Research

My research program is firmly rooted in formal and probabilistic semantics and pragmatics, and it is enriched by my interests in experimental linguistics, dynamic semantics, formal syntax, and Slavic and Germanic linguistics. Broadly speaking, I study the underlying mechanisms involved in attributing semantic content to rational agents and the degree to which these agents are held responsible for such content. The “attribution problem” delves into the interaction between different dimensions of meaning (entailment, presupposition, implicature) and perspectives. The “degree problem” revolves around the evidence for content attibution available in the linguistic context. These two fundamental problems have guided my work on parentheticality, evidentiality, modality, gradability, question bias, indefiniteness, and adverbial modification. To gain insights into these phenomena, I employ a range of methodologies encompassing traditional and experimental data collection techniques, as well as formal tools derived from logic, probability theory, and statistics. My overarching goal is to establish a predictive framework that accounts for the various factors influencing semantic content attribution, including operator scope, projectivity, evidence source, information status, modal force, and more. By doing so, I aim to advance our understanding of how different types of content are integrated into a coherent whole.