Angelika Kratzer

Kratzer is best known for her work on modality and conditionals in formal semantics, particularly the framework using modal bases and ordering sources to evaluate statements involving necessity and possibility. Her approach, developed in a series of papers from the early 1980s onward, became the standard treatment of modal expressions in semantic theory.

Kratzer is a professor emerita at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she spent most of her academic career. UMass Amherst has long been recognized as one of the world's leading centers for formal semantics, with faculty including Barbara Partee and Kai von Fintel.

In Kratzer's framework, the meaning of modal verbs like 'must' and 'might' is evaluated relative to two components: a modal base consisting of the relevant facts and an ordering source that ranks possible worlds by some standard such as laws, desires, or stereotypes. This allows a single modal to express different meanings—deontic, epistemic, or circumstantial—depending on context.

Kratzer's collected work on modals and conditionals was published by Oxford University Press as 'Modals and Conditionals: New and Revised Perspectives.' The volume compiles and refines decades of her influential papers into a comprehensive treatment of the topics.