I am a professor at the Department of Linguistics, The University of Texas, Austin. I study the syntax and semantics of human language. Here is some recent work on usage-based, evolutionary and information theoretic approaches to grammar:
Wechsler, S., Shearer, J. W. & Erk, K. (2026). The evolution of blocking: A reinforcement learning account. In Hartmann, S., Sibierska, M., Fröhlich, M., Jadoul, Y., Josserand, M., Matzinger, T., Mudd, K., Nölle, J., Pleyer, M., Wacewicz, S. & Żywiczyński, P. (Eds.): The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 16th International Conference (EVOLANG XVI). doi:10.17617/2.3696655.
Shearer, J. W. & Wechsler, S. (2026). Modeling language emergence with coordination games and learning. In Hartmann, S., Sibierska, M., Fröhlich, M., Jadoul, Y., Josserand, M., Matzinger, T., Mudd, K., Nölle, J., Pleyer, M., Wacewicz, S. & Żywiczyński, P. (Eds.): The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 16th International Conference (EVOLANG XVI). doi:10.17617/2.3696655.
Stephen Wechsler, James Shearer, and Katrin Erk 2025. The emergence of grammar through reinforcement learning. arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.01635.
Sasha Boguraev, Katrin Erk, Kyle Mahowald, James Shearer, and Stephen Wechsler 2025.. Reinforcement Learning Produces Efficient Case-Marking Systems. Proceedings of CogSci 2025.
Stephen Wechsler 2025. A Usage-Based Program for Syntax and Semantics. In D. Bradley, K. Dziubalska-Kołaczyk, C. Hamans, I. H. Lee, and F. Steurs (eds.) Contemporary Linguistics: Integrating Languages, Communities, and Technologies. Netherlands: Brill, ISBN: 9789004715608, pp. 339-348.
Kristie Denlinger, Stephen Wechsler, and Kyle Mahowald 2024. Participle-Prepended Nominals Have Lower Entropy Than Nominals Appended After the Participle. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 46.
My other main research areas are:
Self-reference
Syntactic theory: lexicalism, HPSG, LFG
See the pull-down menus above for publications and other stuff.
Contact:
email: wechsler at austin dot utexas dot edu
Postal address: 305 E. 23rd St. STOP B5100 / Austin, TX 78712 / USA
Department phone: (512) 471-1701 Fax: (512) 471-4340
Office: RLP 4.702, The University of Texas, Austin