Papers

Ivano Caponigro. 2026. The propositional nature of non-interrogative wh-clauses and their wh-words. Manuscript. (APPENDIX: Extending the proposal to further non-interrogative wh-clauses)

Gioia Cacchioli & Ivano Caponigro. 2026. Varieties of headless relative clauses in Tigrinya. Manuscript.

Ivano Caponigro. 2026. Richard Montague’s turn towards natural language. Philosophies 11(2), 25. DOI
(This article belongs to the special issue: The Logical Linguistic Legacy of Montague Grammar)

Ivano Caponigro. 2023. Referring and quantifying without nominals: Headless Relative Clauses across languages. In Juhyae Kim, Burak Öney, Yao Zhang, and Fengyue (Lisa) Zhao (eds), Proceedings of the 33rd Semantics and Linguistic Theory Conference (SALT 33), 744-774.

Ivano Caponigro & Anamaria Fălăuş. 2023. Investigating clausal wh-constructions in Romanian. In Roberta Pires de Oliveira and Cilene Rodrigues (eds), Romance languages: recent contributions to linguistic theory. Special issue of Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics 9(4)/2: 1-32. DOI

Ivano Caponigro. 2023. Still free to have a wh-phrase: a reply to Donati, Foppolo, Konrad, and Cecchetto (2022). (A slightly different version appeared in Linguistic Inquiry. 56 (2): 374–400. 2025. DOI)

Ivano Caponigro & Anamaria Fălăuş. 2023. ‘What’ clauses can and ‘which’ cannot: a Romanian puzzle.
(A slightly different version appeared in Language 99(3): e176-e190. 2023. DOI)

Ivano Caponigro & Anamaria Fălăuş. 2023. ‘Why’ without asking, in Romanian.
(A slightly different version appeared in Łukasz Jędrzejowski and Carla Umbach (eds), Non-interrogative subordinate wh-clauses, 410-437. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2023. DOI)

Ivano Caponigro & Anamaria Fălăuş. 2022. The semantics of Rudin constructions in Romanian. In Marco Degano, Tom Roberts, Giorgio Sbardolini, & Marieke Schouwstra (eds),Proceedings of the 23rd Amsterdam Colloquium 2022 (AC2022), 55-61.

Seoyeon Jang & Ivano Caponigro. 2022. A semantic analysis of Korean Echo Questions. In Kaoru Horie, Kimi Akita, Yusuke Kubota, David Y. Oshima, and Akira Utsugi (eds), Proceedings of the 29th Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference (JK29), 165-179. Stanford: CSLI Publications.

Ivano Caponigro. 2022. Headless relative clauses and the syntax-semantics mapping: evidence from Mesoamerica.
(A slightly different version appeared in Seung Suk Lee & Yixiao Song (eds), SULA 11: Proceedings of the 11th Semantics of Under-represented Languages in the Americas, 27-42. GLSA, Linguistics Department, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 2022)

Ivano Caponigro. 2021. Richard Montague. The birth of a new passion: natural language. 1966. (Preliminary draft of a chapter of the biography of Richard Montague; feedback is welcome)

Iara Mantenuto & Ivano Caponigro. 2021. Free relative clauses in Teramano. Quaderni di lavoro ASIt/ASIt Working Papers 23: 31-62.

Peter Arkadiev & Ivano Caponigro. 2021. Conveying content questions without wh-words: evidence from Abaza. In Patrick Grosz, Luisa Martí, Hazel Pearson, Yasutada Sudo, and Sarah Zobel (eds), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 25, 73-94. DOI

Ivano Caponigro, Harold Torrence, and Roberto Zavala Maldonado (eds). 2021. Headless Relative Clauses in Mesoamerican languages. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI
[Front Matter] [Book website] [Project website]

Ivano Caponigro. 2020. Introducing Headless Relative Clauses and the findings from Mesoamerican languages.
(A slightly different version appeared in Ivano Caponigro, Harold Torrence, and Roberto Zavala Maldonado (eds),Headless Relative Clauses in Mesoamerican languages, 1-57. New York: Oxford University Press. 2021. DOI)

Iara Mantenuto & Ivano Caponigro. 2020. Light-headed relative clauses in Teramano.
(A slightly different version appeared in Studies in Language 45(4): 921–937. 2021. DOI)

Ivano Caponigro & Anamaria Fălăuş. 2020. Unveiling Multiple wh- Free Relative Clauses and their functional wh-words. Semantics and Pragmatics 13(2). DOI

Ivano Caponigro. 2019. In defense of what(ever) free relative clauses they dismiss: A reply to Donati and Cecchetto (2011).
(A slightly different version appeared in Linguistic Inquiry 50(2): 356-371. 2019. DOI).

Ivano Caponigro & Anamaria Fălăuş. 2018. The functional nature of multiple wh- free relative clauses. Proceedings of SALT 28, pp. 566-583. DOI
(The work in this paper has been expanded and substantially developped in Ivano Caponigro & Anamaria Fălăuş. 2020. Unveiling Multiple wh- Free Relative Clauses and their functional wh words. Semantics and Pragmatics 13. DOI)

Ivano Caponigro & Anamaria Fălăuş. 2018. Free Choice Free Relative Clauses in Italian and Romanian.
(A slightly different version appeared in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 36(2): 323-363. 2018.DOI).

Gary Patterson & Ivano Caponigro. 2016. The puzzling degraded status of who free relative clauses in English.
(A slightly different version appeared in English Language and Linguistics 20(2): 341-352. 2016. DOI)

Jon Sprouse, Ivano Caponigro, Ciro Greco, & Carlo Cecchetto. 2016. Experimental syntax and the cross-linguistic variation of island effects in English and Italian.
(A slightly different version appeared in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 34(1): 307-344. 2016. DOI; Erratum: pp. 345-349, DOI).

Kathryn Davidson & Ivano Caponigro. 2016. Embedding polar interrogative clauses in American Sign Language.
(A slightly different version appeared in Annika Herrmann, Roland Pfau, Markus Steinbach (eds), Complex A Matter of Complexity: Subordination in Sign Languages, 151-181. Berlin: De Gruyter. 2016.)

Carson T. Schütze, Jon Sprouse, Ivano Caponigro. 2015. Challenges for a theory of islands. A broader perspective on Ambridge, Pine, and Lieven.
(A slightly different version appeared in Language 91(2): e31-e39. 2015; DOI).

Ivano Caponigro, Harold Torrence, Carlos Cisneros. 2013. Free relative clauses in two Mixtec languages.
(A slightly different version appeared in International Journal of American Linguistics 79(1): 41-96. 2013. DOI)

Ivano Caponigro, Lisa Pearl, Neon Brooks, David Barner. 2012. Acquiring the meaning of free relative clauses and plural definite descriptions. Journal of Semantics 29(2): 262-293. DOI

Ivano Caponigro & Kathryn Davidson. 2011. Ask, and tell as well: Question-Answer Clauses in American Sign Language. Natural Language Semantics. 19(4): 323-371. DOI

Ivano Caponigro & Maria Polinsky. 2011. Relative embeddings: A Circassian puzzle for the syntax/semantics interface.Natural Language and Linguistic Theory. 29(1): 71-122. DOI

Ivano Caponigro & Jonathan Cohen. 2011. On collection and covert variables.
(A slightly different version appeared in Analysis 71(3): 478-488. 2011. DOI)

Simone Gieselman, Robert Kluender, Ivano Caponigro. 2011. Pragmatic processing factors in negative island contexts. In Dina Bailey & Victoria Teliga (eds),Proceedings of the 39th Western Conference On Linguistics (WECOL 2010), 65-76. Fresno, CA: California State University, Linguistics Department.

Simone Gieselman, Robert Kluender, Ivano Caponigro. 2010. Isolating processing factors in negative island contexts.
(A slightly different version appeared in Yelena Fainleib, Nicholas LaCara, Yangsook Park (eds), Proceedings of the 41th Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society (NELS 41) – 2010, 233-246. Amherst, MA: Graduate Linguistic Student Association (GLSA). 2013.)

David Hall & Ivano Caponigro. 2010. On the semantics of temporal when-clauses. In Nan Li, David Lutz (eds), Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) 20, 544-563. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.

Simone Gieselman & Ivano Caponigro. 2009. Two sides of the same pragmatic move: The German discourse particles etwa and nicht.
(A slightly different version appeared in Seda Kan, Claire Moore-Cantwell, Robert Staubs (eds), Proceedings of the 40th Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society (NELS 40) – 2009, 231-244. Amherst, MA: Graduate Linguistic Student Association (GLSA). 2013.)

Ivano Caponigro & Lisa Pearl. 2009. The nominal nature of where, when, and how: Evidence from free relatives.
(A slightly different version appeared in Linguistic Inquiry 40(1): 155-164. 2009. DOI)

Ivano Caponigro & Lisa Pearl. 2008. Silent prepositions: Evidence from free relatives.
(A slightly different version appeared in Anna Asbury, Jakub Dotlacil, Berit Gehrke, and Rick Nouwen (eds), The Syntax and Semantics of Spatial P, 365-385. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2008.)

Ivano Caponigro & Jon Sprouse. 2007. Rhetorical questions as questions. In Estela Puig Waldmüller (ed.), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 11, 121-133. Barcelona: Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Ivano Caponigro & Daphna Heller. 2007. The non-concealed nature of free relatives: Implications for connectivity in specificational sentences.
(A slightly different version appeared in Chris Barker and Pauline Jacobson (eds), Direct Compositionality, 237-263. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2007.)

vano Caponigro. 2004. The semantic contribution of wh-words and type shifts: Evidence from free relatives crosslinguistically.
(A slightly different version with a few typos in the references appeared in Robert B. Young (ed.), Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) XIV, 38-55. Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications, Cornell University, 2004.)

Ivano Caponigro & Carson T. Schütze. 2003. Parameterizing passive participle movement.
(A slightly different version appeared in Linguistic Inquiry 34(2): 293-308, 2003.)

Ivano Caponigro. 2003. Free Not to Ask: On the Semantics of Free Relatives and Wh-Words Cross-linguistically, Ph.D. dissertation. University of California, Los Angeles.

Ivano Caponigro. Unbalanced coordination in Maasai. 2003. In Jason Kandybowicz (ed.), Papers in African Linguistics 3, UCLA Working Papers in Linguistics 9, 1-16. Los Angeles, CA: Department of Linguistics, UCLA.

Ivano Caponigro. 2002. On the source of maximality in wh-constructions crosslinguistically.
(A slightly different version appeared in Mary Andronis, Erin Debenport, Anne Pycha & Keiko Yoshimura (eds), Proceedings of the 38th Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society (CLS 38), 129-143. Chicago, IL: Chicago Linguistics Society. 2002. )

Ivano Caponigro. 2002. Free relatives as DPs with a silent D and a CP complement.
(A slightly different version appeared in Vida Samiian (ed.), Proceedings of the Western Conference on Linguistics 2000 (WECOL 2000), 140-150. Fresno, CA: California State University, 2002.)

Ivano Caponigro. 2001. On the semantics of indefinite free relatives.
(A slightly different version appeared in Marjo van Koppen, Joanna Sio, and Mark de Vos (eds),Proceedings of the 10th Meeting of the Student Organization of Linguistics in Europe (ConSOLE X), 49-62. Leiden: SOLE, 2001.)

Ivano Caponigro. 2000. Is essere not to be? Evidence from acquisition. (A slightly different version appeared in Jill Gilkerson, Misha Becker, Nina Hyams (eds), Language Development and Breakdown, UCLA Working Papers in Linguistics 5, 40-55. Los Angeles, CA: Department of Linguistics, UCLA, 2000.)

Last update: 03/31/2026