I completed my PhD in Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh in 2023, under the supervision of Robert Truswell, Bryan Pickel, and Wataru Uegaki. Before taking up a fellowship at Trinity College Dublin, I was a Lecturer in Semantics at Queen Mary University of London. My work focuses on formal semantics, with particular attention to the syntax–semantics interface, the connections between linguistic theory and philosophy of language, and the relationship between grammar and cognition. I explore the semantics of finite clausal embedding and argument structure, aiming to give a unified explanation of their entailment patterns and alternations. I am developing DACE (the Dictionary of Alternations in Clause Embedding), an online resource mapping the alternation patterns of clause-embedding predicates, initially with a focus on English.
I am also currently interested in the mechanistic interpretation of LLMs and, together with Fausto Carcassi, in the evolution of compositionality in natural languages.
Sometimes I walk up tall hills.
Tom Stephen 