Christopher Ahern

I am currently a fourth-year graduate student in the Linguistics Department at the University of Pennsylvania and a trainee in the IGERT program at the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science. My advisor is Robin Clark and I also conduct research in Florian Schwarz's Lab. I work in the areas of semantics, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics using game theory as a common framework for investigating linguisting meaning.

To Appear

• How Uniqueness Guides Definite Description Processing
  Christopher Ahern and Jon Stevens (To Appear). In Proceedings of the Thirty-Seventh Annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium.
• Mergers, Migration, and Signaling
  Christopher Ahern (To Appear). In Proceedings of the Thirty-Seventh Annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium.
• An Empirical Investigation of Typicality and Uniqueness Effects on Article Choice in Attributive-Possession NPs
  Gregory Ward, Christopher Ahern, and Tom Hayden (To Appear). In Proceedings of the Thirty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society.

2013

• Questions of Trust
  Jason Quinley and Christopher Ahern (2013). In Proceedings of the 2012 European Summer School of Logic, Language and Information, Student Session.

• October 17-20, 2013: NWAV 42, Pittsburgh.
  The Role of Accommodation in the Spread of Mergers [Abstract]
• September 18, 2013: IRCS Common Ground Seminar, Philadelphia.
  Signaling under Common and Conflicting Interests [Slides]

2013

• July 21-27, 2013: International Congress of Linguists, Geneva.
  Would you trust me please? [Abstract] [Slides]
  Impolitely Requesting Awareness [Abstract] [Slides]
• April 17-18, 2013: Workshop on Sound Change Actuation, Chicago.
  Signaling Games and the Actuation Problem [Abstract] [Slides]
• April 13, 2013: Mid-Atlantic Colloquium of Studies in Meaning, Baltimore.
  Honest Signaling and the Maxim of Quality [Abstract] [Slides]
• March 22-24, 2013: 37th Penn Linguistics Colloquium, Philadelphia.
  Mergers, Migration, and Signaling [Abstract] [Slides]
  How Uniqueness Guides Definite Description Processing [Abstract] [Slides]

2012

• October 5-6, 2012: Workshop on Game Theory (ZAS), Berlin.
  About Face! [Slides]
• August 6-13, 2012: ESSLLI Student Session, Opole.
  Questions of Trust [Slides]
• August 7-8, 2012: Workshop on Formal Models of Communication (ESSLLI), Opole.
  Mechanisms for Enforcing Honest Signaling [Slides]
  On Deception and Defection [Slides]

I can be reached by email or mail.