Research
Peer-reviewed journal articles
Published
- 2025. Reducing pronoun accessibility to presupposition satisfaction. Journal of Semantics
[doi] [paper] - 2025. Janus sentences: a puzzle for theories of local implicatures. Journal of Semantics
(with P. Schlenker)
[doi] [paper] - 2025. On the syntactic reality of pragmatic operators: The case of non-redundancy. Rivista di Grammatica Generativa
(with P. Schlenker)
[paper] - 2025. A split in mandatory embedded implicatures. Snippets
[doi] [paper] - 2025. Ancestral meanings: A prelude to evolutionary animal linguistics. Linguistics and Philosophy
(fourth author, with P. Schlenker, C. Pawlowitsch, L. H. Arnal, L. Ravaux, R. Ryder, A. Salis, S. Steinert-Threlkeld, L. Wang, and E. Chemla)
[doi] - 2021. Articulated homogeneity in cumulative sentences. Journal of Semantics
[doi] [paper]
To appear
- 2026. Accessibility conditions of pronouns in “The Bounds of Meaning”. Journal of Croatian Philosophy.
[paper] - 2026. Local pragmatics redux. Semantics of Natural Language.
(with P. Schlenker)
[paper]
Accepted with minor revisions
- 2026. Gricean equilibria in a Lewisian signaling game. International Journal of Game Theory.
[paper]
Other published articles
- 2025. Exhaustive inferences in replies. In A Festschrift for Danny Fox (MIT Working Papers in Linguistics).
[paper]
Proceedings of peer-reviewed conferences
2026. Ignorance inferences in the presence of presuppositions. In Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung
[doi] [paper]2025. The parts of only: Effects of mereology in the semantics of only. Semantics and Linguistic Theory
(with D. McHugh)
[doi] [paper]2025. Readings of pronouns across connectives are sensitive to monotonicity. In Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung
(with B. Spector)
[doi] [paper]2025. Towards a taxonomy of concreteness and abstraction in mathematics education. In Proceedings of the EARLI Conference.
(fourth author, with J. Chatain, C. H. Müller, and L. Calabrese)2020. Cumulative readings of “every” and leaks. In Proceedings of SALT
[doi] [paper]2020. Reciprocating same. In Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 24.
[paper]2019. Wide-scope distributivity. In Proceedings of NELS 49.
[paper]2018. Gaps in the interpretation of pronouns. In Proceedings of SALT 28.
[paper]
Manuscripts
- 2025. Exhaustive readings of indefinites require rich content. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory
(under review)
[paper] - 2024. Existential and universal readings of pronouns across binary connectives: An experimental investigation. Semantics and Pragmatics
(with B. Spector and N. Gregorio)
(under review)
[paper]
Conference presentations
- 2024. Readings of pronouns across connectives are sensitive to monotonicity. Sinn und Bedeutung 29.
(Presented at C.U.M.O. with B. Spector)
[slides] - 2020. Cumulative readings of every: Weak and asymmetric. SALT 30.
(Presented remotely at Cornell University.)
[slides] - 2019. Reciprocating same. Sinn und Bedeutung 24.
(Presented at Osnabrück University.)
[slides] - 2019. Reducing order-insensitivity in anaphora to accommodation. Workshop on Asymmetries in Language: Presuppositions and Beyond.
(Presented at ZAS Berlin.)
[slides] - 2019. Wide-scope distributivity. NELS 49.
(Presented at NELS 49.)
[slides] - 2018. Gaps in the interpretation of pronouns. SALT 28.
(Presented at SALT 28.)
[slides]
Dissertation
- Cumulativity from Homogeneity.
(Committee: M. Hackl, R. Schwarzschild, D. Fox, and G. Chierchia)
[download]
Miscellanea
I am the author of the Exh Python package for automating the computation of innocent-exclusion exhaustification.
- Exh for Python.
[PyPI] [GitHub]The library computes exhaustified meanings, maximal consistent sets, innocently excludable alternatives, and innocently includable alternatives. Install it withpip install exh.
Formal language notes
- 2020. Context-free languages: A constructive characterization.
[paper] [GitHub]In this note, I propose a constructive characterization of the class of context-free languages. The goal is to characterize it as the smallest class of languages closed under natural operations, analogous to the characterization of rational languages. The proposal uses union, concatenation, lambda-abstraction, and fixed points, and is illustrated with Haskell code. - 2017. Universal languages.
[paper]This note distinguishes two views of Universal Grammar: one in which it specifies a class of languages, and one in which it specifies a single formal language whose interface mappings produce different languages. It argues that the latter view is compatible with some classes, such as context-free languages, but not with others, such as mildly context-sensitive languages.
Software
I wrote this graphical software for typesetting trees in LaTeX.
- Shajara (Web Edition, beta).
[try it] [code]Left-click to create nodes, Ctrl-Left-Click to add labels, and right-click to delete nodes. The tool exports to QTree format, which can be added directly to a TeX file. - Shajara.
[download] [code]Left-click to create nodes, Ctrl-Left-Click to add labels, and right-click to delete nodes. The tool exports to QTree format, which can be added directly to a TeX file.
Various manuscript notes and presentations
- 2019. Referential antecedents in DS: Simple, functional, paycheck and otherwise.
(Paper version of the talk at the Workshop on Asymmetries in Language: Presuppositions and Beyond.)
[paper] - 2019. A note on the relationship between maximal informativity and exhaustivity.
(Incomplete draft.)
[paper] - 2019. What is wrong with doubles?
(Presented at MIT’s LF reading group.)
[handout] - 2018. Local contexts and anaphora.
(Presented at the LINGUAE seminar at ENS.)
[slides] - 2017. Accounting for the existential/universal construals.
(Presented in class.)
[handout] - 2017. Local contexts and anaphora.
(Presented at MIT’s LF reading group.)
[handout] - 2017. Relative clauses: Interactions with modals and definite article choice in Fering and Akan.
(LF reading group presentation.)
[handout] - 2017. The referentiality of generic indefinites: Evidence from anaphora.
(Presented at SNEWS.)
[handout]