My research is, broadly, on the compositional semantics of natural language. I am interested in the nature of the mind's structured representations of language, and the mechanisms we use to combine linguistic elements into larger constituents with meanings determined by their component parts. In particular, I am interested in the interfaces between the compositional semantic system, narrowly conceived, and other areas of linguistic and cognitive knowledge, namely syntax, pragmatics, and conceptual structure. Given this, my research interests revolve around questions like the following:
How is semantic knowledge represented in the mind? What information is included (and what is excluded) from the semantic system, and how is that information structured?
What is the relationship between the semantic system and syntactic structure? When can syntax "see" semantic or pragmatic information, when can it not, and what kinds of syntactic restrictions are attributable to semantic properties?
When, in the process of composition, the semantic denotations of the parts conflict or underdetermine the denotation of the whole, how does the compositional system resolve these problems? What other knowledge, linguistic or otherwise, is it able to access in this process?
Currently, I am investigating these questions in the context of two phenomena: the discourse structure of wh-questions, and semantic ambiguity in adjectives. As part of the Meaning & Modality Lab at Harvard, I investigate these questions through a combination of formal-theoretic and experimental methods, and am equally interested in advancing our use of data in linguistic theory.