I am a post-doc at the University of Tübingen, in a DFG-funded project on The Common Ground led by Michael Franke and Todd Snider. My research is in syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and their interfaces. Topics I am currently working on include intensionality and scope, relevance and discourse structure, and movement and ellipsis.

News: I recently filed my PhD thesis at the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT! You can access it here: [link]

Publications

Journal articles (peer-reviewed)

Benbaji-Elhadad, I. Accepted. Reconstruction, bare quantification, and the fourth reading. Semantics of Natural Languages. [link]
Benbaji-Elhadad, I. & O. Doron. Accepted with major revisions. The varieties of relevance: Over-informative answers and the case for keeping relevance strong. Journal of Semantics. [link]
Benbaji-Elhadad, I. 2026. A hitherto unnoticed sloppy reading of proper names. Snippets. [link]

Manuscripts

Benbaji-Elhadad, I. & D. Pesetsky. 2024. Ingredients of Ellipsis: E-extension and the Uniformity of Silence. Manuscript, MIT. [link]

Conference proceedings (abstract peer-reviewed)

Benbaji-Elhadad, I. & O. Doron. 2026. Saving FACE: Fragment answers, copy theory, and radical trace conversion. NELS56. [link]
Benbaji-Elhadad, I. 2026. A challenge to unified accounts of non-canonical belief reports. NELS56. [link]
Feldcamp, Z. & I. Benbaji-Elhadad. 2025. A well-formedness condition on alternative generation. WCCFL43. [link]
Benbaji-Elhadad, I. & J. Wehbe. 2024. On the semantics of unit fractions. SuB28:131-149. [link]
Benbaji-Elhadad, I. & O. Doron. 2024. How is presupposition accommodation constrained, again? Amsterdam Colloquium 24:22-28. [link]
Benbaji-Elhadad, I. 2023. Preliminaries for a substitution theory of de re. SALT33:358-378. [link]
Benbaji-Elhadad, I., O. Doron & A. Hénot-Mortier. 2023. Distinguishing levels of morphological derivation in word-embedding models. NELS53:63-76. [link]
Benbaji, I. & O. Doron. 2023. Adversative only is only only. SuB27:64-80. [link]
Benbaji, I. 2022. Focus particles in verb-echo answers: An argument for Argument Ellipsis. NELS52:67-80. [link]
Benbaji, I., O. Doron & A. Hénot-Mortier. 2022. Word-Embeddings Distinguish Denominal and Root-Derived Verbs in Semitic. Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science 366:35-49. [link]
Benbaji, I. 2021. Restricting the Fourth Reading. SALT31:221-240. [link]
Benbaji, I., O. Doron & R. Wang. 2021. A New Diagnostic for Antonym Decomposition. NELS51:51-64. [link]

Other publications

Benbaji-Elhadad, I. & O. Doron. 2026. Hey, wait a minute! If scalar implicatures are presupposed, why do they fail the “Hey, wait a minute!” test? In A Festschrift for Danny Fox, eds. Márta Abrusán, Luka Crnič, Colin Davis, Roni Katzir, Yasutada Sudo, Shoichi Takahashi, and Tue Trinh, 71-80. Cambridge, MA: MITWPL. [link]

Talks

Refereed by abstract

2025. Non-de dicto belief: Revision vs replacement. NELS56, NYU.
2025. Saving FACE: Fragment answers, copy theory, and radical trace conversion. NELS56, NYU. With Omri Doron.
2024. Worlds, times and the fate of Ontological Symmetry. SuB29, Consorzio Universitario Mediterraneo Orientale.
2024. Relevance as a dynamic constraint. WCCFL42, UC Berkeley. With Omri Doron.
2024. Specific-opaque readings and the temporal interpretation of noun phrases. WCCFL42, UC Berkeley.
2023. A partition-based semantics for unit fractions. SuB28, Ruhr University Bochum. With Jad Wehbe.
2023. Is nothing irreplaceable? Towards a substitution theory of de re. SALT33, Yale University.
2023. E-extension and the uniformity of silence. NELS53, University of Göttingen, Germany. With David Pesetsky.
2023. Distinguishing levels of morphological derivations in word-embedding models. NELS53, University of Göttingen, Germany. With Omri Doron and Adèle Hénot-Mortier.
2022. Proper names and the syntax-semantics of coercion. The 3rd Context, Cognition and Communication Conference, University of Warsaw.
2022. The logic of Hindi co-compounds. SuB27, Charles University, Prague. With Filipe Hisao Kobayashi and Yash Sinha.
2022. Adversative only is only only. SuB27, Charles University, Prague. With Omri Doron.
2021. A new argument against Verb-Stranding VP-ellipsis. NELS52, Rutgers University.
2021. Restricting the Fourth Reading. SALT31, Brown University.
2020. A New Diagnostic for Antonym Decomposition. NELS51, UQAM. With Omri Doron and Ruoan Wang.
2020. Hebrew Reduplication as a Diagnostic for Antonym Decomposition. SuB25, UCL & QMUL. With Omri Doron and Ruoan Wang.
2018. A Context Sensitive Semantics for Proper Names. Rencontres d’Automne de Linguistique Formelle, Universite Paris 8/CNRS.

Invited talks

2024. Missing temporariness implicatures and their consequence for the theory of alternatives. Institut Jean Nicod LINGUAE Seminar. Joint work with Zachary Feldcamp.
2024. Specific-opaque readings and the temporal interpretation of noun phrases. Tel Aviv University Department of Linguistics, Interdisciplinary Colloquium.
2023. Property-coerced names are not metaphors: the case for coercion operators for proper names. Northeastern University Linguistic Speaker Series.

Contact

Reach me at: ibenbaji at mit dot edu

CV

Open CV (PDF)