My primary research interests are in the areas of semantics and pragmatics. The theme of my research is context dependence with the aim of better understanding how compositional semantics interacts with discourse structure and discourse coherence. My monograph, Events, States and Times (2016, De Gruyter), investigates the temporal interpretation of narrative discourse, looking at the meaning of now, the coherence relations, Narration and Result, as well as tense and aspect. My monograph (co-authored with Robert Truswell), Coordination and the Syntax-Discourse Interface (OUP, 2022), explores interactions between syntactic structure and discourse structure, through a focused case study of patterns of extraction from coordinate structures. Currently I'm working with Scott AnderBois on coordinate structures in A’ingae, focusing on clause linkage and switch reference. I'm also working with Julian J. Schlöder on the semantics and pragmatics of narrative discourse, including discourse composed of linguistic and pictorial elements. We are writing a book (under contract with OUP) called: Discourse interpretation: A formal theory of coherence relations.
I have also been exploring how compositional semantics interacts with coherence at the sub-clausal level. I'm currently working with Kelsey Sasaki to experimentally test several hypotheses about how the interpretation of adjectives interacts with the interpretation of verbs. We recently presented some of our results at Sinn und Bedeutung 27, XPRAG 2022 and at the Workshop on Compositional Approaches to Projection at the 23rd Amsterdam Colloquium.
My research in philosophy of language and philosophy of literature explores how literary discourse motivates particular extensions of dynamic-semantic frameworks. In particular, I am exploring imaginative resistance with Emar Maier, narrative garden-path with Dag Haug and narrative frustration with Christina S. Kim.
I am the editor of Linguistics meets Philosophy (CUP, 2022), which empowers new conversations between linguists and philosophers by showing how far formal semantics has come because of the conversations between the two disciplines, and critically assessing prior conversations, those currently taking place and those in a dire need of happening.
Please see below for further details of my research, which can also be downloaded at Google Scholar and ORCID. Here is my Academic Tree.
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