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Allomorphy

My dissertation The Structure of Pronouns and Allomorphy investigates the universal internal compositionality of pronouns by looking at the allomorphic alternations as a key diagnostic for accessing the inventory of morphemes that make up pronouns across languages. I put forth and explore the hypothesis that allomorphy is a crucial tool that reveals the internal structure.

Dissertation

Ilić, Ivona. (2025). The Structure of Pronouns and Allomorphy. HU Berlin. [Link Dissertation]

 

Selected Talks 

  • Ilić, Ivona. Plural morphology on nouns and pronouns: Implications for the decomposition of person. SinFonIJA 19. University of Graz, 30 September - 2 October, 2026 [talk]

  • Ilić, Ivona. Plural morphology on nouns and pronouns: Implications for the decomposition of person. LAGB. The Linguistics Association of Great Britain Annual Conference, University of Edinburgh, 8 - 10 September, 2026 [talk]

  • Ilić, Ivona. Absence of suppletion and weak suppletion: Evidence from pronouns. RALFE 9. Rencontres autour de la linguistique formelle 2026. Workshop Allomorphy across Grammar, Université Paris Cité, Paris, June 3, 2026 [talk]

  • Double marking in contextual allomorphy: The view from pronouns, July 15, 2025, DM meets Nano in Romance and Beyond, University of Vienna. 

Clitic Doubling

In this study, I introduce a novel generalization on the correlation of Clitic Doubling and Unagreement, which refers to availability of omitting the first and second person pronouns while keeping the first and second person agreement morphology on the verb. I demonstrate that Unagreement languages simultaneously exhibit CD, and investigate syntactic principles underlying the observed correlation.

Paper

In preparation  Ilić, Ivona. (Un)agreement and Clitic Doubling. 

 

Talks 

  • Ilić, Ivona. (Un)agreement and Clitic Doubling. DGfS 49. AG3: Clitics and agreement markers across languages: From Balkan to Bantu and Beyond. University of Jena, March 3-5, 2027 

  • Ilić, Ivona. Unagreement and Clitic Doubling: Insights from Bulgarian and Serbian. FDSL 19. Formal Description of Slavic Languages. University of Leipzig, November 25-27, 2026 

  • Ilić, Ivona. Unagreement and Clitic Doubling. ÖLT 50. Current issues in Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics. University of Salzburg, November 20-21, 2026 

  • Ilić, Ivona. Unagreement and Clitic Doubling: The View from Greek. SLE 59. Workshop Clitics, clitic placement, and cliticisation, Osnabrück University, August 26-29, 2026 [

  • Ilić, Ivona. (Un)agreement and Clitic Doubling: The View from Greek. ISTAL 27. 27th International Symposium on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, May 15-17, 2026

  • December 10, 2024, Talk at the Syntax/Semantics Colloquium, HU Berlin

  • September 19-23, 2023,  Talk at the Topic, Focus and Subject (TFS) Conference, University of Osnabrück

  • September 14, 2023, Research Seminar, ZAS Berlin

Syncretism in Logba

Joint work with Madeline Ladore 

Presentations

  • Ilić, Ivona and Madeline Ladore. Accounting for singular-conditioned syncretism in Logba. SinFonIJA 19. University of Graz, 30 September - 2 October, 2026 [poster]

Syntax of Pronouns

​Paper

  • ​​​Ilić, Ivona (2024). Complements and Modifiers: Implications for typologies of pronouns. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America, 9(1), 5720.  ​

Poster

  • Ilić, Ivona (2024). Complements and Modifiers: Implications for typologies of pronouns. LSA Annual Meeting, New York, January 4-7, 2024 

Person features

In this study, we present a novel argument for the presence of third person in the general system of the phi-features on the basis of realization of definite determiners in generic statements across Germanic, Greek, and Romance. 

Paper 

  • Alexiadou, Artemis, Johannes Hein, Ivona Ilić, Uli Sauerland (2024). The third person is present: Evidence from determiners in generic statements. Proceedings of NELS 54. ​​

Talk

  • Alexiadou, Artemis, Johannes Hein, Ivona Ilić, Uli Sauerland (2024). The third person is present: Evidence from determiners in generic statements. NELS 54, MIT, January 26-27, 2024

Passive

In this paper, we present two findings: early production of passives in Japanese and unexpected, frequent production of long passives. We attribute these results to the presence of overt dedicated passive morphology in Japanese, which facilitates early acquisition. 

Paper 

  • Alexiadou, Artemis and Ivona Ilić (2023). Acquiring Japanese passives: A production study. In P. Gappmayr and J. Kellogg (Eds.), Proceedings of the 47th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press​​

Presentations

  • Artemis Alexiadou and Ivona Ilić. Acquiring Japanese passives: a production study, The 47th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, BUCLD 47, Boston University, November 3-6, 2022  [poster]

  • Artemis Alexiadou and Ivona Ilić. Overt and implicit arguments and Voice in Japanese passives: a child language perspective, Brussels Conference on Generative Linguistics BCGL 15, CRISSP, Brussels, October 6-7, 2022  [talk]

PRO

In this study, we demonstrate that English-acquiring children produce overt PRO in the context of the verb want. We attribute this finding to children's preference for the 1-to-1 mapping between structural/semantic representations and morphology. 

Talk

  • Ilić, Ivona and Artemis Alexiadou. Silent and overt arguments in child language, SinFonIJa 15, University of Udine, Italy, September 22-24, 2022 [talk]

Subjunctives

Paper​

  • Oikonomou, Despina and Ivona Ilić (2023). Subjunctive Questions in Serbian, Journal of Slavic Linguistics.

Talk​

  • Oikonomou, Despina and Ivona Ilić. Subjunctive Questions in Serbian. Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics 30, FASL 30, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), May 13-16, 2021 [talk]

Nominalizations

In my M.A. thesis,  I investigate nominalizations in nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive languages. I discuss the argument and event structure, agreement patterns, morphological properties, and mechanics of word formation. The core generalizations are formed on the basis of the Serbian language, as a representative of the nominative-accusative alignment, and Yucatec Mayan, a language surfacing with the ergative-absolutive pattern. 

Thesis

  • Ilić, Ivona (2021). Argument Structure, Ergativity, Aspect, and Agreement: A view from n-based nominalizations. HU Berlin. ​

Talks

  • Ilić, Ivona. Argument Structure Inheritance: Evidence from Deverbal Compounds, 16th Annual Meeting of the Slavic Linguistics Society, SLS 16, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, September 3-5, 2021 

  • Ilić, Ivona. The Interaction of Aspect and the Height of Affixation, 9th Workshop on Nominalizations, JENom9, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin and the University of Silesia, Poland, June 17-18, 2021 

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