Chris Kennedy's research is geared towards discovering the principles that are involved in relating linguistic forms to meanings, determining how properties of the linguistic system and properties of the context of utterance interact in achieving this mapping, and understanding the extent to which structural and typological features of language can be explained in terms of meaning. He has investigated these issues primarily through an exploration of expressions of comparison, amount and degree, and through work on vagueness, though his research has also touched on core issues in the syntax-semantics interface such as ellipsis, anaphora, and quantification.