Formal Semantics: The Essential Readings is a collection of seminal papers that have shaped the field of formal semantics in linguistics.

Contents Introduction: Paul Portner and Barbara Partee. 1. The Proper Treatment of uantification in Ordinary English: Richard Montague. 2. A Unified Analysis of the English Bare Plural: Greg Carlson. 3. Generalized uantifiers and Natural Language: Jon Barwise and Robin Cooper. 4. The Logical Analysis of Plurals and Mass Terms: Godehard Link. 5. Assertion: Robert C. Stalnaker. 6. Scorekeeping in a Language Game: David Lewis. 7. Adverbs of uantification: David Lewis. 8. A Theory of Truth and Semantic Representation: Hans Kamp. 9. File Change Semantics and the Familiarity Theory of Definiteness: Irene Heim. 10. On the Projection Problem for Presuppositions: Irene Heim. 11. Toward a Semantic Analysis of Verb Aspect and the English 'Imperfective' Progressive: David R. Dowty. 12. The National Category of Modality: Angelika Kratzer. 13. The Algebra of Events: Emmon Bach. 14. Generalized Conjunction and Type Ambiguity: Barbara Partee and Mats Rooth. 15. Noun Phrase Interpretation and Type Shifting Principles: Barbara H. Partee. 16. Syntax and Semantics of uestions: Lauri Karttunen. 17. Type-Shifting Rules and the Semantics of Interrogatives: Jeroen Groenendijk and Martin Stokhof. 18. On the Notion Affective in the Analysis of Negative-Polarity Items: William A. Ladusaw.