Semantics lab @ W&M

Starting Fall 2024, the Semantics lab at W&M will be located in Tucker Hall 28.

Note to students: If you are interested in getting involved with research in our lab, please fill out this form!

Ongoing projects in the lab at this time pertain mainly to the study of noun phrase meanings across languages, though we are open to any and all explorations in semantics and the syntax-semantics interface! 

Some examples of current projects include:

(1) exploring the distribution of kind-referring uses with English definite determiner the (example: The lion is a majestic animal.)

(2) exploring the distribution of exceptionally "non-specific" interpretations of English the and a in certain, limited contexts. For example:

• • we can say Sara is at the hospital without knowing which hospital, but we cannot say Sara is at the building without knowing which building.

  • Ibrahim saw a therapist for years can mean Ibrahim saw more than one therapist over the course of those years, but Ibrahim dated a therapist for years must mean he dated a single therapist during that time.

(3)  exploring the distribution and behavior of determinerless "bare" nouns in Kannada, a South Asian language belonging to the Dravidian family. 

Fun fact: Kannada is determinerless in the sense that it lacks overt counterparts of English words the and a. In this, Kannada is similar to ~30% of the world's languages, including Hindi, Mandarin, Korean, Thai, Russian, Turkish among many others.