Everything about Syntax–semantics interface

🧭 Start here: a 6-step reading path

1. Read the overview: Syntax–semantics interfaceA 5-minute orientation
2. Skim a recent paper: Wh-in-situ in child French: Deictic triggers at the syntax-semantics interfaceInfluential work since 2022
3. Pick up a classic book: Interfaces of Chinese Syntax with Semantics and PragmaticsThe most-reprinted book on the subject
4. Read the landmark paper: Exclamative clauses: At the syntax-semantics interfaceCited 220 times
5. Go sideways: Autonomy of syntaxA closely related topic
6. Go sideways: Malka Rappaport HovavA closely related topic

🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)

• Exclamative clauses: At the syntax-semantics interface

  Raffaella Zanuttini, Paul Portner · 2003 · Language · 220 citations

• The Speaker-Addressee Relation at the Syntax-Semantics Interface

  Paul Portner, Miok Pak, Raffaella Zanuttini · 2019 · Language · 72 citations

• The middle construction and the syntax-semantics interface

  Peter Ackema, Maaike Schoorlemmer · 1994 · Lingua · 55 citations

• The syntax–semantics interface in animal vocal communication

  Toshitaka N. Suzuki, David Wheatcroft, Michael Griesser · 2019 · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · 46 citations

• Acquiring phenomena at the syntax/semantics interface in L2 Spanish

  Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes, Theodoros Marinis · 2007 · EUROSLA Yearbook · 44 citations

• On Subject Specificity and Theory of Syntax-Semantics Interface

  Wei-Tien Dylan Tsai · 2001 · Journal of East Asian Linguistics · 43 citations

• Relative embeddings: a Circassian puzzle for the syntax/semantics interface

  Ivano Caponigro, Maria Polinsky · 2011 · Natural Language & Linguistic Theory · 32 citations

• ɸ-Features at the Syntax-Semantics Interface: Evidence from Nominal Inflection

  Ivona Kučerová · 2018 · Linguistic Inquiry · 30 citations

🆕 Influential since 2022

• Wh-in-situ in child French: Deictic triggers at the syntax-semantics interface

  Katerina Palasis, Richard Faure, Fanny Meunier · 2023 · Journal of French Language Studies · 5 citations

• Cross-linguistic insights in the theory of semantics and its interface with syntax

  Anna Szabolcsi · 2024 · Theoretical Linguistics · 2 citations

• Revisiting the Syntax–Semantics Interface: Theoretical, Empirical, and Computational Insights

  Ana Mae M. Monteza, Sam Hermansyah · 2025 · Lingua : Journal of Linguistics and Language · 1 citations

• Adaptation at the Syntax–Semantics Interface: Evidence From a Vernacular Structure

  Frances Blanchette, Erin Flannery, Carrie Jackson · 2023 · Language and Speech · 1 citations

• Syntax Semantics Interface and Translation

  Hamed Shoay Saleh Al-Mogarry · 2022 · Albaydha University Journal · 0 citations

📚 Books worth reading

• Interfaces of Chinese Syntax with Semantics and PragmaticsYicheng Wu · 2017
• Infinitives at the Syntax-Semantics InterfaceLukasz Jedrzejowski, Ulrike Demske · 2017
• Aspectual roles and the syntax-semantics interfaceCarol Tenny · 1994
• 📕Manner Modification at the Syntax-Semantics InterfaceSascha Alexeyenko · 2022
• 📕Non-Verbal PredicationIsabelle Roy · 2013
• 📕Compositional SemanticsPauline Jacobson · 2014
• Interfaces + recursion = language?Uli Sauerland · 2007
• Language change at the syntax-semantics interfaceChiara Gianollo, Agnes Jäger · 2015

Ranked by number of editions on Open Library, a rough measure of how lasting a book is.

🔗 Related topics

• Autonomy of syntax In linguistics, the autonomy of syntax is the assumption that syntax is arbitrary and self-contained with respect to meaning: semantics, pragmatics, discourse…
• Malka Rappaport Hovav Malka Rappaport Hovav (Hebrew: מלכה רפופורט חובב) is a linguist and professor in the Department of Linguistics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI)…
• Thematic relation In certain theories of linguistics, thematic relations, also known as semantic roles or thematic roles, are the various roles that a noun phrase may play…
• Beth Levin (linguist) Beth Levin (/ləˈviːn/ lə-VEEN; born 1955) is an American linguist who is currently the William H. Bonsall Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University…
• Glue semantics Glue semantics, or simply Glue (Dalrymple et al. 1993; Dalrymple 1999, 2001), is a linguistic theory of semantic composition and the syntax–semantics interface…
• Theta role Theta roles are the names of the participant roles associated with a predicate: the predicate may be a verb, an adjective, a preposition, or a noun. If…
• Lexical semantics Lexical semantics (also known as lexicosemantics), as a subfield of linguistic semantics, is the study of word meanings. It includes the study of how words…
• Robert Van Valin Jr. Robert D. Van Valin Jr. (born February 1, 1952) is an American linguist and the principal researcher behind the development of Role and Reference Grammar…