Maria Piñango

· Professor

Yale University · Department of Linguistics

Active 1999–2026

h-index25

Citations2.4k

Papers6515 last 5y

Funding—

Academic metrics are sourced from OpenAlex and public funding records; values may differ from Google Scholar.

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About

Maria Mercedes Piñango, Ph.D., is a Professor of Linguistics, Cognitive Science, and the Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program at Yale University. She serves as the Lab Director of the Language and Brain Lab at Yale. Her professional contact is maria.pinango@yale.edu. The information provided highlights her interdisciplinary roles spanning linguistics, cognitive science, and neuroscience, indicating a broad engagement with language and brain research. However, the page text does not provide specific details about her research focus, background, or key contributions beyond her titles and lab leadership.

Research topics

Computer Science
Linguistics
Cognitive psychology
Psychology
Artificial Intelligence
Philosophy
Mathematics
History
Astrophysics
Developmental psychology

Selected publications

Operationalizing the Role of Context in Language Variation: The Role of Perspective Alignment in the Spanish Imperfective Domain
Language, cognition and mind · 2021-01-01 · 40 citations
book-chapterOpen access
Abstract We present a cognitively grounded analysis of the pattern of variation that underlies the use of two aspectual markers in Spanish (the Simple-Present marker, Ana bail a ‘Ana dances’, and the Present-Progressive marker, Ana está baila ndo ‘Ana is dancing’) when they express an event - in - progress reading. This analysis is centered around one fundamental communicative goal, which we term perspective alignment : the bringing of the hearer’s perspective closer to that of the speaker. Per…
Publisher OA PDF DOI
Concept composition during language processing
2019-03-11 · 38 citations
book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
The multidimensional conceptual space (MdS) model argues (1) that lexicalized meaning is a “packaged” conceptual structure from which it obtains its compositional principles, and (2) that the connection between lexicalized meaning and its conceptual substrate is actively engaged as comprehension unfolds. This chapter discusses two test cases, aspectual predicate composition and metonymy composition, known to be computationally taxing. Under the labels “perspective underdetermination” and “situat…
Publisher DOI
Language variation and change through an experimental lens
Advances in historical sociolinguistics · 2020 · 36 citations
Senior authorCorresponding
Abstract Spanish exhibits two markers to convey a progressive meaning: the Simple Present and the Present Progressive. The use of these markers is contextually biased: the Simple Present requires contexts where speaker and addressee share perceptual access to the situation at issue, while the Present Progressive does not require such support. We test this generalization through real-time comprehension: the Simple Present marker in contexts without shared perceptual access should elicit slower re…
Publisher DOI
Searching for specific sentence meaning in context: the conceptual relation between participants
Language and Cognition · 2019-11-11 · 9 citations
articleSenior authorCorresponding
abstract We argue that the interpretation of transitive aspectual-verb sentences like “ Sue finishes the book ” results from an evaluation of the degree of asymmetry in control power between the participants in the sentence. Control asymmetry is proposed as one conceptual constraint on sentence meaning precisification. An evaluation of ‘high control asymmetry’ for the relation between “Sue” and “book” yields an agentive/actor-undergoer interpretation (Sue is doing something involving the book).…
Publisher DOI
The Progressive-to-Imperfective shift
Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone linguistics · 2020 · 8 citations
Senior authorCorresponding
Abstract Spanish has two markers (claimed to be in free alternation) to convey that an event is in progress at reference time: the Simple Present (e.g., canta , ‘sings’) and the Present Progressive (e.g., está cantando , ‘is singing’). Based on evidence from sentence acceptability studies in three different Spanish dialects, we show that the distribution of the two markers is not random, but sensitive to contextual modulation. Specifically, results show that the (ambiguous) Simple Present is mor…
Publisher DOI

Frequent coauthors

Edgar Zurif
19 shared
Lai Y
National Chengchi University
16 shared
Ashwini Deo
The University of Texas at Austin
13 shared
Cheryl Lacadie
Resonance Research (United States)
10 shared
David Braze
Haskins Laboratories
9 shared
Yosef Grodzinsky
Forschungszentrum Jülich
9 shared
Martín Fuchs
9 shared
R. Todd Constable
Yale University
7 shared

Labs

Language and Brain Lab at YalePI

Education

Doctor in Philosphy, Linguistics and Cognitive Science
Brandeis University
1999

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