Gregory Ward

Gregory Ward is Professor of Linguistics, Gender & Sexuality Studies, and Philosophy at Northwestern University. His work bridges pragmatic theory, information structure, and intonational meaning, with a focus on reference/anaphora. He has taught courses like Pragmatics (LING 372) and Language & Gender (GSS 234), receiving the E. LeRoy Hall Award for Excellence in Teaching (2012).

• BA in Comparative Literature and Linguistics (1978, UC Berkeley)
• PhD in Linguistics (1985, University of Pennsylvania)

His research explores how contextual meaning shapes linguistic structures, including demonstratives, implicatures, and noncanonical word order. He has contributed to experimental pragmatics, syntax-discourse interactions, and the semantics-pragmatics boundary, co-authoring key works like Information Status and Noncanonical Word Order in English (1998).

Recent publications analyze deferred reference, event anaphora, and functional compositionality. These works span subfields such as pragmatic theory, syntactic variation, and discourse processing, reflecting his interdisciplinary approach.

Scientific awards include:

• E. LeRoy Hall Award for Excellence in Teaching (2012)

He served as Secretary-Treasurer of the Linguistic Society of America (2004-2007), co-PI on NIH and NSF grants, and Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (2004-05).