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, modality, evidentiality 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:
I am organizing (F)ASAL-11 at the University of Minnesota in Spring 2021! :
Formal Approaches to South Asian Languages conference
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
Journal of Semantics, Volume 37, Issue 3, August 2020, pages 367–423.
Invited chapter in Daniel Altshuler (ed.), Linguistics Meets Philosophy, Cambridge University Press
Glossa. 3(1): 106. pages 1--39.
with Bidisha Bhattacharjee, Madhumanti Datta and Yangchen Roy
Indian Linguistics 77 (1-2). 79--102.
Proceedings Papers & Manuscripts
with Arka Banerjee
Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung (Sub) 25
with Shannon Bryant
Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) 30
with Teodora Mihoc and Anamaria Falaus
Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) 29
with Jess Law and Haoze Li
Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung (SuB) 22
Proceedings of ConSOLE XXIV
Ms., Rutgers University
Masters' thesis, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Invited Talks
Workshop delivered at the Center for Linguistics, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Mind and Language Series in Los Angeles, School of Philosophy, University of Southern California
Formal Approaches to South Asian Languages (FASAL) 10
Organized by Ohio State University, Department of Linguistics.
Semantics of African, Asian, and Austronesian Languages (TripleA6)
Organized by MIT Linguistics.
Clause Typing & the Syntax-to-Discourse Relation
in Head-Final Languages Workshop
University of Konstanz, Germany.
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
with Arka Banerjee
talk at Sinn und Bedeutung 25, University College London.
with Shannon Bryant
talk at SALT 30, Cornell University. slides
poster at SALT 30, Cornell University.
with Dora Mihoc and Anamaria Falaus
talk at SALT 29, UCLA.
with Jon Ander Mendia
talk at the LSA 2019 Annual Meet, NYC. slides
FASAL 8, Wichita State University
with Haoze Li and Jess Law
talk, Sinn und Bedeutung 22, ZAS Berlin
poster, NELS 48, University of Iceland
with Haoze Li and Jess Law
talk, NELS 48, University of Iceland
poster, PLC 41, University of Pennsylvania
talk, Formal Approaches to South Asian Languages (FASAL)-7, MIT
talk, Semantics of African, Asian and Austronesian Languages (TripleA)-3, University of Tubingen
talk, ConSOLE XXIV, University of York
poster, 2nd UCL Graduate Conference in Linguistics, University College London
poster, Formal Approaches to South-Asian Languages (FASAL)-5, Yale
MACSIM, University of Maryland.
talk, Formal Approaches to South-Asian Languages (FASAL)-3, USC
talk, South Asian Languages: Theory, Typology, and Diachrony, Yale
talk, South Asian Languages Analysis Roundtable (SALA)-29, CIIL Mysore
talk, Students' Conference of Linguistics in India (SCONLI)-5, University of Hyderabad
with Madri Kakoti
talk, Students' Conference of Linguistics in India (SCONLI)-4, University of Mumbai
Teaching
University of Minnesota | Spring 2021
*(course proposed and designed by me)
University of Minnesota | Spring 2021
University of Minnesota | Fall 2020
University of Minnesota | Spring 2020 syllabus
University of Minnesota | Fall 2019 - Spring 2020
Harvard University | Spring 2018
University of Minnesota | Fall 2019 syllabus
Harvard University | Spring 2019
(co-taught with Gennaro Chierchia) syllabus
Harvard University | Fall 2018
Harvard University | Fall 2018 - Spring 2019
Harvard University | Spring 2018, Spring 2019
Rutgers University | Fall 2014, Spring 2015
Rutgers University | Fall 2017
Rutgers University | Fall 2017
Princeton University | Fall 2017
(preceptor for Christiane Fellbaum)
Rutgers University | Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Summer 2014
[Here is a brief CV. ]
(Usually this website is more up-to-date than the CV.)