Irene Heim

Irene Heim is an American linguist whose work helped establish formal accounts of presupposition, definiteness, and context change in meaning.

Formal semantics: The study of linguistic meaning using explicit mathematical and logical representations. Heim’s work is a central part of this approach to meaning.
File Change Semantics: Irene Heim’s framework in which sentences update information states called files. It formalizes her idea that interpretation changes a discourse context.
Hans Kamp: A Dutch linguist and philosopher who developed Discourse Representation Theory. Kamp developed a dynamic framework alongside Heim’s independent account.
The Semantics of Definite and Indefinite Noun Phrases: Irene Heim’s 1982 dissertation developing a unified account of definite and indefinite noun phrases. This dissertation introduced the framework that became File Change Semantics.
Stalnaker's pragmatic theory of presupposition: Robert Stalnaker’s account of presupposition as information speakers take for granted in a conversational context. It locates presupposition in pragmatic context, complementing Heim’s formal linguistic treatment.
Presupposition: A background assumption that an utterance treats as already accepted or established. Heim developed influential accounts of how presuppositions behave in language.
Context change potential: The capacity of an expression to transform the context in which it is interpreted. Heim uses context change to model the contribution of sentences to discourse.
Barbara Partee: An American linguist who helped connect formal semantics with syntax and natural language. Partee’s work helped shape the field in which Heim made her contributions.
Russell's theory of descriptions: Bertrand Russell’s analysis of definite descriptions as quantificational expressions with existence and uniqueness conditions. Heim’s treatment of definites differs from Russell’s influential quantificational analysis.
Karttunen's theory of presupposition: A theory describing how presuppositions project through sentences using local contexts and filtering. Karttunen’s account offers a prominent alternative to Heim’s projection analysis.

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Barbara H. ParteeRelated: Heim’s research extends the formal-semantic tradition Partee helped establish.