Publications

Last update 18 Nov 2020

Pop science

What Ghostbusters tells us about the hidden rules of conversation. In Slate, 30 Oct 2014.
When “north” isn’t actually north. In Slate, 26 Aug 2014.

Tech writing

In grad school I wrote Getting Started with Shalmaneser — an introductory manual for a shallow semantic parser and explanation of the science behind it, aimed at undergraduates.

Research

I've published linguistic research under my current name and, previously, as Dan Bridges Velleman. (But I'm not Daniel J. Velleman, the logician.) Mostly I worked on the ways speakers of different languages make their conversational goals clear to each other.

I strongly prefer to be referred to using my real name even in discussions of my past work.

It is never, in any context, correct to call me "he."

Leah Velleman 2014. Focus and movement in a variety of K'ichee'. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, Austin.
Leah Velleman and David Beaver 2015. "Question-based models of information structure." In The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure (Ed. Caroline Féry and Shinichiro Ishihara), Oxford University Press, 86–107.
Emilie Destruel, Leah Velleman, Edgar Onea, Dylan Bumford, Jingyang Xue and David Beaver 2015. “A cross-linguistic study of the non-at-issueness of exhaustive inferences.” In Experimental Perspectives on Presuppositions (Ed. Florian Schwarz), Springer International, 135-156.
Leah Velleman 2014. "On optional focus movement in K'ichee'." Proceedings of FAMLI 2, PAGENO--PAGENO.
Emilie Destruel and Leah Velleman 2014. "Refining contrast: Empirical evidence from the English it-cleft. Empirical Issues in Syntax and Semantics 10, 197–214.
Leah Velleman, David Beaver, Emilie Destruel, Dylan Bumford, Edgar Onea and Liz Coppock 2013. "It-clefts are IT (Inquiry Terminating) constructions." Proceedings of SALT 22, 441-460.
Leah Velleman 2012. "A 'weaker version' of also? — the K'ichee' additive particle choqe'." Proceedings of SULA 7, 221–236.
David Beaver and Leah Velleman 2011. "The communicative significance of primary and secondary accents." Lingua 121(11), 1671–1692.

Poetry

I published some poetry once upon a time. It’s all succumbed to bit rot — one site now redirects to a Trump campaign video. Oh well. As of 18 Nov 2020 you can still read this one:

Interview in Crab Fat, December, 2016.