Meaning
Research within the Experimental Meaning Group (PI: Eszter Ronai) uses behavioral experiments to investigate semantic-pragmatic questions in the domains of both theoretical linguistics and psycholinguistic processing. We study a range of phenomena including implicature, information structure, scale structure, and discourse coherence.Lab spaces and resources include:
- Eye tracking lab in Swift 009B
- Self-paced reading lab in Swift 009A
- Sound-treated booths in Swift 007
- Corpora available in Cresap 101
Gregory Ward's research interests situate themselves along the pragmatics-semantics frontier: identifying and distinguishing between those aspects of meaning that are a function of the linguistic system (semantics) and those that are a function of the use of that system in context (pragmatics). He is the faculty advisor to the Truth Conditional Project, an empirical investigation of the impact that various types of conversational implicature have on the assignment of truth conditions. His other research interests include pragmatic theory, information structure (especially word order variation), intonational meaning, and reference.
- Learn more about Meaning at Northwestern