Semantic change

I am particularly interested  in the question of why and how the meanings oSemantic Change:f functional expressions (e.g. markers of tense/aspect/modality, possession, negation) change in the way that they do.  This research draws on empirical observations coming from the Grammaticalization literature and  Typology and seeks to reconcile them with the synchronically oriented approaches of Semantics and Pragmatics, (particularly Game-theoretic Pragmatics).

The particular–characterizing contrast in the Marathi copula/auxiliary system. In Dankmar Enke, Thilo Weber, Larry Hyman, Johanna Nichols, and Guido Seiler eds. Language Change for the Worse, Language Science Press. (to appear)

Diachronic semantics.  Annual Review of Linguistics. Vol. 1. (2015)

The semantic and pragmatic underpinnings of grammaticalization paths: The progressive and the imperfective. In Semantics and Pragmatics 8 14:1-52 (2015)

Aspect shifts in Indo-Aryan and trajectories of semantic change. (with Cleo Condoravdi) In  Chiara Gianollo, Agnes Jaeger, and Doris Penka (eds.) Language Change at the Syntax Semantics Interface. pp. 261-292. Berlin: De Gruyter. (in press)

Formal semantics and language change.  In Claire Bowern and Beth Evans eds. Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics. pp. 393-409. (2014)

The imperfective-perfective contrast in Middle Indic. In Journal of South Asian Linguistics 5. pp 3–33. (2012)