Thomas Grano
Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Linguistics, Indiana University
Ballantine Hall 513, Bloomington, IN 47405-7005
tgrano at iu dot edu
Broad research interests: semantics, syntax, syntax-semantics interface, crosslinguistic variation and universals, Chinese linguistics
Narrow research interests: syntax-semantics of complement clauses, propositional attitudes, mood and modality, gradability and comparison, Mandarin Chinese
Brief research bio: In a nutshell, I am interested in anything that has to do with how natural language form (syntax) encodes natural language meaning (semantics), and how that encoding can and cannot vary from one language to the next. These days, most of my research deals more specifically with the compositional semantics of propositional attitude reports (see my recent survey book Attitude Reports, pictured on the far right) and modality, sometimes with special attention to the role played by the finite-vs.-nonfinite status of embedded clauses and other cross-linguistically similar oppositions. Some of this work also intersects with questions about how and to what extent semantic factors play a role in driving some sentence acceptability patterns that would more traditionally be given syntactic accounts. Finally, I have a longstanding interest in the grammar of gradability and comparison, especially as seen through the lens of Mandarin Chinese.
Books
2021. Attitude Reports. Cambridge University Press, "Key Topics in Semantics and Pragmatics" series. [Link to publisher's page]
2015. Control and Restructuring. Oxford University Press. [Link to publisher's page] (See also Marcello Modesto's review in Language and Jinglian Li's review in Journal of Linguistics.)
2013. (With John R. Rickford, Julie Sweetland, and Angela E. Rickford.) African American, Creole, and Other Vernacular Englishes in Education: A Bibliographic Resource. National Council of Teachers of English-Routledge Research Series. [Link to publisher's page]
Journal articles
2025. Synchronizing meaning with sound and beyond: The role of physical markings in thematic, modal and informational interpretations. (With Yoshihisa Kitagawa.) Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 43:1665–1729. [https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-024-09647-z]
2025. Variable force modality in English infinitival relatives: A matter of degree. Linguistic Inquiry. [https://doi.org/10.1162/ling_a_00542]
2024. Intention reports and eventuality abstraction in a theory of mood choice. Linguistics and Philosophy 47:265–315. [https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-023-09397-y] [View-only version]
2024. Irrealis expressions and modality: A response to von Prince, Krajinović, and Krifka. (With Grayson Ziegler, Amanda Bohnert, Emily Hanink, Kelly H. Berkson, Shobhana Chelliah, and Sui Hnem Par.) Language 100(2):e84–e93. [https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/lan.2024.a929755]
2022. (Counter)factual want ascriptions and conditional belief. (With Milo Phillips-Brown.) The Journal of Philosophy 119(12):641–672. [https://doi.org/10.5840/jphil20221191241]
2022. Enough clauses, (non)finiteness, and modality. Natural Language Semantics. [https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-022-09190-w] [View-only version]
2018. How to neutralize a finite clause boundary: Phase theory and the grammar of bound pronouns. (With Howard Lasnik.) Linguistic Inquiry 49(3):465–499. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/ling_a_00279
2018. Universal markedness in gradable adjectives revisited: The morpho-semantics of the positive form in Arabic. (With Stuart Davis.) Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 36(1):131–147. doi: 10.1007/s11049-017-9365-0 [Free access link (read only)] [Prepublication version]
2017. Control, temporal orientation, and the cross-linguistic grammar of trying. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 2(1):94.1-21, doi: https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.335
2017. What partial control might not tell us about agreement: A reply to Landau. Syntax 20:400-413. doi: 10.1111/synt.12144. [August 2016 draft]
2017. Finiteness contrasts without Tense? A view from Mandarin Chinese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 26:259-299. [Free access link (read only)] [Prepublication version] [Handout for a related talk]
2017. The logic of intention reports. Journal of Semantics 34:587-632. doi: 10.1093/jos/ffx010 [Free access link] [Prepublication version] [Handout for a related talk]
2012. Mandarin Transitive Comparatives and the Grammar of Measurement. (With Chris Kennedy.) Journal of East Asian Linguistics 21:219-266. [Springer link] [Prepublication version]
2011. Mandarin hen and Universal Markedness in Gradable Adjectives. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 30:513-565. [Springer link] [Prepublication version]
2011. Scale structure, coercion, and the interpretation of measure phrases in Japanese. (With Osamu Sawada.) Natural Language Semantics 19:191-226. [Springer link] [Prepublication version]
Contributions to edited volumes
2025. Morphosyntax-semantics mapping in the grammar of property concepts: The view from English, Mandarin, and beyond. (With Yiwen Zhang.) In A. Vyshnevska and E. Cavirani (eds.), Generative perspectives on degrees: The semantics and morphosyntax of scalarity (De Gruyter Studies in Generative Grammar), pp. 199–236. doi: 10.1515/9783111547688-009.
2024. The grammar of reciprocality and collectivity in Arabic and Mandarin. (With Basem Al-Raba'a.) In J. Ting and Y.-Y. Hsu (eds.), Linguistic interfaces in East-Asian Languages: A festschrift in honor of Yoshihisa Kitagawa, pp. 35–59. Springer. doi: 10.1007/978- 981-19-4445-1 3.
2017. Restructuring at the syntax-semantics interface. In Infinitives at the syntax-semantics interface: A diachronic perspective (Lukasz Jedrzejowski and Ulrike Demske, eds.) Mouton de Gruyter Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs series. [Prepublication version] [Link to publisher's page]
Conference proceedings papers
A unified analysis of rational clauses. Paper presented at NELS 53, University of Göttingen, January 2022. [Handout] [Proceedings submission]
2022. To the best of our knowledge: Factivity alternation in Korean. (With Jisu Park.) In Bakay, Ö., B. Pratley, E. Neu, and P. Deal (eds.) NELS 52: Proceedings of the Fifty-Second Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society: Volume 1, 307–316. [Proceedings submission]
2019. Getting aspectual -guo under control in Mandarin Chinese: An experimental investigation. (With Yiwen Zhang.) Paper presented at North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics 30, Columbus, OH, March 2018. [Handout] [Proceedings submission]
2019. Getting the progressive under control: Mandarin vs. English. Paper presented at North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics 30, Columbus, OH, March 2018. [Handout] [Proceedings submission]
2019. Belief, intention, and the grammar of persuasion. Paper presented at Chicago Linguistic Society 54, April 2018. [Handout] [Proceedings submission]
2019. Choice functions in intensional contexts: Rehabilitating Bäuerle's challenge to the scope theory of intensionality. Poster presented at West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics 36, UCLA, April 2018. [Poster] [Proceedings link]
2018. Control, logophoricity, and harmonic modality in Gengbe desire reports. (With Samson Lotven.) Paper presented at Sinn und Bedeutung 21 in Edinburgh, September 2016. [Handout] [Proceedings link]
2015. Semantic consequences of syntactic subject licensing: Aspectual predicates and concealed modality. Paper presented at Sinn und Bedeutung 20 in Tübingen, September 2015. [Handout] [Proceedings submission]
2015. A coercion-free semantics for intention reports. Paper presented at 51st Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. [Handout] [Proceedings submission]
2015. Getting your to-do list under control: Imperative semantics and the grammar of intending. In Bui, T. and D. Özyildiz (eds.) Proceedings of the forty-fifth annual meeting of the North East Linguistic Society vol. 1, 241–252. [Proceedings submission]
2014. An experimental investigation of partial control. (With Aaron Steven White.) In Etxeberria, U., A. Falaus and B. Leferman (eds.) Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 18:469-486. [Semantics Archives pdf link] [Link for accessing materials, raw data and analysis files]
2011. Mental action and event structure in the semantics of try. In Ashton, N., A. Chereches and D. Lutz (eds.) Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) 21:426-443. [eLanguage link]
PhD dissertation and BA thesis
2012. Control and restructuring at the syntax-semantics interface. PhD dissertation, University of Chicago. [pdf]
2006. "Me and her" meets "he and I": Case, person, and linear ordering in English coordinated pronouns. B.A. honors thesis, Stanford University. [pdf]
Book reviews
2021. Book Review (Gennaro Chierchia's Logic in Grammar: Polarity, Free Choice, and Intervention, 2013, Oxford University Press). Journal of Logic, Language and Information 30(3):633–656. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10849-021-09333-y [View-only version] [Prepublication version]
Miscellaneous handouts, posters, conference abstracts, and unpublished manuscripts
2021. With Chan Lu. Mandarin xiang and the architecture of attitude reports. Virtual poster presented at LSA 2021. [Slides]
2016. Two sources of grammatical deviance in non-controlled nonfinite subjects. Paper presented at NonFinite Subjects Conference in Nantes, France, April 2016. [Handout]
2016. Severing the external argument from the aspectual verb. (With Brandon Rhodes.) Poster presented at LSA Annual Meeting, January 2016. [Poster]
2015. Control without finiteness contrasts: Aspect and complement size in Mandarin Chinese. ms., Indiana University. [pdf] [Handout for a related talk]
2012. Wanting (to have) null verbs: A view from Mandarin and beyond. Paper presented at LSA Annual Meeting, January 2012. [Abstract] [Handout]
2011. Exhaustive control is not control: Cinque's IP and the raising/control divide. Paper presented at Colloque de Syntaxe et Sémantique à Paris, September 2011. [Abstract]
2011. Aspect under (and out of) control in Mandarin Chinese. LSA Annual Meeting Extended Abstract. [eLanguage link]