Brian Buccola

buccola@msu.edu
B469 Wells Hall

Associate Professor

Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures

Biography

Research

Dr. Brian Buccola specializes in formal semantics and pragmatics, with further interests in syntax, psycholinguistics, cognitive science, and computer science. His research explores how human languages encode meaning, how humans put linguistic meanings to use, and whether (and to what extent) non-human animals have similar capacities.

Teaching

Dr. Buccola regularly teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in semantics and pragmatics and in general linguistics.

He also directs the MSU Semantics-Pragmatics Lab, which serves as a research and learning hub for students interested in linguistic meaning. If you’re interested in joining the group, please contact Dr. Buccola.

Education

Ph.D., Linguistics, McGill University (Montreal, Canada)
B.A., Classics, Honors College, Loyola University Chicago
B.S., Mathematics, Honors College, Loyola University Chicago

Works

Selected publications

Brian Buccola, Manuel Križ, and Emmanuel Chemla. 2022. “Conceptual Alternatives: Competition in Language and Beyond”. Linguistics and Philosophy 45, 265–291. doi: 10.1007/s10988-021-09327-w.

Brian Buccola, Jeremy Kuhn, and David Nicolas. 2021. “Groups vs. Covers Revisited: Structured Pluralities and Symmetric Readings”. Natural Language Semantics 29, 509–525. doi: 10.1007/s11050-021-09179-x.

Brian Buccola and Luka Crnič. 2021. “NPIs, Intervention, and Collectivity”. Semantics and Pragmatics 14. doi: 10.3765/sp.14.2.

Brian Buccola and Andreas Haida. 2019. “Obligatory Irrelevance and the Computation of Ignorance Inferences”. Journal of Semantics 36(4), 583–616. doi: 10.1093/jos/ffz013.

Brian Buccola and Benjamin Spector. 2016. “Modified Numerals and Maximality”. Linguistics and Philosophy 39(3), 151–199. doi: 10.1007/s10988-016-9187-2.

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