I am a PhD Candidate (dissertation expected 2027) in Linguistics at the University of Maryland. My advisors are Jeff Lidz and Alexander Williams.

I work on linguistic meaning from a few different angles.

• Grammar and meaning.
  I am especially interested in comparatives and degree constructions. The main strand of my current research asks about the constraints on cross-categorial comparison.

I also have interests more generally in quantification and ellipsis.

• Experimental semantics.
  With Tyler Knowlton, Justin Halberda, Paul Pietroski, and Jeff Lidz, I run psychophysical experiments to investigate how we understand quantifiers, building on the cognitive science of number. My work here has focused on within-individuals studies.

This research investigates the mentally-represented aspect of linguistic meaning, connecting to traditional questions in the metaphysics of meaning and the philosophy of cognitive science.

• Cross-linguistic work.
  I have worked on Gujarati and Hindi (Indic). I have looked at auxiliaries, degree-modifiers, ellipsis, infixation, tense and modality, and questions.

Before Maryland, I read Philosophy and Linguistics BA, at St. Hugh's College, Oxford (2019-2022), for which I was awarded a Congratulatory First Class.

My advisor during my undergraduate degree was Matt Husband.

The best way to reach me is by email: mpshah at umd dot edu
If I don't reply within a few days, please feel free to remind me!