I am a formal semanticist, and occasionally an interfacist (semantics-pragmatics-syntax).

My primary interests lie in exploring how human beings compute complexity in meaning and structure, using formal mathematical and logical tools. I am regularly intrigued by questions (all variants), quantificational variability, polarity items, evidentiality/modality and bias, disjunction and alternatives, factivity/veridicality, tense and aspect, ellipsis and anaphora, predictive typological models, and sentence processing.

My main empirical focus is South Asian languages, although recent joint work has focused on Romanian, Oromo, and Cantonese. Most of my data is gathered through virtual/irl native speaker surveys or onsite fieldwork.

Apart from the Institute of Linguistics, I am also a member of the graduate faculty in the Center for Cognitive Sciences at the University of Minnesota.

Prior to joining UMN, I received a Ph.D. in Linguistics with a Certificate in Cognitive Science from Rutgers University, and was a Lecturer at the Department of Linguistics at Harvard University.

Recent:

• New paper in Journal of Semantics: The semantics of evidentials in questions
• Talk at Sinn und Bedeutung, September 2020. What gerunds tell us about deontic necessity: A Relativized Ranked Priority Clusters Model       handout       video
  with Arka Banerjee
• Talk at SALT, August 2020. Situation Types in Complementation: Oromo Attitude Predication       slides
  with Shannon Bryant
• Poster at SALT, August 2020. Unifying perception across nominal and propositional domains

A dear friend and fellow semanticist passed away recently, I made a website to celebrate his works and his life:     Rahul Balusu, in memoriam

Research

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

• 2020. The semantics of evidentials in questions
  Journal of Semantics, Volume 37, Issue 3, August 2020, pages 367–423.


• Evidentiality: unifying nominal and propositional domains
  To Appear in D. Altshuler (ed.), Linguistics Meets Philosophy, Cambridge University Press


• 2018. Evidentials are syntax-sensitive: the view from Bangla
  Glossa. 3(1): 106. pages 1--39.


• 2016. Bangla Negative Polarity Items: A Detailed Study
  with Bidisha Bhattacharjee, Madhumanti Datta and Yangchen Roy
  Indian Linguistics 77 (1-2). 79--102.

Proceedings Papers & Manuscripts

• 2019. Epistemic modals, deduction, and factivity: New insights from the epistemic future
  with Teodora Mihoc and Anamaria Falaus
  Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) 29


• 2018. Questioning speech acts
  with Jess Law and Haoze Li
  Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung (SuB) 22


• 2016. Uttering evidentials without evidence
  Proceedings of ConSOLE XXIV


• 2014. The Syntax of Q in Manipuri Wh-Questions
  Ms., Rutgers University


• 2011. Participials, 'Wala', Unaccusativity and Unergativity in Dhundari
  Masters' thesis, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Invited Talks

• August, 2020. Title TBA
  Mind and Language Series in Los Angeles, School of Philosophy, University of Southern California


• March 2020. Connecting perception, inference, and temporality: nominal and propositional evidentiality
  Formal Approaches to South Asian Languages (FASAL) 10
  Organized by Ohio State University, Department of Linguistics.


• May 2019. Questions with and about disjunction
  Semantics of African, Asian, and Austronesian Languages (TripleA6)
  Organized by MIT Linguistics.


• May 2018. Where is Perspective-Sensitivity Headed?
  Clause Typing & the Syntax-to-Discourse Relation
  in Head-Final Languages Workshop
  University of Konstanz, Germany.


• November 2016. Evidentials in Biased Questions
  NYU Semantics Group meeting.

Dissertation

2017. Evidentiality and Questions: Bangla at the Interfaces       RUCore       LingBuzz

Broadly speaking, two themes are intertwined in this dissertation: (i) perspective-sensitive elements such as evidentials and epistemic modals across different speech acts; (ii) embedded and unembedded disjunction and alternative questions. Both themes are explored from the lens of the syntax-semantics interface.

Refereed Presentations

• September, 2020. What gerunds tell us about deontic necessity: A Relativized Ranked Priority Clusters Model
  with Arka Banerjee
  talk at Sinn und Bedeutung 25, University College London.           handout       video


• August, 2020. Situation Types in Complementation: Oromo Attitude Predication
  with Shannon Bryant
  talk at SALT 30, Cornell University.         slides


• August, 2020. Unifying perception across nominal and propositional domains
  poster at SALT 30, Cornell University.


• May, 2019. Epistemic modals, deduction, and factivity
  with Dora Mihoc and Anamaria Falaus
  talk at SALT 29, UCLA.


• Jan, 2019. Domain Restrictions in Bangla Concealed Questions
  with Jon Ander Mendia
  talk at the LSA 2019 Annual Meet, NYC.         slides


• 2018. Embedded Alternatives and Alternative Questions
  FASAL 8, Wichita State University


• 2017. Questioning speech acts
  with Haoze Li and Jess Law
  talk, Sinn und Bedeutung 22, ZAS Berlin


• 2017. Evidentials come in two shapes
  poster, NELS 48, University of Iceland


• 2017. Questioning speech acts
  with Haoze Li and Jess Law
  talk, NELS 48, University of Iceland


• 2017. Evidentials in Biased Questions
  poster, PLC 41, University of Pennsylvania


• 2017. Evidentiality, Bias, and Questions
  talk, Formal Approaches to South Asian Languages (FASAL)-7, MIT


• 2016. To Flip or Not to Flip: Evidentials in Interrogatives
  talk, Semantics of African, Asian and Austronesian Languages (TripleA)-3, University of Tubingen


• 2016. Accessing non-accessible content: The case of the Bangla 'nishchoi'
  talk, ConSOLE XXIV, University of York


• 2015. One Modal can Affect the Presupposition of Another
  poster, 2nd UCL Graduate Conference in Linguistics, University College London


• 2015. The syntax of question particles in Manipuri Wh-questions
  poster, Formal Approaches to South-Asian Languages (FASAL)-5, Yale


• 2013. Bangla biased questions with 'naki'
  MACSIM, University of Maryland.


• 2013. The semantics of epistemic bias in Bangla 'naki' questions
  talk, Formal Approaches to South-Asian Languages (FASAL)-3, USC


• 2012. Restricted Null Object parameter and V-stranding VPE in Bangla
  talk, South Asian Languages: Theory, Typology, and Diachrony, Yale


• 2011. Reduplication in Bangla
  talk, South Asian Languages Analysis Roundtable (SALA)-29, CIIL Mysore


• 2011. Grammatical Aspect and Reduplication in Bangla
  talk, Students' Conference of Linguistics in India (SCONLI)-5, University of Hyderabad


• 2010. A Comparative Study of Bangla and Assamese Classifier Systems
  with Madri Kakoti
  talk, Students' Conference of Linguistics in India (SCONLI)-4, University of Mumbai

Teaching

• Topics in Linguistics: Introduction to Questions
  University of Minnesota | Spring 2020       syllabus


• Field Methods {I, II}
  University of Minnesota | Fall 2019 - Spring 2020
  Harvard University | Spring 2018


• Syntax I
  University of Minnesota | Fall 2019       syllabus


• Seminar on Questions
  Harvard University | Spring 2019
  (co-taught with Gennaro Chierchia)       syllabus


• Semantic Theory I
  Harvard University | Fall 2018


• Undergraduate Thesis-Writing Seminar {I, II}
  Harvard University | Fall 2018 - Spring 2019


• 101: The Science of Language
  Harvard University | Spring 2018, Spring 2019
  Rutgers University | Fall 2014, Spring 2015


• Linguistics of Sign Languages
  Rutgers University | Fall 2017


• Selected Topics in Linguistics
  Rutgers University | Fall 2017


• 201: Introduction to Linguistic Theory
  Princeton University | Fall 2017
  (preceptor for Christiane Fellbaum)
  Rutgers University | Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Summer 2014