Angelika Kratzer

American linguist

Angelika Kratzer is a professor emerita of linguistics in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.^[1]

Biography

She was born in Germany, and received her PhD from the University of Konstanz in 1979, with a dissertation entitled Semantik der Rede. She is an influential and widely cited semanticist whose expertise includes modals, conditionals, situation semantics, and a range of topics relating to the syntax–semantics interface.^[2]

Among her most influential ideas are: a unified analysis of modality of different flavors (building on the work of Jaakko Hintikka); a modal analysis of conditionals;^[3] and the hypothesis ("the little v hypothesis") that the agent argument of a transitive verb is introduced syntactically whereas the theme argument is selected for lexically.^[4]

She co-wrote with Irene Heim the semantics textbook Semantics in Generative Grammar, and is co-editor, with Irene Heim, of the journal Natural Language Semantics.^[5]

Awards

In 2012, Kratzer was named a Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America.^[6]

Selected publications

• Heim, Irene; Kratzer, Angelika (1998). Semantics in Generative Grammar (1 ed.). Malden, Mass.: Blackwell. ISBN 0631197125.
• Kratzer, Angelika (January 1977). "What 'must' and 'can' must and can mean". Linguistics and Philosophy. 1 (3): 337–355. doi:10.1007/BF00353453. Retrieved 8 March 2024.
• Kratzer, Angelika (15 April 2008). "The notional category of modality". In Portner, Paul H.; Partee, Barbara H. (eds.). Formal Semantics: The Essential Readings. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 289–393. ISBN 978-0-470-75818-2.
• Kratzer, Angelika (2010). "Stage-Level and Individual-Level Predicates". In Carlson, Gregory N.; Pelletier, Francis Jeffry (eds.). The Generic Book (Digit. print. ed.). Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. pp. 125–175. ISBN 978-0226092911.
• Kratzer, Angelika (1996). Rooryck, J.; Zaring, L. (eds.). "Severing the External Argument from its Verb". Phrase Structure and the Lexicon. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory. 33. Dordrecht: Springer: 109–137. doi:10.1007/978-94-015-8617-7_5. ISBN 978-90-481-4621-5. Retrieved 8 March 2024.
• Kratzer, Angelika (12 January 2012). Modals and Conditionals: New and Revised Perspectives. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199234684.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-173843-2. Retrieved 8 March 2024.

See also

• Formal semantics (linguistics)
• Generative grammar
• Modality (natural language)
• Modal logic

References

1. "Faculty | Linguistics | UMass Amherst". www.umass.edu. Retrieved 2017-11-06.
2. "Google Scholar".
3. Lassiter, Daniel (2017). Graded Modality: Qualitative and Quantitative Perspectives. Oxford University Press. pp. 73–74. ISBN 9780198701354.
4. Wechsler, Stephen (2015). Word Meaning and Syntax: Approaches to the Interface. Oxford University Press. pp. 252 ff. ISBN 9780199279890.
5. "Natural Language Semantics - incl. option to publish open access". springer.com. Retrieved 2017-11-06.
6. "LSA Fellows By Surname | Linguistic Society of America". www.linguisticsociety.org. Linguistic Society of America. Retrieved 8 March 2024.