Tim Hunter Graduate Student in Linguistics University of Maryland, College Park timh at umd dot edu

Research Interests

• I'm working on a formalised model of the "ultra-minimalist" theories of syntax and semantics of Norbert Hornstein and Paul Pietroski. This work has as its (very) long-term aim the search for a small number of basic operations that give natural languages the apparently-complex properties they have.
  • Some first steps are in my generals paper: "Phrase Structure and Conjunctivist Interpretation" [defense slides (PDF)] [defense handout (PDF)]
• Along with Paul Pietroski, Jeff Lidz, and Justin Halberda, I'm studying the semantics of quantificational words like 'most'. In particular, we're looking at what can be gained from looking beyond truth-conditional analysis of semantics using psychophysical experimentation.
  • SALT 2008 presentation: "Beyond Truth Conditions: The semantics of 'most'" [proceedings paper] [slides as PPT file] [slides as PDF file]
  • As-yet-unpublished longer paper, still being revised: Pietroski, Halberda, Lidz & Hunter: "Beyond Truth Conditions: an investigation into the semantics of 'most'"
• With Philip Resnik, I'm working on extending phrase-based statistical translation models, using dependency trees to provide better information about how constituents should be ordered in the target language. The idea behind this is to use "hierarchically informed" ordering strategies without throwing away the advantages of the flat phrases used in systems like Pharaoh.

From "Down Under"

I'm originally from Sydney, Australia but moved to the US for graduate studies in 2005. As an undergraduate I studied mainly computer science and French, but towards the end I became more interested in linguistics.

In Sydney I studied at the University of New South Wales from 2000-2004, mainly in the School of Computer Science and Engineering (where I also did some teaching) and the French and Linguistics departments. Most of my involvement with linguistics was with Mengistu Amberber. I also spent a semester on exchange at Ecole des Mines d'Ales, France, in 2002-03.

In my spare time I was what's known in Australia as a "cricket tragic" (a fanatical follower of the game) and also a committed member of the STALW indoor cricket team. I'm hoping I'll still get to the Sydney Test match in January every year, but in between I suspect my cricket exposure will sadly be fairly sparse. I'm eyeing baseball off as a replacement. The picture of me above was taken at Lord's cricket ground in London, "the home of cricket".

In my not-so-spare time I was a proud member of the small software development team at Brain Juice.

If you would like a one-minute introduction to Australia, have a look at this.

Odds and Ends

Photos from:

• a particularly Australian way to celebrate Australia Day in 2008
• trip to Kansas, June/July 2008
• trip to Hamburg for ESSLLI, August 2008