معرفی
Paul H. Portner is a Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University, specializing in semantics and pragmatics with a focus on their interfaces with syntax. He holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst (1992) under Barbara Partee, following an A.B. in Philosophy from Princeton University (1987). His research explores mood systems, speech style particles, and the syntax-semantics interface, with funded projects on clause types and gradable modals. He has led summer schools on topics like 'Mood in Semantics and Pragmatics' (2018) and 'Tense and Aspect' (2022). Portner’s work appears in top journals like Language and Natural Language Semantics, and he authored Mood (Oxford, 2018). His funded research includes NSF grants exploring honorific meaning and speaker-addressee dynamics.
Research Interests: Portner’s work centers on formal semantics and pragmatics, particularly mood variation, modality, and discourse semantics. He investigates how grammatical structures encode social relations, with contributions to understanding imperative clauses, deontic modals, and the syntax-pragmatics interface. His recent projects include a book on Social Relations in Semantics and Pragmatics (Oxford, under contract).
Teaching & Outreach: Teaches courses like Semantics and Pragmatics and Syntax-Semantics Interface. Has organized summer schools at MIT, ENS Paris, and CreteLing, focusing on cutting-edge topics in linguistic theory.
Advising & Grants: Co-PI on NSF grants (BCS-0234278, BCS-1053038). Advises graduate students in semantics/pragmatics and collaborates widely with researchers like Aynat Rubinstein and Miok Pak.
