Mandy Simons is a

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

and professor in the Department of Philosophy at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

(CMU). She researches

semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy Philosophy (f ...

and

pragmatics In linguistics and related fields, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the int ...

, in particular phenomena like

presupposition In the branch of linguistics known as pragmatics, a presupposition (or PSP) is an implicit assumption about the world or background belief relating to an utterance whose truth is taken for granted in discourse. Examples of presuppositions include ...

and projection.

Biography

Simons earned her PhD in linguistics at

Cornell Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

in 1998 with a dissertation entitled, "Or: Issues in the Semantics and Pragmatics of Disjunction." She joined the faculty at CMU in 1998, and also holds an adjunct position at the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...

's Department of Linguistics.

Awards

In 2013, her paper, "Toward a taxonomy of projective content," coauthored with

Judith Tonhauser Judith Tonhauser is a Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Stuttgart. Education and career Tonhauser received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from Stanford University in 2006. Her dissertation was titled ''The Temporal Semantics of No ...

David Beaver David Ian Beaver is a professor of linguistics and philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, where he also directs the cognitive science program and serves as Graduate Studies Advisor of the Human Dimensions of Organizations Master's prog ...

, and

Craige Roberts Craige Roberts (born February 20, 1949) is an American linguist, known for her work on pragmatics and formal semantics. Education and career Roberts earned her A.B. at Indiana University in 1979. She received her Ph.D. at the University of Ma ...

won the 2013 Best Paper in ''Language'' (journal) Award from the

Linguistic Society of America The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', ...

Selected publications

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References

Living people Linguists from the United States Women linguists Semanticists Cornell University alumni Carnegie Mellon University faculty Year of birth missing (living people) {{linguist-stub