about
I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics and the Director of Cognitive Science at Cornell University. I am a graduate field member in American Indian and Indigenous Studies and the Sage School of Philosophy as well as in Linguistics and Cognitive Science. In 2010, I received my Ph.D. in Linguistics with a Certificate in Cognitive Science from Rutgers University. My primary interests are formal semantics and pragmatics, philosophy of language, community-based language work, and collaboration for language revitalization and reclamation, ...
to appear. Speech Acts and Modality. In Ana Arregui, Michela Ippolito, and Valentine Hacquard (eds) Cambridge Handbook of Modality.
to appear. Móhe? Sáaa! Nóóoo! Tšéške'e: Tsėhésenėstsestȯtse tséhmé'anohe naa tséxho'xe'éstove (Cheyenne Particles: Flavoring the Cheyenne language, with Richard Littlebear and Wayne Leman).
2026. Microparametric variation in prosodic structure: case studies from Algonquian (with Natalie Weber, Antti Arppe, Ksenia Bogomolets, Andrew Cowell, RoseMarie Déchaine, Christopher Hammerly, Katherine Schmirler, and Rachel Vogel). In Papers of the 55th Algonquian Conference.
2023. Cheyenne Demonstratives: A Corpus Study (with Carol-Rose Little, Chloe Ortega, Wayne Leman, Richard Littlebear, Jessie Angel-Brien, Haley Ash-Eide, and Desta Siouxcalf). In Papers of the 52nd Algonquian Conference.
2022 Prosodically Conditioned Phonology in Cheyenne (with Rachel Vogel). In Papers of the 51st Algonquian Conference.
2021. Evidentiality, Modality, and Speech Acts. In Annual Review of Linguistics, Volume 7.
2020. Evidentials. In The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Semantics
2020. The Structure of Communicative Acts (with Willow Starr). in Linguistics and Philosophy. [ draft ]
2018. Expressing comparison in Cheyenne (with Todd Snider). In Papers of the 47th Algonquian Conference.
2017. Complex connectives. In Semantics and Linguistic Theory 27. [ paper || bibtex ]
2017. Who has more? The influence of linguistic form on quantity judgments (with Gregory Scontras, Kathryn Davidson, and Amy Rose Deal). In Proceedings of the LSA. [ paper || bibtex ]
2017. Cheyenne Connectives. In PAC45, Papers of the Forty-Fifth Algonquian Conference, SUNY Press. [ final draft || bibtex ]
2016. Evidentials and Illocutionary Mood in Cheyenne. International Journal of American Linguistics. [ draft || bibtex ]
2016. Two Imperatives in Cheyenne: Some Preliminary Distinctions. PAC44, Papers of the Forty-Fourth Algonquian Conference, SUNY Press. [ final draft || bibtex ]
2015. Reciprocity in Fieldwork and Theory. In Methodologies in Semantic Fieldwork edited by M. Ryan Bochnak and Lisa Matthewson. [ final draft || bibtex ]
2014. Varieties of update. Semantics and Pragmatics. [ paper || bibtex ]
2013. A semantic account of mirative evidentials (with Jessica Rett). Semantics and Linguistic Theory 23. [ paper || bibtex ]
2009. A Hamblin Semantics for Evidentials. In Semantics and Linguistic Theory 19. [ paper || bibtex ]
2008. Reflexivity and Reciprocity with(out) Underspecification. In Grönn, Atle (ed.), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 12 (2007), 455-469. Oslo, Norway: University of Oslo, ILOS. [ paper || bibtex ]
[...more...]
Cheyenne is an Algonquian language spoken in what is now known as Montana and Oklahoma. I am part of an NSF grant with Chief Dull Knife College to create a database of Cheyenne texts (BCS-1664462).
See my Cheyenne page and the Cheyenne Dictionary for more information.
in press. with Laura Kalin, Bronwyn Bjorkman, Lauren Clemens, Claire Halpert, Ruth Kramer, Aida Talić. The morphology/syntax interface. Elements in Generative Syntax, Cambridge University Press.
2017. The Semantics of Evidentials. in the Oxford University Press series Studies in Semantics and Pragmatics. [ bibtex ]
selected talks
17–19 October 2025. (In)definiteness in Cheyenne: Bridging documentation and learning (with Richard Littlebear and Wayne Leman). The 57th Algonquian Conference, The University of Winnipeg
24–27 October 2024. Recent Changes in the Cheyenne Language (with Richard Littlebear and Wayne Leman). The 56th Algonquian Conference, First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City
19 April 2024. Evidential indefinites. Colloquium, Department of Linguistics, NYU
22 March 2024. Investigating Evidentials. Colloquium, Department of Linguistics, University of Minnesota
23-25 February 2022. DGfS 2022 Workshop on Commitments in Grammar and Discourse
5 November 2021. The logic of speech acts: Sentential force vs utterance force. UConn Logic Group (virtual)
26 January 2021. The Structure of Communicative Acts (with Willow Starr). University of Cologne (virtual)
27 March 2020. Colloquium, UMass Amherst (to be rescheduled)
30 Oct-1 Nov 2019. Hedging assertions and questions with sentential force modifiers. SPAGAD-1 Speech Acts in Grammar and Discourse: Syntactic and Semantic Modeling, ZAS Berlin.
7 May 2019. Evidential indefinites and other indefinite pronouns in Cheyenne, Anaphora at the syntax-semantics-pragmatics interface in endangered and understudied languages, Workshop at GLOW 42, Oslo.
10 March 2018. Logical Connectives in Natural Languages, Semantics 2018: Looking Ahead, workshop in honor of the retirement of Angelika Kratzer.
13 May 2017. Complex connectives. Invied talk, SALT 27.
10 April 2017. Conjunction and complex connectives in Cheyenne. Colloquium, Department of Linguistics, UC Berkeley.
18 November 2016. The semantics of evidentials. Colloquium, Department of Linguistics, Harvard.
6-8 May 2016. Reportative indefinites. Invited talk, Semantics of Under-Represented Languages in the Americas (SULA) 9. University of California, Santa Cruz.
22-23 April 2016. Unstructured content, structured context. Invited talk, The Unstructured Conference, Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University.
1-3 April 2016. Evidential indefinites. Invited talk, The Workshop on Structure and Constituency in the Languages of the Americas, UQAM.
[...see cv for more...]
