Rodrigo Ranero

I’m an Assistant Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at UCLA.

I’m a linguist who takes a cross-linguistic approach, focusing on Mayan, (Heritage) Spanish, and Bantu. I’ve recently been thinking about pseudoclefts, ellipsis licensing, relative clauses,  split ergativity, and null complement anaphora. Other topics I’ve worked on include weak crossover,  agreement, sibilant harmony, linearization, A’-extraction restrictions,  and information structure. 

I received my PhD in Linguistics at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD). My dissertation “Identity Conditions on Ellipsis” is available here. I also studied at the University of Cambridge and Pomona College.

The wonderful members of my UMD cohort (collectively known as SMAART) were Sigwan Thivierge, Mina Hirzel, Anouk Dieuleveut, Aaron Doliana,  _  and Tyler Knowlton.

Latest papers:

• “Split ergativity isn’t always epiphenomenal” with Justin Royer. To appear. In The Proceedings of the Fifty-Sixth Meeting of the North East Linguistics Society (NELS 56). E-mail me for a draft!
• “Ellipsis in Contact: VPE and Sluicing in Spanish Heritage Speakers” with Erin Mauffray & Victoria Mateu. To appear. In The Proceedings of the 50th Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 50):  [link]
• “El cuento de kokolom/chi’jolom: Bosquejo gramatical y comparación dialectal del idioma Chuj“, with Justin Royer, Petul Gómez, & Neper López. To appear. Tlalocan.  [link] to latest version.
• “Weak Crossover in Spanish Relative Clauses” with Greg Scontras & Masha Polinsky . 2025. Probus.  [link]

Currently under review:

• “Wh-questions and predication in Mayan” with Justin Royer & Cristina Buenrostro. [link] to latest version.
• “Diagnosing the diagnostics: Evidence from Spanish relative clauses” with  Masha Polinsky & Greg Scontras. E-mail me for a draft!
• Book chapter “VP-ellipsis in Spanish“. E-mail me for a draft!

Contact me:
ranero [at] ucla [dot] edu