Experiments In Linguistic Meaning

Experiments in Linguistic Meaning (ELM 2026) is a conference dedicated to experimental approaches to semantics and pragmatics, investigating how speakers interpret and produce meaning in naturalistic and controlled settings. The conference brings together researchers who use behavioral experiments, corpus methods, computational modeling, and psycholinguistic techniques to study phenomena such as scalar implicature, vagueness, presupposition, metaphor, and cross-linguistic variation in meaning. Grounding semantic theory in empirical data is central to the ELM mission.

ELM 2026 welcomes formal semanticists, experimental pragmaticists, psycholinguists, and computational linguists who share an interest in how meaning is mentally represented and communicated. It is a particularly welcoming environment for graduate students combining theoretical training with experimental methodology. The conference fosters dialogue between those who build formal models of meaning and those who test those models against human behavior, producing richer and more empirically responsible theories of natural language semantics and pragmatics.