Research

The anaphoric potential of demonstrative descriptions

While demonstratives differ from definite descriptions in allowing the deictic use, they are also known to allow anaphoric readings similar to definite descriptions. Nevertheless, demonstratives do not always seem to be a natural option in anaphoric contexts. This cross-linguistic project, in collaboration with Kate Davidson, Yağmur Sağ and Jian Cui, experimentally studies the contrast in acceptability of definite expressions and demonstratives in anaphoric contexts in English, Bangla, Turkish, and Mandarin.  The research questions that we are pursuing include  investigating the factors that influence the distinction in acceptability, testing whether the same patterns are borne out in both languages with articles as well as article-less languages, and how our findings can inform our understanding of the core building blocks of definiteness in Language.

Bare nouns, kind reference and classifiers: the  perspective from Bangla

My other project deals with classifier languages in the Indo-Aryan language family. While Indo-Aryan languages in general lack a classifier system, there exists three languages—Bangla, Odia, Assamese—that share a strong areal typology in exhibiting a rich classifier system.  I  study the nominal system in these languages with special reference to their bare nouns and classifiers. My work investigates  how kind reference is achieved in these languages, the availability of definite and indefinite readings for bare nouns, and how such readings relate to the presence or absence of lexical exponents of (in)definiteness.