Research interests 

• Syntax/pragmatics & semantics/pragmatics interfaces
• First and second language learning in children and adults
• Experimental (psycho)linguistics and corpus studies
• Metaphors and idioms in lexical learning

Research

Metaphors in Bilingual Acquisition: Empirical and Theoretical Approaches 

(MBA project and research lab) 

How do metaphors arise in language and how do they evolve over time? What metaphors are universal (common to all languages)? What cultural associations do metaphors develop in individual languages? How do children and adults acquire metaphor-based linguistic knowledge? I explore these questions within the framework of cognitive linguistics, using experimental methods. 

Interested undergraduate students of linguistics can participate through the Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) or an individual special project (1 s.h. minimum).

Select publications

• Gavruseva, E. (2025). Learning money idioms in L2 English: A window into proficiency and error patterns. Revue Lexique 37 (to appear).
• Gavruseva, E. (2024). Let’s drop the object: An experimental study of the implicit object construction in American English. CogniTextes.https://doi.org/10.4000/12rd2
• Gavruseva, E. (2019). Using Qualtrics software for researching foreign and second language learning. Proceedings of the Annual International Conference “Society and Languages in the Third Millennium: Communication, Education, Translation.” Moscow: RUDN University.
• Haznedar, B., & Gavruseva, E. (2012). Childhood second language acquisition. In J. Herschensohn & M. Young-Scholten (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 338–352). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139051729.021
• Gavruseva, E. (2008). On the role of DP in the acquisition of finiteness in child L2 English. In J. M. Liceras, H. Zobl, & H. Goodluck (Eds.), The role of formal features in second language acquisition (pp. 404–431). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315085340-14
• Gavruseva, E. (2008). Perfectivity semantics, telicity and event structure in child Russian. In A. Gavarró & M. J. Freitas (Eds.), Language acquisition and development: Proceedings of GALA 2007 (pp. 209–220). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
• Gavruseva, E. (2008). Syntactic frames and morphological cues in the acquisition of adjectives in child English and child Russian. In H. Chan, H. Jacob, & E. Kapia (Eds.), Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 205–216). Cascadilla Press. https://www.cascadilla.com/bucld33toc.html
• Haznedar, B., & Gavruseva, E. (Eds.). (2008). Current trends in child second language acquisition. John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.46
• Gavruseva, E. (2008). The development of copula and auxiliary be and overgeneration of be in child L2 English. In B. Haznedar & E. Gavruseva (Eds.), Current trends in child second language acquisition (pp. 145–176). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.46.09gav
• Slabakova, R., Rothman, J., Kempchinsky, P., & Gavruseva, E. (Eds.). (2008). Proceedings of the 9th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Conference (GASLA 2007). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
• Gavruseva, E. (2004). Root infinitives in child second language English: An aspectual features account. Second Language Research, 20(4), 336–371. https://doi.org/10.1191/0267658304sr244oa
• Gavruseva, E. (2003). Aktionsart, aspect, and the acquisition of finiteness in early child grammar. Linguistics, 41(1), 131–175. https://doi.org/10.1515/ling.2003.023
• Gavruseva, E. (2003). Finiteness and aspect in Spanish/English bilingual acquisition. First Language, 23(2), 171–203. https://doi.org/10.1177/01427237030232002
• Gavruseva, E. (2003). L2 root infinitives uprooted and revisited. EUROSLA Yearbook, 3(1), 193–219. https://doi.org/10.1075/eurosla.3.06gav
• Gavruseva, E., & Meisterheim, M. (2003). On the syntax of predication in child L2 English. In B. Beachley, A. Brown, & F. Conlin (Eds.), Proceedings of the 6th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Conference (GASLA 2002) (pp. 74–83). Cascadilla Proceedings Project. https://www.lingref.com/cpp/gasla/6/paper1035.pdf
• Gavruseva, E. (2003). The complicity of telicity in the root infinitive effect in child L2 English. In B. Beachley, A. Brown, & F. Conlin (Eds.), Proceedings of the 6th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Conference (GASLA 2002) (pp. 84–93). Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
• Gavruseva, E. (2002). Is there primacy of aspect in child L2 English? Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 5(2), 109–128. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728902000226
• Gavruseva, E., & Thornton, R. (2001). Getting it right: Acquisition of whose-questions in child English. Language Acquisition, 9(3), 229–267. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327817LA0903_2
• Gavruseva, E. (2000). On the syntax of possessor extraction. Lingua, 110(10), 743–772. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0024-3841(00)00015-2
• Gavruseva, E. (2000). Aspect parameter in the guise of optional infinitives in child L2 English. In Proceedings of the 24th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development. Cascadilla Press. https://www.cascadilla.com/bucld24toc.html
• Gavruseva, E., & Thornton, R. (1999). Possessor extraction in child English: A minimalist account. In J. Alexander, et al. (Eds.), The UPenn Working Papers in Linguistics, 6(1), 155–170. Philadelphia, PA. https://repository.upenn.edu/entities/publication/6c98419d-edbe-4f4f-99ee-520f75cd0c1e
• Gavruseva, E. (1999). On the parallelism between possessor extraction and subject extraction. In E. van Gelderen & V. Samiian (Eds.), Proceedings of the Western Conference on Linguistics (WECOL ’98) (pp. 146–156). Fresno, CA. https://cah.fresnostate.edu/linguistics/documents/WECOL%201998%20VOLUME%2010.pdf
• Gavruseva, E. (1998). Left-branch violations in child L2 English. In A. Greenhill, et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 22), Vol. 1 (pp. 235–245). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. https://www.cascadilla.com/bucld22toc.html
• Gavruseva, E., & Lardiere, D. (1996). The emergence of extended phrase structure in child L2 acquisition. In Proceedings of the 20th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development. Cascadilla Press. https://www.cascadilla.com/bucld20toc.html
• Gavruseva, E. (1995). Positioning and framing: Constructing interactional asymmetry in employer–employee discourse. Discourse Processes, 20(3), 285–304. https://doi.org/10.1080/01638539509544944

Courses taught

• LING:6080:0001 Topics in Second Language Acquisition (Fall 2023)
• LING:3001:OAAA Introduction to Linguistics (Spring 2024)
• LING:3030:0001 Child Language–Linguistic Perspectives (Spring 2024)
• LING:6040:0001 Linguistic Structures (Spring 2024)

Professional activities

Current projects

• Metaphors and idioms in second language learning
• Null object semantics in Construction(s) Grammar
• Determiner semantics and count/mass distinctions in second language learning
• Impersonal constructions in American English: an experimental study

Recent conference presentations

Gavruseva, E. (2023). Pragmatic vs. semantic bases of implicit objects in American English: A comparison of experimental and spoken-corpus studies. Paper presented at CTIELS (Contemporary Trends in English Language Studies), organized online by the Institute of Modern Languages, University of Zielona Góra, Zielona Góra, Poland, May 18-19.

Gavruseva, E. (2021) 4th Experimental Pragmatics in Italy Conference (XPRAG 2020(21)) The Pragmatics of Indefinite Determiners in English: An Experimental Study (online conference due to COVID restrictions, University of Turin, Italy, July.).