Irene Heim
Encyclopedia
Irene Roswitha Heim is a linguist and noted specialist in semantics
. She was a professor at the University of Texas at Austin
and UCLA before finally moving to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
in 1989, where she is Professor of Linguistics and Head of the Linguistics Section of the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy.
She is probably most famous for her 1982 University of Massachusetts
dissertation The semantics of definite and indefinite noun phrases. In the work she argued (developing an insight by the philosopher David Lewis
) that indefinite noun phrase
s like a cat in the sentence
If a cat is not in Athens, she is in Rhodes are not quantifiers but free variables bound by an existential operator inserted in the sentence by a semantic operation that she dubbed existential closure.
She is also the co-author with Angelika Kratzer
of one of the most influential textbooks of formal semantics
, and is a co-editor (also with Kratzer) of the journal Natural Language Semantics
.
Semantics
Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
. She was a professor at the University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
and UCLA before finally moving to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
in 1989, where she is Professor of Linguistics and Head of the Linguistics Section of the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy.
She is probably most famous for her 1982 University of Massachusetts
University of Massachusetts
This article relates to the statewide university system. For the flagship campus often referred to as "UMass", see University of Massachusetts Amherst...
dissertation The semantics of definite and indefinite noun phrases. In the work she argued (developing an insight by the philosopher David Lewis
David Kellogg Lewis
David Kellogg Lewis was an American philosopher. Lewis taught briefly at UCLA and then at Princeton from 1970 until his death. He is also closely associated with Australia, whose philosophical community he visited almost annually for more than thirty years...
) that indefinite noun phrase
Noun phrase
In grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase, or nominal group is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like word optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives....
s like a cat in the sentence
Sentence (linguistics)
In the field of linguistics, a sentence is an expression in natural language, and often defined to indicate a grammatical unit consisting of one or more words that generally bear minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it...
If a cat is not in Athens, she is in Rhodes are not quantifiers but free variables bound by an existential operator inserted in the sentence by a semantic operation that she dubbed existential closure.
She is also the co-author with Angelika Kratzer
Angelika Kratzer
Angelika Kratzer is a semanticist whose expertise includes modals, turd semantics, turd ferguson, situation semantics, and a range of topics relating to the syntax-semantics interface. She is a professor of linguistics in the department of linguistics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst...
of one of the most influential textbooks of formal semantics
Formal semantics (linguistics)
In linguistics, formal semantics seeks to understand linguistic meaning by constructing precise mathematical models of the principles that speakers use to define relations between expressions in a natural language and the world which supports meaningful discourse.The mathematical tools used are the...
, and is a co-editor (also with Kratzer) of the journal Natural Language Semantics
Natural Language Semantics
Natural Language Semantics: An International Journal of Semantics and Its Interfaces in Grammar is a leading international peer-reviewed semantics journal published by Springer Netherlands . It is devoted to semantics and its interfaces in grammar, especially in syntax...
.