Editing Irene Heim

{{Short description|American linguist}}
{{Infobox academic
| name              = Irene Heim
| image             = <!--(filename only)-->
| alt               =
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| birth_name        = Irene Roswitha Heim
| birth_date        = {{Birth date|1954|10|30}}
| birth_place       = [[Munich]], West Germany
| death_date        = <!-- {{Death date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|YYYY|MM|DD}} (death date then birth date) -->
| death_place       =
| residence         =
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| discipline        = {{hlist|[[Semantics_(linguistics)|Semantics]]|[[Linguistics]]}}
| workplaces        = {{hlist|[[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]]|[[UCLA]]|[[University of Texas at Austin]]}}
| alma_mater        = [[University of Massachusetts Amherst|UMass Amherst]]
| doctoral_advisor  = [[Barbara Partee]]
| academic_advisors = 
| doctoral_students = 
| notable_students  =
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| influences        =
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| awards            = Fellow of the [[Linguistic Society of America]]
| signature         = <!--(filename only)-->
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| footnotes         =
| thesis_title=The Semantics of Definite and Indefinite Noun Phrases
| thesis_year=1982
| thesis_url= https://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/jA2YTJmN/Heim%20Dissertation%20with%20Hyperlinks.pdf
}}

'''Irene Roswitha Heim''' (born October 30, 1954) is a [[linguist]] and a leading specialist in [[semantics]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Irene Heim - Google Scholar|url=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,32&q=irene+heim&btnG=|access-date=2021-11-04|website=scholar.google.com}}</ref> She was a professor at the [[University of Texas at Austin]] and [[UCLA]] before moving to the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] in 1989, where she is Professor Emerita of Linguistics. She served as Head of the Linguistics Section of the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy.

==Biography==
Heim's parents were German speakers born in [[Czechoslovakia]], who had emigrated to Germany after World War II. She attended school in [[Munich]], and studied at the [[University of Konstanz]] and the [[Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich]], graduating from the latter in 1978 with an MA in Linguistics and Philosophy and a minor in mathematics. Following this, she studied for a PhD at the [[University of Massachusetts Amherst]], completing her dissertation in 1982.

After short-term postdoctoral positions at [[Stanford University]], [[MIT]], the [[University of Texas at Austin]] (1983-1987), and [[UCLA]], she took up a faculty position at [[MIT]] in 1987, receiving tenure as an associate professor in 1993 and becoming promoted to full professor in 1997.<ref name="biographicalnotes">{{cite encyclopedia| editor1-last=Crnič |editor1-first=Luka|editor2-last=Sauerland|editor2-first=Uli|last1=Crnič |first1=Luka|last2=Pesetsky|first2=David|last3=Sauerland|first3=Uli|author2-link=David Pesetsky |encyclopedia=The Art and Craft of Semantics: A Festschrift for Irene Heim|url=https://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/jZiNmM4N/CrnicPesetskySauerland.pdf |title=Introduction|publisher=MIT|year=2014|isbn= 9781502857477|location=Cambridge, MA}}</ref>

==Research==
Heim's 1982 dissertation ''The semantics of definite and indefinite noun phrases<ref name="dissertation">{{cite book|author=Heim, Irene|title=The semantics of definite and indefinite noun phrases|publisher=Garland Pub|year=1988|isbn=0-8240-5188-2|location=New York}}</ref>'' <ref>{{Cite web|title=Alumni {{!}} UMass Linguistics|url=https://blogs.umass.edu/linguist/alumni/|access-date=2021-11-04|language=en-US}}</ref> is considered a classic text and a major milestone in [[formal semantics (linguistics)|formal semantics]]. In the second chapter of the work she argued (developing an insight by the philosopher [[David Kellogg Lewis|David Lewis]]) that [[Definiteness (Grammar)|indefinite]] [[noun phrase]]s like ''a cat'' in the [[Sentence (linguistics)|sentence]] ''If a cat is not in Athens, she is in Rhodes'' are not [[Quantifiers (linguistics)|quantifiers]] but free variables bound by an existential operator inserted in the sentence by a semantic operation that she dubbed [[existential closure]]. In the third chapter of the work she developed a compositional dynamic theory of [[Definiteness|(in)definites]]. This work, along with [[Hans Kamp]]'s roughly contemporaneous 'A Theory of Truth and Semantic Representation' (1981), became the founding work in the influential tradition of [[dynamic semantics]] and the first compositional dynamic fragment.

She is the co-author with [[Angelika Kratzer]] of ''Semantics in Generative Grammar'', an influential textbook of [[Formal semantics (linguistics)|formal semantics]],<ref name="semanticsText">{{cite book |author1=Kratzer, Angelika |author2=Heim, Irene |title=Semantics in generative grammar |publisher=Blackwell |location=Oxford |year=1998 |isbn=0-631-19713-3 }}</ref> and was a founding co-editor (also with Kratzer) of the journal ''[[Natural Language Semantics]]''.

==Awards==

In 2010 Irene Heim was awarded a Senior Fellowship of the Zukunftskolleg at the [[University of Konstanz]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.zukunftskolleg.uni-konstanz.de/people/personen-details/heim-irene-677/6338/13775/|title=Zukunftskolleg &#124; University of Konstanz}}</ref>

In 2012 she was inducted as a Fellow of the [[Linguistic Society of America]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=LSA Fellows By Name {{!}} Linguistic Society of America|url=https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/lsa-fellows-name|access-date=2021-11-04|website=www.linguisticsociety.org}}</ref>

In 2014 Heim was the recipient of a [[festschrift]], ''The Art and Craft of Semantics''.<ref>{{cite book |editor=Crnic, Luka |editor2=Pesetsky, David |editor3=Sauerland, Uli|title=The Art and Craft of Semantics: A Festschrift for Irene Heim|publisher=MIT|year=2014|isbn= 9781502857477|location=Cambridge, MA}}</ref>

In 2024 she was awarded the [[Rolf Schock Prize]] jointly with [[Hans Kamp]].<ref>[https://www.kva.se/en/news/science-art-and-music-meet-in-the-rolf-schock-prizes-2024/ Rolf Schock Prize 2024]</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* {{cite web |url=http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/faculty/heim/index.html |title=MIT Department of Linguistics: People: Faculty: Irene Heim |access-date=2009-06-02}} Heim's MIT faculty page

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Heim, Irene}}
[[Category:Linguists from the United States]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:University of Massachusetts Amherst College of Humanities and Fine Arts alumni]]
[[Category:University of Texas at Austin faculty]]
[[Category:University of California, Los Angeles faculty]]
[[Category:MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences faculty]]
[[Category:Semanticists]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Linguistic Society of America]]
[[Category:American women linguists]]
[[Category:1954 births]]