He earned his PhD at MIT, under the supervision of Noam Chomsky and David Pesetsky. Before joining the faculty at Brooklyn College, he held positions at Harvard, McGill, and Syracuse universities. His research has been funded by the NIH/NIDCD as well as the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Fonds de recherche du Québec Société et culture. He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in linguistic theory at both introductory and advanced levels.