Research
Current Projects
Speech Style and Politeness
Together with Raffaella Zanuttini and Miok Pak, I have been interested in how information about the relation between the speaker and addressee is encoded in grammar. We have published several papers on this topic.
Verbal Mood
With Aynat Rubinstein and Alda Mari, I have been developing a theory of verbal mood that can explain both crosslinguistic variation and the sensitivity of mood choice to such factors as tense and aspect.
My book project Social Relations in Semantics and Pragmatics is under contract with Oxford University Press.
Funded Research
- Clause Types: Form and Force in Grammatical Theory (NSF BCS-0234278)
With Raffaella Zanuttini and Miok Pak (postdoc) - The Semantics of Gradable Modal Expressions (NSF BCS-1053038)
With Graham Katz, Elena Herburger, and Aynat Rubinstein (postdoc)
Publications
2024
Feyen, Tess, Alda Mari, Paul Portner, and Valentin Tinarrage. (2024). Political orientation in media treatment of police violence: Evidence from modal adjectives. Discourse and Society, OnlineFirst: 1– 27. Official version; pre-final version
Herburger, Elena and Paul Portner. (2024). Additive Presuppositions and Logical Strength, Proceedings of the Amsterdam Colloquium. Download
2022
Portner, Paul, Miok Pak, and Raffaella Zanuttini (2022). Dimensions of honorific meaning in Korean speech style particles. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, 7(1). Download
Pak, Miok, Paul Portner, and Raffaella Zanuttini (2022). Restrictions on indexicals in directive clauses. Linguistic Inquiry, 1-15.
2021
Mari, Alda and Paul Portner. (2021) Mood variation with belief predicates: Modal comparison and the raisability of questions. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, 7(1). Download
Pyatkin, V., Sadde, S., Rubinstein, A., Portner, P., and Tsarfaty, R. (2021). The possible, the plausible, and the desirable: Event-based modality detection for language processing. In Zong, C., Xia, F., Li, W., and Navigli, R., editors, Proceedings of the 59th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics and the 11th International Joint Conference on Natural Language Processing, ACL/IJCNLP 2021, (Volume 1: Long Papers), Virtual Event, August 1-6, 2021, pages 953–965. Association for Computational Linguistics.
2020
Portner, Paul and Aynat Rubinstein. (2020) Desire, belief, and semantic composition: variation in mood selection with desire predicates. Natural Language Semantics, 28(4):343–393. Download
2019
Portner, Paul, Miok Pak, and Raffaella Zanuttini. “The speaker-addressee relation in imperatives.” In Bondarenko, T., Colley, J., Davis, C., and Privoznov, D., editors, The Proceedings of WAFL 14. MIT working papers in Linguistics, 90. Pre-print MITWPL page
Portner, Paul. “Commitment to Priorities.” In Daniel Harris, Matt Moss, and Daniel Fogal, eds., New Work in Speech Acts. Oxford University Press. Pre-print
Portner, Paul, Miok Pak, and Raffaella Zanuttini. “The speaker-addressee relation at the syntax-semantics interface.” Language 95(1): 1–36. Pre-print Download
2018
Portner, Paul. Mood. Oxford University Press.
2016
Portner, Paul and Aynat Rubinstein. “Extreme and Non-Extreme Deontic Modals.” In Nate Charlow and Matthew Chrisman, eds.,Deontic Modality. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Pre-print
Portner, Paul. “Imperatives.” Maria Aloni and Paul Dekker, eds. Cambridge Handbook of Formal Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Preprint.
2013
Portner, Paul and Aynat Rubinstein, “Mood and Contextual Commitment.” In Anca Chereches, ed., The Proceedings of SALT 22. CLC Publications, 461-487. Download
Katz, Graham, Paul Portner, and Aynat Rubinstein, “Ordering Combination for Modal Comparison.” In Anca Chereches, ed.,The Proceedings of SALT 22. CLC Publications, 488-507.Download
Aynat Rubinstein; Hillary Harner; Elizabeth Krawczyk; Daniel Simonson; Graham Katz; Paul Portner, “Toward Fine-grained Annotation of Modality in Text.” In Proceedings of IWCS 2013 Workshop on Annotation of Modal Meanings in Natural Language (WAMM). Potsdam, Germany: Association for Computational Linguistics. Download
2012
Zanuttini, R, M. Pak and P. Portner, “A Syntactic Analysis of Interpretive Restrictions on Imperative, Promissive, and Exhortative Subjects”, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 30.4, pp. 1231-1274. Pre-print Download
Maienborn, Claudia, Klaus von Heusinger, and Paul Portner.Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning, Volume 3. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Portner, Paul. “Permission and Choice.” In Günther Grewendorf and Thomas Ede Zimmermann, eds., Discourse and Grammar. From Sentence Types to Lexical Categories. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter (Studies in Generative Grammar). Pre-print Download
2011
Maienborn, Claudia, Klaus von Heusinger, and Paul Portner.Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning, Volume 1. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Maienborn, Claudia, Klaus von Heusinger, and Paul Portner.Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning, Volume 2. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Portner, Paul. “Perfect and Progressive.” In Maienborn, Claudia, Klaus von Heusinger, and Paul Portner, eds., Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning, Vol. 2. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Pre-print
Portner, Paul. “Verbal Mood.” In Maienborn, Claudia, Klaus von Heusinger, and Paul Portner, eds., Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning, Vol. 2. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Pre-print
2010
Steinhauer, K., Drury, J.E., Portner, P., Walenski, M., Ullman, M.T. (2010). “Syntax, Concepts, and Logic in the Temporal Dynamics of Language Comprehension: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials”, Neuropsychologia, 48. 1525-1542. Download
2009
Portner, Paul. Modality. Oxford University Press (Studies in Semantics and Pragmatics).
2008
Portner, Paul. “Beyond the Common Ground: The Semantics and Pragmatics of Epistemic Modals.” In Jong Yurl Yoon and Kyoung Ae Kim, eds., The Perspectives of Linguistics in the 21st Century. Seoul: Hankook Munhwasa, 1-18.
Pak, Miok, Paul Portner, and Raffaella Zanuttini. (2008). “Agreement in promissive, imperative, and exhortative clauses”,Korean Linguistics 14, 157–175. Download
2007
Portner, Paul. “Imperatives and Modals.” Natural Language Semantics 15(4), 351-383. Download
Portner, Paul. “Instructions for Interpretation as Separate Performatives.” In K. Schwabe and S. Winkler, eds., On Information Structure, Meaning and Form. John Benjamins, 407-426.
2006
Portner, Paul. “Semantics.” In Jeff Connor-Linton and Ralph Fasold, eds., An Introduction to Language and Linguistics. Cambridge University Press.
Zanuttini, Raffaella, Héctor Campos, Elena Herburger, and Paul Portner, eds. GURT 2004 Proceedings. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
2005
Portner, Paul. “The Semantics of Imperatives within a Theory of Clause Types.” In Kazuha Watanabe and Robert B. Young, eds.,Proceedings of SALT 14. Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications.Download
Portner, Paul and Raffaella Zanuttini. “The Semantics of Nominal Exclamatives”. In Ellipsis and Non-Sentential Speech , edited by Robert Stainton and Ray Elugardo, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers (Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy series), 57-67. Download
2004
Portner, Paul. What is Meaning? Fundamentals of Formal Semantics. Oxford: Blackwell.
2003
Portner, Paul. “The Temporal Semantics and Modal Pragmatics of the Perfect”, Linguistics and Philosophy 26, 459-510. Pre-print Download
Zanuttini, Raffaella and Paul Portner. “Exclamative Clauses at the Syntax-Semantics Interface”, Language 79(1), 39-81. Download
Portner, Paul, “The Semantics of Mood.” In The Second Glot International State-of-the-Article Book , Lisa Cheng and Rint Sybesma, ed., Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. (Updated version of the GLOT paper published in 1999)
2002
Portner, Paul. “Topicality and (Non-)Specificity in Mandarin.” Journal of Semantics 19, 275-287. Pre-print Download
Kuhn, Steve and Paul Portner, “Tense and Time.” In the Handbook of Philosophical Logic, Volume VI (2nd Ed.), D. Gabbay and F. Guenthner, eds., Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 277-346. Download
Portner, Paul and Barbara Partee, eds., Formal Semantics: The Essential Readings, Oxford: Blackwell.
2001
Zanuttini, Raffaella and Paul Portner. “Exclamative Clauses at the Syntax-Semantics Interface”, in ZAS Working Papers, Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Berlin.
Portner, Paul and Katsuhiko Yabushita, “Specific Indefinites and the Information Structure Theory of Topics”, Journal of Semantics, 18, 271-97. Download
2000
Portner, Paul and Raffaella Zanuttini, “The Characterization of Exclamative Clauses in Paduan”, Language 76(1), 123-32.Download
Portner, Paul and Raffaella Zanuttini, “The Force of Negation in Wh Exclamatives and Interrogatives.” In L. Horn and Y. Kato, eds.,Studies in Negation and Polarity, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 193-231. Pre-print
1999
Portner, Paul and Raffaella Zanuttini, “Types of Clauses: A Case Study in Exclamatives.” In Carlota Smith, ed., Proceedings of the Symposium on Non-Narrative Discourse, University of Texas Working Papers in Linguistics, Austin.
Portner, Paul, “Review of Quantifiers, Logic, and Language“,Journal of Linguistics 35, 171-78. Download
Portner, Paul, “The Semantics of Mood”, GLOT International 4.1, 3-9.
Portner, Paul and Raffaella Zanuttini, “The Force of Negation in Wh Exlamatives and Interrogatives”, in Quaderni di lavoro dell’ASIS, Paola Benincà and Cecilia Poletto, eds., P. 38.
1998
Portner, Paul, “The Progressive in Modal Semantics”, Language74(4), 760-87. Download
Portner, Paul and Katsuhiko Yabushita, “The Semantics and Pragmatics of Topic Phrases”, Linguistics and Philosophy 21, 117-157. Download
1997
Portner, Paul, “The Semantics of Mood, Complementation, and Conversational Force”, Natural Language Semantics 5, 167-212. Download
1996
Portner, Paul and Raffaella Zanuttini, “The Syntax and Semantics of Scalar Negation: Evidence from Paduan”. In Kiyomi Kusumoto, ed., The Proceedings of NELS 26, Amhest: GLSA, 257-271.
Portner, Paul, “Modal Discourse Referents and the Semantics-Pragmatics Boundary”. In V. Miglio, ed., Maryland Working Papers in Linguistics, 224-255.
1995
Portner, Paul, “Quantification, Events, and Gerunds.” In E. Bach, E. Jelinek, A. Kratzer, and B. Partee, eds., Quantification in Natural Language, Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 619-659. Download
1994
Portner, Paul, “A Uniform Semantics for Aspectual -ing “. In Mercè Gonzàlez, ed., The Proceedings of NELS 24, GLSA, Amherst, 507-517.
Portner, Paul, “The Semantics of Complementizers.” In Amy Schafer, ed., The Proceedings of NELS 23, GLSA, Amherst, 399-413.
1992
Situation Theory and the Semantics of Propositional Expressions. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Mentor: Barbara Hall Partee.
1991
Portner, Paul, “Gerunds and Types of Events”. In S. Moore and A. Z. Wyner, eds., The Proceedings of SALT I, Cornell University Working Papers in Linguistics, 189-208. Download
Portner, Paul, “Interpreting Gerunds in Complement Positions.” In Dawn Bates, ed., The Proceedings of WCCFL X, Stanford Linguistics Association 375-385.
1989
Portner, Paul, “Processing Indefinite Noun Phrases in Quantified Sentences”, Five College Papers in Cognitive Science 89-3, Pp. 78.
