About

Ivano Caponigro received his Ph.D. in linguistics from UCLA. His research interests focus on the study of how different languages convey the same meaning by possibly different combinations of words or smaller units into sentences. He is a linguist interested in cross-linguistic formal semantics and its interfaces with formal pragmatics and syntax. He has conducted extensive collaborative work on varieties of wh-constructions and relative clauses in Indo-European languages, Mesoamerican languages, ASL, and Adyghe (Northwest Caucasian). He co-leads Syntax and Semantics Babble, a weekly informal discussion group on theoretical and experimental aspects of syntax and semantics and related areas such as their interfaces with morphology, pragmatics, and philosophy of language.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Linguistics
• Philosophy
• Natural Language Processing
• Artificial Intelligence
• Combinatorics
• Biology
• Mathematics
• Psychology
• Programming language

Selected publications

• Richard Montague’s Turn Towards Natural Language

  Philosophies · 2026-02-26

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Richard Montague (1930–1971) is known as a founding figure of natural language semantics, i.e., the formal study of the semantics of natural languages by means of tools from mathematical logic. Less well known is that Montague maintained a strongly skeptical view on the possibility of a systematic logico-philosophical analysis of natural language for most of his short life, adhering to the then-common belief that natural languages are fundamentally different from the languages of logic. Completely unknown, until now, has been how Montague underwent a 180-degree turn in the last few years of his life, in the late 1960s, and pioneered a precise formal analysis of the syntax and semantics of fragments of English in three seminal papers that established the research framework, the methodology, and the formal tools for the new field of study. I provide a precise and documented answer to when, where, and how Montague’s intellectual turn occurred and how it relates to Montague’s previous research interests and work.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Referring and quantifying without nominals: headless relative clauses across languages

  Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory · 2024-01-22 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Nominals can be used to refer to or quantify over individuals, while clauses convey propositional content, with the exception of set-denoting restrictive headed relative clauses. This well-attested crosslinguistic syntax/semantics mapping needs to be broadened. Recent crosslinguistic findings show that headless relative clauses—embedded argument or adjunct clauses with a missing constituent—are widely attested and are used to refer to or quantify over individuals, similar to nominals. The present work contributes to the investigation of the syntax/semantics interface of different varieties of headless relative clauses and begins to develop a much-needed close comparison with the syntax/semantics interface of nominals in order to establish which principles are at play in both families of constructions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Investigating clausal wh-constructions in Romanian

  Isogloss Open Journal of Romance Linguistics · 2023-12-15 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Romanian has an articulated system of (non-)interrogative wh-clauses that look morphosyntactically similar or even identical to each other on the surface, while exhibiting striking differences in distribution and interpretation. Using a minimal set of criteria, tests and distinctions, this article presents the first systematic comparative overview of all clausal wh-constructions attested in Romanian. We show that none of these constructions can be reduced to any of the others and flesh out some of the challenges arising for a unified analysis of wh-constructions and wh-expressions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• ‘What’ Clauses can and ‘Which’ Cannot: A Romanian Puzzle

  Language · 2023 · 2 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Linguistics
  • Mathematics

  A previously unnoticed puzzle is presented concerning the distribution of wh -determiners in free relative clauses in Romanian: while care ‘which’ + NP can never introduce free relative clauses, ce ‘what’ + NP does so productively, as do all other wh -words. New evidence is provided showing that care ‘which’ + NP in interrogative clauses in Romanian exhibits strong discourse-anaphoric requirements, unlike ce ‘what’ + NP. This feature of care ‘which’ + NP is suggested to be responsible for the puzzle by triggering a clash with the basic set-denoting function of a free relative clause, along the lines of what is observed in light-headed relative clauses.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• ‘Why’ without asking in Romanian

  2023-07-17 · 1 citations

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This chapter offers the first description and semantic analysis for a previously unexplored kind of non-interrogative wh-clause, namely free relative clauses introduced by de ce ‘why’ in Romanian (why-FRs). We argue that the semantic contribution of the adjunct wh-expression de ce is identical to that of complex reason-PPs (‘for the reason’ …) and provide the corresponding compositional semantics as well as its implications for the meaning switch from de ce in interrogative clauses to de ce in a why-FR in Romanian. We also briefly discuss the behaviour of de ce in other non-interrogative wh-constructions in Romanian and consider the challenges raised by the attempt to develop a unified analysis of de ce across wh-clauses. These findings in Romanian show that the unacceptability of why-FRs in most other Indo-European languages cannot be an absolute ban, suggesting that the syntax/semantic interface must allow for language variation in this area.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Rudin constructions in Romanian : identity of relations via multiple wh-clauses

  HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) · 2023-06-26

  article1st authorCorresponding

  International audience

  Publisher

• Multiple wh-clauses : insights from Rudin constructions in Romanian

  HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) · 2023-05-25

  articleSenior author

  International audience

  Publisher

• Still Free to Have a <i>Wh</i>-Phrase: A Reply to

  Linguistic Inquiry · 2022-12-08 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Donati et al. (2022) aim at supporting the theoretical and empirical claims in Donati and Cecchetto 2011 about the grammar and free relative clauses by responding to the new data and criticism presented in Caponigro 2019. I critically examine the data and arguments in Donati et al. 2022, provide new data and arguments against the core theoretical proposal and the analyses advanced in Donati and Cecchetto 2011 and endorsed in Donati et al. 2022, and suggest a different approach, based on Citko 2008, Ott 2011, and Chomsky 2013, 2015. My overall conclusion is that there are theoretical reasons and rich crosslinguistic evidence supporting the view that the grammar allows for free relative clauses that are introduced by varieties of wh-phrases, rather than just wh-words, pace Donati and Cecchetto 2011 and Donati et al. 2022.

  PublisherDOI

• Introducing Headless Relative Clauses and the Findings from Mesoamerican Languages

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2021 · 37 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Linguistics
  • Computer Science

  This introductory chapter pursues several goals. First, it introduces the characters at the center of the volume: both the main characters, i.e., varieties of headless relative clauses, and the equally important supporting characters, i.e., headed relative clauses and <italic>wh</italic>- interrogative clauses. The next chapters can, therefore, assume that the reader is already familiar with these core constructions and just focus on their manifestations in the specific languages under investigation. Second, this chapter presents the definitions, methodologies, and tests that the authors have adopted, so that each subsequent, language-specific chapter can make use of them without further introduction or justification. In doing so, this chapter also fulfills a third goal: to provide a concise guide to scholars who are interested in pursuing further investigation of headless relative clauses in Mesoamerican and other languages. Fourth, the current chapter aims to highlight commonalities and differences in the findings from the other chapters and discusses how those findings contribute to the current understanding of headless relative clauses typologically and theoretically and of human language in general.

  PublisherDOI

• Conveying content questions without wh-words: evidence from Abaza

  OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) · 2021-09-16 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  We argue that Abaza, a polysynthetic language from the Northwest Caucasian family, exhibits a syntax-semantics mapping that has not been observed in any other languages before. We show that Abaza lacks wh-words and, as a consequence, matrix and embedded wh- interrogative clauses, and conveys direct and indirect content question meaning by means of headless relative clauses. We propose a compositional semantic analysis of these headless relative clauses that assigns them the same meaning as concealed question DPs, i.e. individual concepts. When occurring as matrix clauses and conveying direct question meaning, these headless relative clauses require the relative verbal form to contain a clause typing affix from a specific set. We show that these affixes cannot be analyzed as “incorporated” or “cliticized” wh- words, but rather as operators turning individual concepts into questions, i.e., sets of propositions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Carlo Cecchetto

  69 shared

• Kathryn Davidson

  Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research

  69 shared

• Valentina Aristodemo

  University of Trento

  64 shared

• Carlo Geraci

  École Normale Supérieure - PSL

  64 shared

• Caterina Donati

  Laboratoire de Linguistique Formelle

  64 shared

• Labex Efl

  Radboud University Nijmegen

  64 shared

• Onno Crasborn

  Radboud University Nijmegen

  64 shared

• Lisa Pearl

  University of California, Irvine

  24 shared