Meaning and grammar
Syntax, semantics, pragmatics, morphology and their interfaces
The meaning and grammar group conducts research in a wide range of core areas of linguistic theory, including syntax, semantics, pragmatics, morphology and the interface between those areas. Members of the group work as individuals, in collaboration with each other, and in partnership with other researchers in Edinburgh and at other universities.
The research group provides a regular forum for presentation of original research in this area being carried out by group members, and scholars from outside Edinburgh. It also constitutes a grouping for planning and organising collaborative research.
People
Staff who work in this area include:
 |
Research interests |
| Theoretical syntax and morphology; interaction between morphology and syntax; lexical integrity effects; phrasal derivation | |
| Professor Ronnie Cann | Formal syntax, semantics and pragmatics and the interaction between them; dynamic Syntax |
| Dr Chris Cummins | Experimental semantics and pragmatics; quantity expressions; implicature; presupposition; dialogue modelling |
| Semantics, pragmatics, and their interfaces with syntax; argument-structure, clausal complementation and attitude reports, speech acts, presupposition. | |
| Syntax, particularly dependency theory and word grammar; events and event structure; lexical semantics; language change | |
| Professor Caroline Heycock | Syntactic theory; syntactic variation and change; Germanic; Japanese |
| Dr Itamar Kastner | Morphology; syntax; argument structure; lexical semantics; morphophonology; interfaces between grammatical modules; computational modelling; lexical processing |
|
(Informatics) |
Theoretical and computational linguistics; semantics; pragmatics; logic and knowledge representation |
| Dr Catherine Lai | Speech prosody, spoken language understanding, affective computing, semantics, pragmatics, information structure |
|
(Philosophy) |
Philosophy of language; formal semantics; philosophical logic |
| Professor Hannah Rohde | Experimental pragmatics; coreference; coherence |
| Dr Wolfgang Schwarz | Structure and interpretation of probability in science, the status of laws, and selected topics in philosophy of physics and cognitive science |
| Professor Antonella Sorace | Language development in child and adult bilinguals; bilingualism and general cognition; gradience at the lexicon-syntax interface |
|
(Informatics) |
Computational linguistics; spoken intonation; spoken language processing |
| Professor Rob Truswell |
Syntax; semantics; language change; diachronic typology; locality; event structure |
| Dr Wataru Uegaki | Semantics, Syntax, Pragmatics and their interfaces. Especially, clausal complementation, questions, the semantics of attitudinal predicates and constraints on lexical denotations |
Postgraduate study
For further information about postgraduate study in meaning and grammar, contact Professor Nikolas Gisborne.
Meetings
The meaning and grammar group meets roughly every two weeks, to discuss theoretical issues of common interest, work in progress or published papers. There are also occasional informal presentations by invited speakers from outside Edinburgh.
To subscribe to the group's mailing list and hear about future events, go to the mailing lists service and click on 'subscribe'.
In addition to meetings of the full group, there are more specialised reading groups that meet informally on an occasional basis. The current groups focus on formal semantics (contact Wataru Uegaki for details), and on general syntax (contact Takanobu Nakamura for details). EdinMorph is an interdisciplinary reading and discussion group for morphology and its interfaces (contact Itamar Kastner to be added to the dedicated MS Team). For postgraduate students who are interested in semantics/pragmatics, get in touch with the student-led SemiCircle (Anna Katarina Page).