Staff Profile

I am Research Associate in the School of English Literature, Language, and Linguistics, as part of Michelle Sheehan's Leverhulme project CauRPe ('"How autonomous is syntax? A case study of Romance causation and perception").

I am interested in formal semantics, the syntax-semantics interface, and philosophy of language, with a particular focus on how these areas inform our understanding of how causal relations and agency are encoded in natural language(s). By examining the interaction between syntactic structures and their semantic interpretations, my overarching aim is to explore how linguistic forms capture and represent complex phenomena such as causality, agency, volition, and dispositions.

I am a member of the OASIS ('Ontology As Structured by the Interfaces with Semantics') network.

• Articles

  • Raffy C, Donazzan M, von Heusinger K. The syntax and semantics of laisser in causative constructions: an experimental investigation. Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics 2024, 10(4), 1-39.
  • Raffy, C. Accounting for causation by omission: indifference in laisser-causatives. Glossa 2024. Submitted.
  • Donazzan, M, Raffy, C, Copley, B, von Heusinger, K. Letting structure speak with authority: constraining agents' choices with French laisser. 2023, Proceedings of Agency and Intentions in Language I.
  • Donazzan M, Raffy C, von Heusinger K. Causation and dispositions: Towards a semantic characterization of the French causative verb laisser. Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics 2020, 22, 55-75.