Christopher Kennedy

Christopher Kennedy


Areas of Study: Department of Linguistics On Leave AY2026-27
Teaching Since 2005
Website: http://semantics.uchicago.edu/kennedy/ Curriculum Vitae Interests:

Semantics, Pragmatics, Syntax, Philosophy of Language

William H. Colvin Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Linguistics and the College
Biography

Dr. Chris Kennedy's work is geared towards discovering and describing the principles that are involved in relating linguistic forms to meanings; determining how this mapping is achieved through the interaction of properties of the linguistic system, properties of cognition more generally, and broader features of communicative contexts; and understanding the extent to which structural and typological features of language can be explained in terms of meaning. Over the past two decades, he has explored these issues primarily through an exploration of the language of comparison, amount and degree, though his research has also touched on core issues in the syntax-semantics interface such as ellipsis, anaphora, and quantification. Kennedy's work engages methodologically and theoretically with work in other areas of cognitive science.

Recent Research / Recent Publications
" Pragmatic Indecision ." March 2024.
Presentation
" Resolving Semantic Uncertainty through Bayesian Inferences ." December 2023.
Presentation
" Zeroing in on exclusively exclusive content ." April 2023.
Presentation
" "Decomposing acquaintance" ." October 2022.
Presentation
" Acquaintance Inferences ."
Presentation
" Notes on comparatives and superlatives and related matters ."
Presentation
" Pragmatic Indecision (Or, "When meaning is like voting") ."
Presentation
" Comparatives, Semantics of ." In Encyclopecia of Language and Linguistics, Volume 3. Elsevier,.
Chapter
" Points of Comparison ." In Generative Perspectives on Degrees. de Gruyter,.
Chapter
" Pragmatic Indecision (Or "When meaning is like voting") ."
Presentation