About

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I'm an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Konstanz.

 

In 2019-2020, I was a postdoctoral research fellow working with Maribel Romero on the semantics of questions as part of the Questions at the Interfaces project at the University of Konstanz. I received my PhD in Linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2019 (supervised by Florian Schwarz).

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My research focuses broadly speaking on issues around selection, and how the interpretation and distribution of different types of complements (various kinds of questions, declaratives, and nominals) are constrained across embedding environments. My work also looks at how different dimensions of meaning (presupposition, assertion, and truth-conditional meaning) interact and are represented in the grammar and lexicon.

 

I'm also interested in how experimental and quantitative methods can be used to inform theoretical and empirical questions about structure and meaning in language.

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(Helpful note for referring to me: the "aj" cluster in Kajsa is pronounced like the English PRICE vowel [aɪ], and my pronouns are she/her/hers.)

 

Upcoming and recent events

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Papers

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• My paper On the interpretation and distribution of embedded main clause syntax: new perspectives on complex discourse moves has appeared in Glossa: https://www.glossa-journal.org/article/id/5752/

• My paper Knowing and believing things: what DP-complements can tell us about the argument structure and composition of (factive) attitudes has been accepted with minor revisions to the Journal of Semantics.

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Talks 

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• UCL Semantics Seminar

• The University of Stuttgart Research Colloquium

• MECORE kickoff workshop: Approaches to the semantics of clause-embedding predicates: theories, cross-linguistic data, and experimentation 

• Gothenburg, Lund, Stockholm & Uppsala Grammar Seminar

• The Edinburgh University Meaning and Grammar Research Group

• OSU Workshop on Clause-Embedding Predicates 

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Recent conference presentations

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• SALT 31 (single-authored talk & poster with Maribel Romero)

• WCCFL 39 (talk)

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Contact

 

kdjarv at sas dot upenn dot edu

 

Affiliations

 

• Questions at the Interfaces research unit at the University of Konstanz.

• Florian Schwarz's Experimental Study of Meaning Lab at the University of Pennsylvania (alumn).

• MECORE - Cross-linguistic investigation of meaning-driven combinatorial restrictions in clausal embedding (principal investigators: Wataru Uegaki & Maribel Romero)

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