About Us

Scientific Goals

Our group studies form and meaning in human languages and beyond. We aim to understand by which rules speakers form sentences (syntax) and assign truth conditions to them (semantics); how these rules interact with reasoning (pragmatics); and how they are realized in the mind/brain (psycholinguistics). We systematically construct formal models of these phenomena so as to offer clear and predictive analyses; and we strive for a systematic integration of theoretical and experimental approaches. In particular, we aim to offer a detailed typology of various types of inferences in natural language (e.g. entailments, implicatures, presuppositions, anti-presuppositions, supplements, iconic inferences), both in terms of their formal and cognitive properties.

Our approach is comparative: we aim to understand what is universal and what isn’t in human languages. We devote special attention to the comparison between spoken and signed languages, and we have an active group of sign language researchers (including several native signers).

Our research includes a component of ‘Super Linguistics’, which goes beyond the usual boundaries of the field. In particular, we are currently developing formal models of the meanings of primate alarm calls (in collaboration with Klaus Zuberbüher’s group). And have started to study some aspects of music semantics (in collaboration with Jonah Katz). Our goal is thus to apply methods of formal linguistics more broadly than is standard, in order help compare various language-like systems in nature – which might yield insights into the modular organization of these systems, and possibly about their evolution.

Since 2009, we have organized the Annual LINGUAE Lectures, which give an idea of our diverse scientific interests. We also have a regular LANGUAGE seminar which usually meets on Thursdays. It is a lab meeting and is not normally open to external (i.e. non-DEC-related) participants.