded Projects: NSF Grant (co-PI) on language possibility acquisition

Her academic contributions bridge theoretical linguistics, developmental psychology, and historical linguistics, aiming to understand the cognitive foundations of complex semantic structures and their evolution across languages.