Overview
Rooth does research in two areas, computational linguistics and natural language semantics. He has worked on mixed symbolic/probabilistic models of syntax and the lexicon, on contrastive intonation (what is called focus), and on related phenomena such as ellipsis and presupposition. In addition to these, he is currently working on finite state models of phonology and phonetics.
Publications
Abusch, Dorit and Mats Rooth (to appear). Image sequences and their semantics. In Handbook of Linguistics and Multimodality, edited by Chiao-I Tseng and John Bateman
Rooth, Mats and Dorit Abusch (to appear). An existential semantics for over-informative attitudinal embedding in film. Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 30
Lagisetty, Sahya and Mats Rooth (to appear). ML classification in a benchmark of prosodic minimal pairs. Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2026
Abusch, Dorit and Mats Rooth (2023). Parallel and differential contributions from language and image in the discourse representation of picturebooks. Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 27
Abusch, Dorit and Mats Rooth (2022). Pictorial free perception. Linguistics & Philosophy
Rooth, Mats (2022). Adverbs of quantification. In A Reader's Guide to Classical Papers in Formal Semantics, edited by Zoltan Szabo and Luise McNally (, ).
Abusch, Dorit and Mats Rooth (2022). Temporal and intensional pictorial conflation. Sinn und Bedeutung 26
Campbell, Eric and Mats Rooth (2021). Epistemic semantics in guarded string models. SCiL 2021 (preprint).
Abusch, Dorit and Mats Rooth (2021). Modalized normality in pictorial narratives. Sinn und Bedeutung 25 ().
Rooth, Mats and Dorit Abusch (2019). Indexing across media. Proceedings of 22nd Amsterdam Colloquium
Rooth, Mats and Dorit Abusch (2018). Picture descriptions and centered content. Sinn und Bedeutung 21 ().
Abusch, Dorit and Mats Rooth (2017). The formal semantics of free perception in pictorial narratives. 21st Amsterdam Colloquium, Dec. 2017 ().
Rooth, Mats (2017). Finite state intensional semantics. International Conference on Computational Semantics, Montpellier, Sept. 2017
Howell, Jonathan, Mats Rooth, and Michael Wagner (2017). Acoustic classification of focus: On the web and in the lab. Laboratory Phonology 8(1), 16 ().
Rooth, Mats and Dorit Abusch (2017). Picture descriptions and centered content. Sinn und Bedeutung 21 ().
Rooth, Mats (2016). Alternative semantics. In Caroline Féry and Shinichiro Ishihara (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Information Structure . Oxford University Press. (, .
Rooth, Mats (2015). Representing focus scoping over new. In Thuy Bai and Deniz Özyildiz (eds.) Proceedings of the Forty-Fifth Annual Meeing of the North East Linguisic Society. ()
Rooth, Mats (2014). Operators for definition by paraphrase. In a Festschrift for Ede Zimmermann: Approaches to Meaning: Composition, Values, and Interpretation, edited by Daniel Gutzmann, Jan Kopping and Cécile Meier (, ).
Lutz, David, Parry Cadwallader and Mats Rooth (2013). A web application for filtering and annotating web speech data. Web as Corpus 8, July 2013 ().
Data and Software
Rooth, Mats, (2015). Kaldi-alignments-matlab. Display and play Kaldi phone alignments.
Rooth, Mats, (2014). Replication data for: Operators for definition by paraphrase, Harvard Dataverse Network [Distributor] V1 [Version].
Recent and Upcoming Presentations
ML classification in a benchmark of prosodic minimal pairs. Speech Prosody, May 2026.
An existential semantics for over-informative attitudinal embedding in film. Sinn und Bedeutung 30, Frankfurt. September 2025.
Semantic ellipsis after all? Evidence form focus and higher-order boolean antecedents. Colloquium, University of Padua, January 9, 2025.
Possible worlds semantics for film and the problem of overinformative embedding. MIT joint Linguistics-Philosophy Colloquium, December 6, 2024.
Semantic ellipsis after all? Evidence form focus and higher-order boolean antecedents. Semantics Research Group, Keio University, April 5 2024.
Semantic ellipsis after all? Evidence from focus and Boolean antecedents. Colloquium, Tel Aviv University, June 22, 2023.
Parallel and differential contributions from language and image in the discourse representation of picturebooks. Sinn und Bedeutung 27, September 2022.
Intensional and temporal pictorial conflation. Sinn und Bedeutung 26, September 2021.
Epistemic semantics in guarded string models. SCiL 2021, Feb. 15-19 2021.
Modalized normality in pictorial narratives. Sinn und Bedeutung 25, September 2020 ().
Is there reference to questions in the grammar of focus? Workshop on Focus, Alternative Semantics and Information Structure at SALT30, August 2020 ().
Indexing across media. 22nd Amsterdam Colloquium, 2019.
Formal semantics of pictorial narratives. ESSLLI 2018, 30th European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information, Sofia, August 2018 ().
