Research

My work in semantics and pragmatics focuses on the dynamic nature of meaning and the computation of alternatives, encompassing the following specific topics: form--meaning mismatch, interrogative meaning, discourse anaphora, focus, measurement, and tense.

Beyond these topics, I am deeply interested in a wide range of meaning-related issues, which has led to numerous collaborative opportunities. I have worked with semanticists and syntacticians on sentence-final particles, comparatives, and ellipsis across languages, while also collaborating with psychologists to investigate the relation between inhibitory control and the processing of garden-path sentences.

Journal Papers & Chapters

  1. Reference to the dependency in a multiple-wh question.
    Accepted. Linguistics and Philosophy
  2. Intervention effects in Mandarin Chinese
    In press. Oxford Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics
  3. Force shift: A case study of Cantonese ho2 particle clusters
    2024. Natural Language Semantics
    With Jess H. K. Law and Diti Bhadra
  4. Uniqueness requirement of wh-questions in discourse
    2023. Theoretical Linguistics
  5. In-situ wh-expressions at the syntax-semantics interface
    2022. Linguistics and Applied Linguistics [In Chinese]
    With Dingxu Shi
  6. Relative measurement and scope in Mandarin
    2022. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics
  7. Mandarin wh-conditionals: A dynamic question approach
    2021. Natural Language Semantics
  8. Dative constructions in Hanxun Mandarin
    2019. Linguistic Science [In Chinese]
  9. Alternatives in different dimensions: A case study of focus intervention
    2016. Linguistics and Philosophy
    With Jess H. K. Law
  10. Focus intervention effects in Mandarin multiple-wh questions
    2015. Journal of East Asian Linguistics
    With Candice Cheung
  11. Outer and inner modifiers in Mandarin and Cantonese
    2015. Linguistic Science [In Chinese]
    With Candice Cheung
  12. A syntactic analysis of focus intervention effects in Mandarin
    2012. Linguistic Science [In Chinese]
    With Candice Cheung
    Reprinted in Linguistics and Philology , ed. Information Center for Social Sciences, RUC.

Proceedings

  1. Reference to dependencies established in multiple-wh questions
    2021. Semantics and Linguistic Theory 31
  2. Deriving short answers from dynamicized Hamblin sets: A case study of Mandarin wh-conditionals
    2019. Semantics and Linguistic Theory 29
  3. Questioning speech acts
    2018. Sinn und Bedeutung 22
    With Jess H. K. Law and Diti Bhadra
  4. Event-related relative measurement
    2018. Sinn und Bedeutung 21
  5. Semantics of metalinguistic focus
    2017. Amsterdam Colloquium
  6. Rigid and flexible quantification in plural predicate logic
    2017. Semantics and Linguistic Theory 27
    With Lucas Champollion and Justin Bletin
  7. Fragment questions: Deleting question items
    2016. Northeast Linguistics Society 46
  8. Generalized focus intervention
    2014. Semantics and Linguistic Theory 24
    With Jess H. K. Law
  9. Focus intervention: A quantificational domain approach
    2014. Northeast Linguistics Society 44
    With Jess H. K. Law
  10. Association between focus particles and interrogative wh-phrases
    2013. GLOW in Asia IX