Deontic Logic and Natural Language Semantics.
Kai von Fintel
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In this talk, I will first give an overview of the connections and differences between the concerns of deontic logic and those of natural language semantics, touching on issues like the context- dependency of deontic modal constructions, the systematic cross- linguistic relationship between strong deontic necessity modals ('must', 'have to') and weak deontic necessity modals ('ought', 'should'), the distinction between personal deontic modality and propositional deontic modality, and others. The second part looks in more detail at one central problem: the interaction of 'if'-clauses and deontic modals.