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Faculty Fellow

Chris Kennedy

William H. Colvin Professor of Linguistics University of Chicago

Biography

Photo by Erielle Bakkum

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.

For more information, please visit his faculty profile.

Featured Project

An AI-generated image includes a synthesis amalgamating a large set of illustrated texts

Humanistic AI: Reimagining Humanistic Pursuits in the Age of Generated Media

Project Team:

2025 – 2027

Projects

Subjectivity in Language and Thought

Subjectivity in Language and Thought

Linguists and philosophers collaborated to investigate the nature of subjective language and thought, with the goal of overcoming the limitations of the prevailing view of linguistic and mental content as essentially descriptive.
This project brought together faculty from linguistics and philosophy for a three-year program of activities investigating the nature of subjective language and thought. Linguists and philosophers have traditionally examined the role of language and thought as a medium for (mis)representing ...

Project Team: