For over 30 years, I have been developing research concerned with the grammar of Vietnamese, in particular, with the grammatical ("functional") categories that shape Vietnamese clauses (word-order and constituency). Since 2021, this work has been supported by awards from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) "Progress in Vietnamese Linguistics", "Vietnamese Syntax: Theoretical, Typological and Applied Linguistic Perspectives" (2021-2024; 2025-2028).  These programs continue research originally funded in Canada by awards from FCAR (Government of Quebec) and in the UK by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC internal grant). From February-June 2009, I also received partial support from the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC, Research Leave Award).

Currently, the descriptive project (see below) centers around the development of a bilingual text Vietnamese: A Generative-Typological Approach (with Trang Phan, and Tue Trinh). However, I continue to work on the theoretical aspects of the research. See publications list.