Research Interests
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 first monograph, Events, States and Times (2016, De Gruyter), investigates the temporal interpretation of narrative discourse through focused case studies of particular temporal adverbials, coherence relations, tense and aspect. Currently I am writing a book with Julian J. Schlöder called: Discourse interpretation: A formal theory of coherence relations (under contract with OUP), which provides provides a formally explicit way of addressing the two questions below:
- What are the parts of a discourse?
- How do these parts combine?
My second 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 researching coordinate structures in understudied languages, focusing on clause linkage, switch reference and non-iconic doubling phenomena (e.g. conjunct doubling).
I have also been exploring how compositional semantics interacts with coherence at the sub-clausal level. I am experimentally testing several hypotheses about how the interpretation of adjectives and nouns interacts with the interpretation of verbs.
My research in philosophy of language and literature explores how literary discourse motivates particular extensions of dynamic-semantic frameworks. In particular, I have been exploring imaginative resistance, narrative frustration, as well as experimentally testing reanalysis in discourse comprehension. I am currently writing a book with Dag Haug called Literature as a formal language (under contract with Routledge), which analyzes discourse garden path in the French novella, Sylvie.
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.
Along with Vera Hohaus, I am the editor of The Routledge Handbook of Crosslinguistic Semantics (under contract), which is structured around four different components of the grammar that contribute to the construction of meaning: lexicon, syntactic structure, a set of composition principles, and context. The handbook will explore crosslinguistic variation and the absence thereof in each of these components.
Please see below for further details of my research, which can also be downloaded at Google Scholar and ORCID. Here is my Academic Tree.
Books
Selected presented/published research
Manuscripts
- Incremental interpretation of discourse coherence: Evidence from reading times (with Kelsey Sasaki & Jack Duff), Semantics and Linguistic Theory 35 (forthcoming).
- Cross-linguistic variation in the lexical semantics of conjunction (with Shen Aguinda, Guillaume Guitang, Nathaniel Scott, Scott AnderBois), Semantics and Linguistic Theory 35 (forthcoming).
- The Interruption Puzzle with the Persian Imperfective (with Setayesh Dashti), in Proceedings of Third North American Conference in Iranian Linguistics. (to appear).
2025
- Monosyndetic and bisyndetic conjunction in Gizey (with Guillaume Guitang). Studies in African Linguistics 54: 161-180.
- Incremental interpretation of clause-internal coherence: Evidence from the Maze (with Kelsey Sasaki & Hannah Rohde), 11th Experimental Pragmatics Conference (XPRAG 2025).
- Clause-internal causal inferences: Evidence from nouns (with Kelsey Sasaki & Hannah Rohde), in Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 29, F. Longoand & D. Panizza (eds.), 1419–1430.
2024
- Deriving the paradoxical effects of temporal metalepsis (with Dag Haug), in Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory 34, Y. Zhang, F. Zhao, Y. Cho, & Y. Wu (eds.), 460–479.
- Reanalysis in discourse comprehension: Evidence from reading times (with Jack Duff), in Proceedings of Amsterdam Colloquium 24, F. Carcassi, T. Johnson, S.B. Knudstorp, S.D. Parrado, P.R. Robledo & G. Sbardolini (eds.), 102-110.
- Topichood and temporal interpretation of DPs guide clause-internal, causal coherence (with Runyi Yao & Matt Husband), in Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 28, K. Liefke, D. Gutzmann, A. Renans & T.Scheffler (eds.), 1034-1048.
- Probing Large Language Models for Scalar Adjective Lexical Semantics and Scalar Diversity Pragmatics (with Fangru Lin & Janet B. Pierrehumbert), accepted for the 2024 Joint International Conference on Computational Linguistics, Language Resources and Evaluation.
2023
- Towards a typology of narrative frustration (with Christina S Kim), Topoi.
- Clause-internal coherence: A look at deverbal adjectives (with Kelsey Sasaki), in Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 27, M. Onoeva, A. Staňková, & R. Šimík (eds.), pp. 571–588.
- The Forms and Functions of Switch Reference in A’ingae (with Scott AnderBois & Wilson D. L. Silva), Languages 2023, 8(2), 137.
- Super Pragmatics of (linguistic-)pictorial discourse (with Julian J. Schlöder). Linguistics & Philosophy 46: 693–746.
- Video (keynote talk at CHRONOS 15)
2022
- Coordination, coherence and A’ingae clause linkage (with Scott AnderBois), in Proceedings of SALT 32, J.R. Starr, J. Kim, & B. Öney (eds.), pp. 793–813.
- Clause-internal coherence as presupposition resolution (with Kelsey Sasaki), in Proceedings of Amsterdam Colloquium 23, M. Degano, T. Roberts, G. Sbardolini & M. Schouwstra (eds), pp. 437-443.
- Coping with Imaginative Resistance (with Emar Maier). Journal of Semantics 39(3): 523–549.
2021
- If pictures are stative, what does this mean for discourse interpretation? (with Julian J. Schlöder), in Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 25, P. G. Grosz, L. Martí, H. Pearson, Y. Sudo, & S. Zobel (eds.), pp. 19-36. University College London and Queen Mary University of London.
- A puzzle about narrative progression and causal reasoning, in The language of fiction, E. Maier and A. Stokke (eds). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Formal properties of ‘now’ revisited (with Una Stojnić). Semantics & Pragmatics 14(3).
2020
- Death on the Freeway: Imaginative resistance as narrator accommodation (with Emar Maier), in Making Worlds Accessible: Festschrift for Angelika Kratzer. Amherst: UMass ScholarWorks.
- (Non)culmination by abduction (with Zsófia Gyarmathy), Linguistics 58(5): 1373-1411.
- By now: Change of State, Epistemic Modality and Evidential Inference (with Laura Michaelis), Journal of Linguistics 56(3): 515-539.
- Tense and temporal adverbs ("I learned last week that there would now be an earthquake"),The Blackwell Companion to Semantics, D. Gutzmann, L. Matthewson, C. Meier, H. Rullmann & E. Zimmermann (eds).
2018
- The present perfective paradox across languages by Astrid DeWit (review), Language 94(2): 471-475.
- Factors licensing embedded present tense in speech reports (with Corien Bary, Kristen Syrett & Peter de Swart), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 22, U. Sauerland & S. Solt (eds.), vol. 1, ZASPiL 60, pp. 127–142. ZAS, Berlin.
2017
- 'Now' with subordinate clauses (with Sam Carter), Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory 27, D. Burgdorf, J. Collard, S. Maspong, & B. Stefánsdóttir (eds), pp. 358-376.
- The semantics of provisional temporal anaphors and cataphors (with Dag Haug), presented at 40th GLOW Colloquium and Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Sprachwissenschaft.
2015
- On double access, cessation and parentheticality (with Valentine Hacquard, Tom Roberts & Aaron White), Proceedings of SALT 25, S. D'Antonio, C. Little, M. Moroney & M. Wiegand (eds), pp. 18-37.
- An argument for definitional adequacy of RESULT and NARRATION (with Károly Varasdi), Proceedings of SALT 25, S. D'Antonio, C. Little, M. Moroney,and M. Wiegand (eds), pp. 38-56.
2014
- Double access (with Corien Bary), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 19, E. Csipak & H. Zeijlstra (eds.), 89-106.
- In defense of the reference time (with Susanna Melkonian), Semantics‐Syntax Interface 1(2):133–149.
- A typology of partitive aspectual operators, Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 32(3): 735-775.
- Commentary by Ana Arregui
- Discourse transparency and the meaning of temporal locating adverbs, Natural Language Semantics 22(1): 55-88.
2013
- Correlating cessation with double access (with Roger Schwarzschild), Proceedings of the 19th Amsterdam Colloquium, M. Aloni, M. Franke & F. Roelofsen (eds.), pp. 43-50.
- There is no neutral aspect, Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory 23, T. Snider (ed.), pp. 40-61.
2012
- Moment of Change, Cessation Implicatures and Simultaneous Readings (with Roger Schwarzschild), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 17, E. Chemla, V. Homer & G. Winterstein (eds.), pp. 45-62.
- Aspectual meaning meets discourse coherence: A look at the Russian imperfective, Journal of Semantics 29(1): 39-108.
2010
- Temporal interpretation in narrative discourse and event internal reference, PhD Dissertation, Rutgers University.
- Meaning of ‘now’ and other temporal location adverbs, Logic, Language and Meaning: Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 6042, M. Aloni & K. Schulz (eds.), 183–192. Heidelberg: Springer.
2009
- Quantity insensitive iambs in Osage, International Journal of American Linguistics 75(3): 365-398. (An earlier and longer version entitled “Osage fills the gap: The quantity insensitive iamb and the typology of feet” is available on the ROA)
2008
- Narrative effects in Russian indirect reports and what they reveal about the meaning of the past tense, Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory 18, T. Friedman & S. Ito (eds.), pp. 19-36. CLC Publications, Cornell University.
2007
- Parenthetical null topic constructions in Romance (with Viviane Deprez), Romance Linguistics 2006, José Camacho et al (eds.), pp. 1-15. Amsterdam: Johns Benjamins.
- WCO, ACD and what they reveal about complex demonstratives, Natural Language Semantics 15(3): 265-277.