Zeqi Zhao’s personal website

Hi, my name is Zeqi Zhao [tsɤ́ tɕʰí ʈʂàʊ̯].

I am currently completing my Ph.D. in Theoretical Linguistics at the University of Göttingen, supervised by Professors Clemens Mayr and Uwe Junghanns. My dissertation explores the polymorphism of distributivity in Mandarin, particularly addressing intersections with indefinites, pair-list readings, non-maximality, and homogeneity.

You can also find more information on my institutional page.

Research Interests

• Formal semantics/pragmatics;

• The semantics/pragmatics interface;

• Logic in language;

• Chinese linguistics

Public outreach

Modern theoretical linguistics—particularly generative and formal approaches—often bears the “non-scientific” label. My goal is to show the general public that formal semantics goes well beyond abstract formalisms that resemble “pure math”: formal grammars generate precise, testable predictions that can be directly validated against empirical data.

In a joint public talk (with Nina Haslinger) at the 5th Night of Science in Göttingen, I demonstrated how an intuitive understanding of logical consequence is woven into our unconscious language faculty.

Below is the playful comic strip I used in my talk: