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I work on lexical semantics (word meaning), compositional semantics (sentence meaning), pragmatics (inferences drawn in context), and sociolinguistics (how people use language in their social identity) from a rich empirical perspective, using corpus data and experiments. I am particularly interested in how our knowledge of the (physical, social) world affects our interpretation of language.
Attributive versus predicative adjectives (work in progress!)
Attributive versus predicative adjectives (work in progress!)
Adjectives can be attributive (the adorable/red dress) or predicative (the dress is red/adorable). Which adjectives tend to go which way and why, and what can this tell us about how different adjectives relate to the Common Ground of a conversation?
Adjectives can be attributive (the adorable/red dress) or predicative (the dress is red/adorable). Which adjectives tend to go which way and why, and what can this tell us about how different adjectives relate to the Common Ground of a conversation?
Adjectives in Common Ground and corpora (talk at various venues, 2024).
Relational nouns in corpora
Relational nouns in corpora
Some nouns are said to be "relational" (cousin relates one individual to another), others "sortal" (tree just picks out individuals). How can we quantify this distinction in a corpus to explore which nouns are more or less relational and why?
Some nouns are said to be "relational" (cousin relates one individual to another), others "sortal" (tree just picks out individuals). How can we quantify this distinction in a corpus to explore which nouns are more or less relational and why?
Quantifying relational nouns in corpora. (English Language & Linguistics, 2022).
Quantifying relational nouns in corpora (slides from LSA 2022).
Computational modeling of the internal structure of events (ongoing project with Aaron Steven White, Scott Grimm, and Will Gantt).
Computational modeling of the internal structure of events (ongoing project with Aaron Steven White, Scott Grimm, and Will Gantt).
Funded by National Science Foundation Collaborative Research Grant BCS-2040820 (PI: Aaron White), we are annotating descriptions of events in text for various inferences that a human would draw from reading about that event. We are training models to generalize these annotations to new data and using the annotations to explore questions about verb meaning from theoretical lexical semantics.
Funded by National Science Foundation Collaborative Research Grant BCS-2040820 (PI: Aaron White), we are annotating descriptions of events in text for various inferences that a human would draw from reading about that event. We are training models to generalize these annotations to new data and using the annotations to explore questions about verb meaning from theoretical lexical semantics.
Causation
Causation
Why does the verb cause prefer negative-sentiment objects (cause failure, cause damage)?
Why does the verb cause prefer negative-sentiment objects (cause failure, cause damage)?
Using the Anna Karenina Principle to explain why CAUSE favors negative-sentiment complements (Semantics & Pragmatics 2023).
It causes problems: Why cause favors negative-sentiment complements (Computation and Cognition talk at Georgia Tech, 2024)
Explaining the negativity of CAUSE (slides from various talks, 2021-2023).
Object omission
Object omission
Which normally-transitive verbs appear without objects ("Alice ate __") to what extent, and why?
Which normally-transitive verbs appear without objects ("Alice ate __") to what extent, and why?
English verbs can omit their objects when they describe routines (English Language & Linguistics, 2021).
Verbs describing routines facilitate object omission (slides used for various talks, 2019-2020).
Verbs describing routines facilitate object omission (poster from LSA 2020).
What does it mean for an implicit object to be recoverable? (paper from Penn Linguistics Colloquium 37, 2013) -- old; superseded by the more recent papers.
Distributivity
Distributivity
Which predicates are understood distributively (true of each member of a plural subject), nondistributively (true of a plural subject but not each member), or in both ways - and why?
Which predicates are understood distributively (true of each member of a plural subject), nondistributively (true of a plural subject but not each member), or in both ways - and why?
The lexical and formal semantics of distributivity (Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 2021)
Distributivity: Debates, advances, questions (Introductory course at the European Summer School in Logic, Language, and Information, August 2019, at the University of Latvia in Riga).
Distributivity, lexical semantics, and world knowledge (2018 Stanford dissertation).
Distributivity, lexical semantics, and world knowledge (slides used for various talks, 2018-2019).
Mandarin 'yiwei' 以为 -- a negatively biased belief verb
Mandarin 'yiwei' 以为 -- a negatively biased belief verb
This verb strongly suggests that the belief it embeds is false. Where does this sense of negative bias come from, semantically or pragmatically?
This verb strongly suggests that the belief it embeds is false. Where does this sense of negative bias come from, semantically or pragmatically?
The negatively biased Mandarin belief verb yiwei (Studia Linguistica, 2022).
Talk given at Semantics & Philosophy in Europe, December 2018.
Compounds (with Beth Levin and Dan Jurafsky)
Compounds (with Beth Levin and Dan Jurafsky)
Exactly how does world knowledge help us identify the relationship between the two words (head and modifier) in a compound like "water carafe" or "water spinach"? How does the nature of the referent (in particular, whether it is an artifact like "carafe" or a natural kind like "spinach") influence the head-modifier relationship?
Exactly how does world knowledge help us identify the relationship between the two words (head and modifier) in a compound like "water carafe" or "water spinach"? How does the nature of the referent (in particular, whether it is an artifact like "carafe" or a natural kind like "spinach") influence the head-modifier relationship?
Determiner + Adjective
Determiner + Adjective
How do we derive the two distinct uses of Det+Adjective, as in "the cute are given more attention by teachers" (cute people) vs. "the cute is the dominant aesthetic in Japan" (cuteness)?
How do we derive the two distinct uses of Det+Adjective, as in "the cute are given more attention by teachers" (cute people) vs. "the cute is the dominant aesthetic in Japan" (cuteness)?
Adjectives relate individuals to states: Evidence from the two readings of English Determiner + Adjective (Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 2019).
Deriving the two readings of English Determiner+Adjective (Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 18; superseded by Glossa paper).
Vowels in Georgia!
Vowels in Georgia!
Synchronic and diachronic study of the vowel systems (accents) in Georgia.
Synchronic and diachronic study of the vowel systems (accents) in Georgia.
Joint work with Jon Forrest (all of it) as well as Joey Stanley and Margaret Renwick (the diachronic portion), with the assistance of my Vertically Integrated Project team at Georgia Tech (with particular thanks to Madison Liotta, Madelyn Scandlen, and Marcus Ma).
Social meanings of the Low-Back Merger Shift among Asian Americans in Georgia. Presentation at NWAV 52 in Miami, 2024.
Boomer peak or Gen X cliff? From SVS to LBMS in Georgia (by Margaret Renwick, Joseph A. Stanley, Jon Forrest, and Lelia Glass; Language Variation & Change, 2023).
Covered by the Wall Street Journal! ("Sorry, y'all: Georgia's deep southern accent is slipping away," by Scott Calvert, 2 October 2023).
A mid-century peak for the Southern Vowel Shift: Evidence from Georgia. Talk (Renwick, Stanley, Forrest, Glass) at LabPhon 2022. (YouTube).
Perspectives on Georgia vowels: From legacy to synchrony. Talk (Stanley, Forrest, Glass, Renwick) at American Dialect Society 2022 (slides).
Vowel systems in Georgia shaped by ethnicity and politics. Talk (Glass, Forrest, Liotta) at NWAV 49 (YouTube; slides).
If you are a student, apply to join my Vertically Integrated Project team!
Faster transcription of sociolinguistic interviews using speech-to-text
Faster transcription of sociolinguistic interviews using speech-to-text
Because we wanted to "work smarter not harder" in processing our Georgia socio corpus.
Because we wanted to "work smarter not harder" in processing our Georgia socio corpus.
Joint work with Marcus Ma (B.S./M.S. from Georgia Tech) and James N. Stanford (Dartmouth).
Introducing Bed Word: a new automated speech recognition tool for sociolinguistic interview transcription (by Marcus Ma, Lelia Glass, and James N. Stanford, Linguistics Vanguard, 2024).
Presenting my work on causation as the plenary talk at LCUGA (Linguistics Conference at UGA, 2021). Photo by Madleyn Scandlen.
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