work

See below for a list of papers, handouts, slides, and class notes. For a full list, see my CV.


0. Kai von Fintel & Irene Heim. 1997–. Intensional semantics. URL: https://github.com/fintelkai/fintel-heim-intensional-notes. Lecture notes for Advanced Semantics, updated regularly. (see also the often-cited 2011 edition).

1. Kai von Fintel & Sabine Iatridou. 2023. Prolegomena to a theory of X-marking. Linguistics and Philosophy 46(6). 1467–1510. doi:10.1007/s10988-023-09390-5.

2. Kai von Fintel & Sabine Iatridou. 2023. Unasked questions. Slides from recent talks on ongoing work. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-iatridou-2023-uq-slides.pdf.

3. Kai von Fintel. 2022. In a word. Seven short columns for the Monitor Weekly. URL: https://kaivonfintel.org/inaword.

4. Kai von Fintel & Robert Pasternak. 2022. Attitudes, aboutness, and indirect restriction. Accepted with minor revisions at Linguistics and Philosophy. URL: https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/005328.

5. Kai von Fintel. 2021. How weak is your want? Note. doi:10.5281/zenodo.5123513.

6. Kai von Fintel & Anthony S. Gillies. 2021. Still going strong. Natural Language Semantics 29(1). 91–113. doi:10.1007/s11050-020-09171-x. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-gillies-2021-stillgoingstrong.pdf.

7. David Beaver & Kai von Fintel. 2019. Variable costs. Website for course taught at ESSLLI 2019 in Riga, Latvia. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/beaver-fintel-2019-dk-costs-esslli.pdf.

8. Kai von Fintel & Sabine Iatridou. 2019. The Only connectives. Slides from talks in Utrecht and Frankfurt. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-iatridou-2019-only-slides.pdf.

9. Kai von Fintel & Sabine Iatridou. 2019. Since since. In Daniel Altshuler & Jessica Rett (eds.), The semantics of plurals, focus, degrees, and times: Essays in honor of Roger Schwarzschild, 305–333. Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-04438-1_15. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-iatridou-2019-since.pdf.

10. Kai von Fintel. 2018. Conditional desires. Slides from a linguistics colloquium at Georgetown University. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/k-cd-slides.pdf.

11. Kai von Fintel. 2018. On the monotonicity of desire ascriptions. Incomplete notes. doi:10.5281/zenodo.5116584.

12. Kai von Fintel. 2018. Bridges to philosophy. Slides from a talk at the workshop “Semantics 2018: Looking Ahead”, part of Angelika Fest 2018-01-01, UMass Amherst. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2018-ak-bridges.pdf.

13. Kai von Fintel & Edward L. Keenan. 2018. Determiners, conservativity, witnesses. Journal of Semantics 35(1). 207–217. doi:10.1093/jos/ffx018. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-keenan-2018-witness.html.

14. Kai von Fintel & Sabine Iatridou. 2017. A modest proposal for the meaning of imperatives. In Ana Arregui, Marı́a Luisa Rivero & Andrés Salanova (eds.), Modality across syntactic categories, 288–319. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198718208.003.0013. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-iatridou-2017-modest.pdf.

15. Kai von Fintel. 2016. How to do conditional things with words. Slides from keynote lecture at the 3rd International Conference of the American Pragmatics Association (AMPRA), Indiana University. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/k-csa-ampra.pdf.

16. Kai von Fintel. 2016. If. Slides from a public lecture at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in the Arts and Languages (CIDRAL), Manchester, UK. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/k-if-cidral.pdf.

17. Kai von Fintel. 2016. On the absence of certain ambiguities in some contexts. Handout from a Linguistics Colloquium at Universität Tübingen. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2016-sera.pdf.

18. Kai von Fintel & David Beaver. 2015. Variable costs. Slides from an invited talk at the Universität Göttingen. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/beaver-fintel-2015-costs-slides.pdf.

19. Kai von Fintel & Anthony S. Gillies. 2015. Hedging your ifs and vice versa. Unpublished manuscript. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-gillies-2015-hedging.pdf.

20. Kai von Fintel. 2014. Quantifier domain restriction. Slides from an invited tutorial talk at the Rutgers Semantics Colloquium. URL: https://web.mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2014-rutgers-domains.pdf.

21. Kai von Fintel, Danny Fox & Sabine Iatridou. 2014. Definiteness as maximal informativeness. In Luka Crnič & Uli Sauerland (eds.), The art and craft of semantics: A festschrift for Irene Heim, vol. 1, 165–174. Cambridge, MA: MIT Working Papers in Linguistics. URL: http://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/jZiNmM4N/FintelFoxIatridou.pdf.

22. Kai von Fintel & Angelika Kratzer. 2014. Modal comparisons: Two dilletantes in search of an expert. In Luka Crnič & Uli Sauerland (eds.), The art and craft of semantics: A festschrift for Irene Heim, vol. 1, 175–179. Cambridge, MA: MIT Working Papers in Linguistics. URL: http://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/jZiNmM4N/FintelKratzer.pdf.

23. Kai von Fintel. 2012. The best we can (expect to) get? Challenges to the classic semantics for deontic modals. Paper presented in a session on Deontic Modals at the Central APA, February 17, 2012. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2012-apa-ought.pdf.

24. Kai von Fintel. 2012. Subjunctive conditionals. In Gillian Russell & Delia Graff Fara (eds.), The Routledge companion to philosophy of language, 466–477. New York: Routledge. doi:1721.1/95784. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2012-subjunctives.pdf.

25. Kai von Fintel & Anthony S. Gillies. 2011. Comments on Lennertz: “Epistemic modal belief reports are a problem for von Fintel and Gillies”. Invited commentary at the 85th Annual Meeting of the American Philosophical Association Pacific Division. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-gillies-2011-lennertz-apa.txt.

26. Kai von Fintel. 2011. Conditionals. In Klaus von Heusinger, Claudia Maienborn & Paul Portner (eds.), Semantics: An international handbook of meaning, vol. 2, 1515–1538. (Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft 33.2). Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter Mouton. doi:10.1515/9783110255072.1515. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2011-hsk-conditionals.pdf.

27. Kai von Fintel & Anthony S. Gillies. 2011. Might made right. In Andy Egan & Brian Weatherson (eds.), Epistemic modality, 108–130. Oxford: Oxford University Press. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-gillies-2011-mmr.pdf.

28. Kai von Fintel & Anthony S. Gillies. 2010. Must … stay … strong! Natural Language Semantics 18(4). 351–383. doi:10.1007/s11050-010-9058-2. URL: https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/65909.

29. Kai von Fintel & Sabine Iatridou. 2009. Morphology, syntax, and semantics of modals. Materials for LSA Institute class, University of California, Berkeley, CA. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-iatridou-2009-lsa-modals.pdf.

30. Kai von Fintel. 2008. What is presupposition accommodation, again? Philosophical Perspectives 22(1). 137–170. doi:10.1111/j.1520-8583.2008.00144.x. URL: https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/66138.

31. Kai von Fintel & Anthony S. Gillies. 2008. CIA leaks. The Philosophical Review 117(1). 77–98. doi:10.1215/00318108-2007-025. URL: https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/51041.

32. Kai von Fintel & Sabine Iatridou. 2008. How to say ought in Foreign: The composition of weak necessity modals. In Jacqueline Guéron & Jacqueline Lecarme (eds.), Time and modality, 115–141. (Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 75). Springer. doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-8354-9. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-iatridou-2008-ought.pdf.

33. Kai von Fintel & Lisa Matthewson. 2008. Universals in semantics. The Linguistic Review 25(1-2). 139–201. doi:10.1515/TLIR.2008.004. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-matthewson-2008-universals.pdf.

34. Kai von Fintel. 2007. If: The biggest little word. Slides from a plenary address given at the Georgetown University Roundtable, March 8, 2007. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2007-if-gurt.pdf.

35. Kai von Fintel & Anthony S. Gillies. 2007. An opinionated guide to epistemic modality. In Tamar Szabó Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Oxford studies in epistemology: Volume 2, 32–62. Oxford University Press. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-gillies-2007-ose2.pdf.

36. Kai von Fintel & Sabine Iatridou. 2007. Anatomy of a modal construction. Linguistic Inquiry 38(3). 445–483. doi:10.1162/ling.2007.38.3.445. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-iatridou-2007-anatomy.pdf.

37. Kai von Fintel & Sabine Iatridou. 2006. What to do if you want to go to Harlem: Notes on anankastic conditionals and related matters. Slides from a Linguistics Colloquium given at University of Tübingen. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2006-harlem-tubingen.pdf.

38. Kai von Fintel. 2006. Modality and language. In Donald M. Borchert (ed.), Encyclopedia of philosophy – second edition, vol. 10, 20–27. Detroit: MacMillan Reference USA. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2006-modality.pdf.

39. Kai von Fintel. 2006. Ordinary conditionals. Slides from a presentation at the UConn Conditionals Conference, April 8, 2006. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2006-uconn-conditionals.pdf.

40. Kai von Fintel. 2005. Comments on Kaufmann. Contribution to the 4th Michigan Workshop on Philosophy and Linguistics, comments on Stefan Kaufmann’s paper “Local and Global Interpretations of Conditionals”, October 29, 2005. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2005-comments-on-kaufmann.pdf.

41. Kai von Fintel. 2005. Postscript to Whatever: Comments on Condoravdi. Handout from a Talk at LSA Workshop on “Context and Content: Topics in Formal Pragmatics”, July 15, 2005-01-01, Cambridge, MA. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2005-condoravdi-comments.pdf.

42. Kai von Fintel. 2005. How to count situations (notes towards a user’s manual). Unpublished manuscript, MIT. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2005-counting.pdf.

43. Kai von Fintel. 2005. Tense in conditionals. Handout from a talk in a seminar at Cornell. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2005-tense-in-conditionals.pdf.

44. Kai von Fintel & Sabine Iatridou. 2005. Anatomy of a modal. In Jon Gajewski, Valentine Hacquard, Bernard Nickel & Seth Yalcin (eds.), New work on modality. (MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 52). Department of Linguistics; Philosophy, MIT. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-iatridou-2005-anatomy-wp.pdf.

45. Kai von Fintel & Sabine Iatridou. 2005. What to do if you want to go to Harlem: Anankastic conditionals and related matters. Unpublished manuscript, MIT. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-iatridou-2005-harlem.pdf.

46. Kai von Fintel. 2004. Comments on Beaver: Presupposition accommodation and quantifier domains. In Hans Kamp & Barbara Partee (eds.), Context-dependence in the analysis of linguistic meaning, 405–410. (Current Research in the Semantics/Pragmatics Interface). Amsterdam: Elsevier. [written in 1995]. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2004-comments-on-beaver.pdf.

47. Kai von Fintel. 2004. Comments on Reinhart: The syntactic roots of discourse cohesion. In Hans Kamp & Barbara Partee (eds.), Context-dependence in the analysis of linguistic meaning, 411–418. (Current Research in the Semantics/Pragmatics Interface). Amsterdam: Elsevier. [written in 1995]. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2004-comments-on-reinhart.pdf.

48. Kai von Fintel. 2004. Would you believe it? The king of France is back! Presuppositions and truth-value intuitions. In Marga Reimer & Anne Bezuidenhout (eds.), Descriptions and beyond, 315–341. Oxford University Press. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2004-kof.pdf.

49. Kai von Fintel. 2004. A minimal theory of adverbial quantification. In Hans Kamp & Barbara Partee (eds.), Context-dependence in the analysis of linguistic meaning, 137–175. (Current Research in the Semantics/Pragmatics Interface). Amsterdam: Elsevier. [written in 1995]. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2004-minimal.pdf.

50. Kai von Fintel. 2004. Minimal replies to Dekker, Hajičová & Sgall, Berman, and DeSwart. In Hans Kamp & Barbara Partee (eds.), Context-dependence in the analysis of linguistic meaning, 541–547. (Current Research in the Semantics/Pragmatics Interface). Amsterdam: Elsevier. [written in 1995]. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2004-minimal-replies.pdf.

51. Kai von Fintel. 2004. How multi-dimensional is quotation? Comments on Chris Potts’ The Dimensions of Quotation, Harvard-MIT-UConn Workshop on Indexicals, Speech Acts, and Logophors, November 20, 2004. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2004-pottsquotecomments.pdf.

52. Kai von Fintel. 2003. Epistemic modals and conditionals revisited. Slides from a linguistics colloquium at University of Massachusetts at Amherst. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2003-umass-epistemics.pdf.

53. Kai von Fintel & Sabine Iatridou. 2003. Epistemic containment. Linguistic Inquiry 34(2). 173–198. doi:10.1162/002438903321663370. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-iatridou-2003-ec.pdf.

54. Kai von Fintel & Sabine Iatridou. 2002. Unembeddable meanings: The meanings of epistemic modality. Slides from an invited talk at Sinn und Bedeutung 7, Universität Konstanz. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-iatridou-2002-epistemic-konstanz.pdf.

55. Kai von Fintel & Sabine Iatridou. 2002. If and when if-clauses can restrict quantifiers. Unpublished manuscript, MIT [written for the Workshop in Philosophy and Linguistics at the University of Michigan, November 8–10, 2002]. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-iatridou-2002-ifwhen.pdf.

56. Kai von Fintel. 2001. Some choicepoints in the syntax/semantics architecture for tense (and aspect). Seminar handout. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2001-choicepoints.pdf.

57. Kai von Fintel. 2001. Conditional strengthening: A case study in implicature. Unpublished manuscript, MIT. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2001-condstrength.pdf.

58. Kai von Fintel. 2001. Counterfactuals in a dynamic context. In Michael Kenstowicz (ed.), Ken Hale: A life in language, 123–152. MIT Press. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2001-counterfactuals.pdf.

59. Kai von Fintel. 2000. What is presupposition accommodation? Unpublished manuscript, MIT. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2000-accomm.pdf.

60. Kai von Fintel. 2000. Exceptive constructions. Seminar Notes, MIT. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2000-exceptives.pdf.

61. Kai von Fintel. 2000. Singleton indefinites (re. Schwarzschild 2000). Handout from a talk to MIT Syntax-Semantics Reading Group. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2000-singleton.pdf.

62. Kai von Fintel. 2000. Whatever. Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) 10. 27–40. doi:10.3765/salt.v10i0.3101. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2000-whatever.pdf.

63. Kai von Fintel. 1999. Class notes on adjectives. Unpublished manuscript, MIT. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-1999-adjectives.pdf.

64. Kai von Fintel. 1999. Amount relatives and the meaning of chains. Handout of a talk given at the University of Edinburgh. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-1999-amount.pdf.

65. Kai von Fintel. 1999. Quantifier domain selection and pseudo-scope. Handout from a talk at the Cornell Conference on Theories of Context Dependency. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-1999-cornell-context.pdf.

66. Kai von Fintel. 1999. NPI licensing, Strawson entailment, and context dependency. Journal of Semantics 16(2). 97–148. doi:10.1093/jos/16.2.97. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-1999-npi.pdf.

67. Kai von Fintel. 1998. Indicative conditionals. Handout from a talk given at Conference on Bridges and Interfaces: Function, Meaning, and Structure at the Charles University Prague (in celebration of its 650th Anniversary), March 1998. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-1998-indicative-prague.pdf.

68. Kai von Fintel. 1998. Evidence for presuppositional indefinites. Unpublished manuscript, MIT. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-1998-presupp-indef.pdf.

69. Kai von Fintel. 1998. Quantifiers and If-clauses. The Philosophical Quarterly 48(191). 209–214. doi:10.1111/1467-9213.00095. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-1998-qandif.pdf.

70. Kai von Fintel. 1998. The semantics and pragmatics of quantifier domains. Notes for Vilem Mathesius Lectures, Prague, March 1998. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-1998-qic.pdf.

71. Kai von Fintel. 1998. The presupposition of subjunctive conditionals. In Uli Sauerland & Orin Percus (eds.), The interpretive tract, 29–44. (MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 25). Cambridge, MA: MITWPL. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-1998-subjunctive.pdf.

72. Kai von Fintel. 1997. Bare plurals, bare conditionals, and only. Journal of Semantics 14(1). 1–56. doi:10.1093/jos/14.1.1. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-1997-bare.pdf.

73. Kai von Fintel. 1997. Context and (mis)communication. Unpublished ms, responding to Chris Gauker’s “Domains of discourse” (Mind, 1997). URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-1997-gauker.pdf.

74. Kai von Fintel. 1997. Some notes on disjunctive antecedents in conditionals. doi:10.5281/zenodo.10109894.

75. Kai von Fintel. 1996. Specific generics. Handout from a Linguistics Colloquium given at Rutgers University. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-1996-specific-generics.pdf.

76. Kai von Fintel. 1995. The formal semantics of grammaticalization. North East Linguistics Society (NELS) 25(2). 175–189. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-1995-grammar.pdf.

77. Kai von Fintel. 1994. Restrictions on quantifier domains. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts PhD thesis. Dissertation Committee: Angelika Kratzer (chair), Barbara Partee, Roger Higgins, Emmon Bach, and Philip Bricker. URL: http://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/jA3N2IwN/fintel-1994-thesis.pdf.

78. Kai von Fintel. 1993. Exceptive constructions. Natural Language Semantics 1(2). 123–148. doi:10.1007/BF00372560. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-1993-exceptives.pdf.

79. Kai von Fintel. 1992. The modal-existential construction. Formal Linguistic Society of Midamerica (FLSM) 3. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-1992-modal-existentials.pdf.

80. Kai von Fintel. 1991. Exceptive conditionals: The meaning of Unless. North East Linguistic Society (NELS) 22. URL: http://mit.edu/fintel/fintel-1991-unless.pdf.

81. Kai von Fintel. 1989. Theticity in generative grammar. In Emmon Bach, Angelika Kratzer & Barbara H. Partee (eds.), Papers on quantification: NSF grant BNS 8719999. (University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics (UMOP) 15). Department of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. URL: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/umop/vol15/iss2/7.