海角社区

Monday, September 21,听2015听2:30 -4:00 pm

Dan Goodhue on Tue Trinh's paper on biased yes/no questions

Tue Trinh鈥檚 paper 鈥� (2014).

Friday, September 25,听2015听2:30 -4:00 pm

Dan Goodhue on Tue Trinh's paper on biased yes/no questions (Part II)

Friday, October 2

Schwarz and Simonenko: "We explicate and compare two semantic-pragmatic approaches to so-called factive island effects: the contradiction analysis (Abrus麓an 2011, 2014), which excludes factive island questions by virtue of assigning them contradictory presuppositions; and the triviality account (Oshima 2007; Simonenko, in press), under which factive island cases are bad by virtue of lacking informative semantic answers relative to any context where they are otherwise felicitous. We present new evidence to argue that the triviality account is superior to the contradiction account."

Friday, October 9

Henrison Hsieh on copular sentences.

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Friday, November 21,听2014 3:00 -4:30 pm

Hadas Kotek, "Q-particles and the semantics of wh-questions" PART II

Abstract:"In this talk I present the theory of question semantics proposed in my dissertation. The theory builds on Cable's (2007; 2010) syntax of pied-piping, where interrogative movement is driven by Q- particles (silent in English, but visible in e.g. Tlingit), but develops a new semantics for this system. I show that this new semantics is able to听 model a range of data not captured at the same time in previous theories, including intricate patterns of pied-piping, superiority effects, the presuppositions of questions, the readings of multiple questions, and focus intervention effects in multiple questions. Time permitting, I will also discuss some possible modifications and expansions of the theory that I have been contemplating recently.

Friday, November 7,听2014 3:00 -4:30 pm

Hadas Kotek, "Q-particles and the semantics of wh-questions"

Abstract:"In this talk I present the theory of question semantics proposed in my dissertation. The theory builds on Cable's (2007; 2010) syntax of pied-piping, where interrogative movement is driven by Q- particles (silent in English, but visible in e.g. Tlingit), but develops a new semantics for this system. I show that this new semantics is able to听 model a range of data not captured at the same time in previous theories, including intricate patterns of pied-piping, superiority effects, the presuppositions of questions, the readings of multiple questions, and focus intervention effects in multiple questions. Time permitting, I will also discuss some possible modifications and expansions of the theory that I have been contemplating recently.

Friday, October 10,听2014 3:00 -4:30 pm

David Nicolas, "Plural logic and sensitivity to order" (joint work with Salvatore Florio KSU)

"Sentences that exhibit sensitivity to order (e.g. John and Mary arrived at school in that order and Mary and John arrived at school in that order) present a challenge for the standard formulation of plural logic. In response, some authors have advocated new versions of plural logic based on more fine-grained notions of plural reference, such as serial reference (Hewitt 2012) and articulated reference (Ben-Yami 2013). The aim of this article is to show that sensitivity to order should be accounted for without altering the standard formulation of plural logic. In particular, sensitivity to order does not call for a more fine-grained notion of plural reference. We point out that the phenomenon in question is quite broad and that current proposals are not equipped to deal with the full range of cases in which order plays a role. Then we develop an alternative, unified account, which locates the phenomenon not in the way in which plural terms can refer, but in the meaning of special expressions such as in that order and respectively."

Friday, August 22, 2014

3:00 -4:30 pm

Alanah McKillen, "Anaphora and Focus."

Friday, July 30, 2014

3:00 -4:30 pm

Alex Drummong, "Condition B and Dahl's paradigm".

Shimoyama, Drummond, Schwarz and Wagner,听"Dislocation, fragments, and ellipsis"
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Brian Buccola on Al-Khathib (2013) 'Only' and Association with Negative Antonyms. Ph. Diss. MIT听(Part I)

Brian Buccola on Al-Khathib (2013) 'Only' and Association with Negative听Antonyms. Ph. Diss. MIT听(Part II)

Elizabeth Coppock and Thomas Brochhagen,, Semantics and Pragmatics, 6-3, pp. 1-57

Krifka, Manfred. (2013) SALT 23.

Liberman, M., and Sag, I. (1974). Prosodic form and discourse function. Proceedings of Chicago Linguistics Society (CLS), 10,

Bhatt, Rajesh and Shoichi Takahashi. (2011) . NLLT 29:581-620.

2:30-3:45 Mats Rooth (Cornell University): TBA (on focus)

3.45pm Refreshments

4.00-5.15pm Dorit Abusch (Cornell University): Anaphoric relations in sequential and conflated pictures听

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Penka, D. (2006) Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung.听

Chierchia, G., Fox, D. & Spector, B. (2011) In听Semantics : an international handbook of natural language meaning.听

Friday, November 1, 2013

NOTICE:
11:30-1:00
Leacock 738

In this presentation we develop an argument that head movement may have semantic effects and that it can hence not be a PF phenomenon.The argument is based on novel facts regarding scope in infinitival complementation structures in German. We show that every elementinside the infinitival clause must take scope over the matrix verb ifthe embedded clause is a VP that remains in situ. If, by contrast, theembedded clause is either a vP or a VP that undergoes movement, no such wide scope is possible. We propose that wide scope of embedded elements is the result of syntactic verb cluster formation: The infinitival verb incorporates into the higher verb. To obtain theobserved scope facts, we suggest that the verb cluster is semantically interpreted via Function Composition. Supplemented with standard assumptions about the interpretation of movement, this account derivesthe wide scope of material inside the embedded clause.

Friday, November 8, 2013
3:00-4:30 pm

Room 117

Bianchi, Valentina. 2010. .听
Barker, Chris. 2012. .听Linguistic Inquiry听43: 614-633.
Elbourne, Paul. 2005. Situations and individuals, MIT Press.听
Schlenker, Philippe. 2005. . Natural Language Semantics 13:1-92.听

Cancelled

Friday, December 6, 2013听3:00-4:30 pm

Friday, December 6, 2013 2:30-4:30 pm