Please join us this week for a talk by Michael Franke (ILLC, Amsterdam) on adjectives:

Speaker: Michael Franke (ILLC, Amsterdam)
Title: Optimal use of gradable adjectives: the effect of scale structure & prior expectations
Date: Friday 2/28
Time: 11:30 am to 1:20 pm
Location: Wieboldt 408

Abstract:

Gradable adjectives are commonly classified into absolute and relative cases. Absolute adjectives more readily allow for crisp truth value judgements, are less context-dependent (if at all) and less prone to give rise to vagueness than relative ones. The goal of this talk is to explore a model that tries to explain this distinction in terms of optimal speaker behavior. The main building block of the theory proposed here is the notion of an (almost) optimal convention of use that depends crucially on prior expectations about how likely a given property is instantiated to a certain degree.

This Friday, we are eager to welcome Karen Lewis (Columbia University, Philosophy), who will be discussing some challenges for our assumptions about how ‘would’ and ‘might counterfactuals interact. Please join us!

Speaker: Karen Lewis (Columbia University, Philosophy)
Title: Elusive Counterfactuals
Date: Friday 2/21
Time: 11:30 am to 1:20 pm
Location: Wieboldt 408

This week, Rebekah Baglini is back at the workshop again to present some of her work on stativity and lexical semantics. We hope you’ll join us!

Speaker: Rebekah Baglini (Linguistics, PhD Candidate, University of Chicago)
Title: States, degrees, and the semantics of lexical categories
Date: Friday 1/31
Time: 11:30 am to 1:20 pm
Location: Wieboldt 408

Abstract:

Linguists and philosophers often mention states in characterizing the referential properties of certain lexical items. But different languages use different syntactic categories to encode these meanings, leading to systematic variation in the shape of stative constructions. English exemplifies the three primary strategies for expressing stative meaning attested cross-linguistically: non-dynamic verbs (1), adjectival predicates (2), and certain abstract mass nouns or roots (3).

(1) VERBAL: Sam hungers for pie.
(2) ADJECTIVAL: Sam is hungry.
(3) NOMINAL: Sam has hunger.

Surprisingly, the semantics literature does not relate the types of stative expressions in (1)-(3) model-theoretically. It is typically assumed that stative verbs denote properties of stative eventualities; that (gradable) adjectives denote (functions from degrees to) properties of individuals; and that abstract mass nouns denote properties of individuals or individual kinds. This heterogeneity in the formal treatment of stative expressions provides the central question of this talk: can stative meanings be captured model-theoretically as a natural class across syntactic categories? The empirical focus of my research is cross-linguistic variation in the morphosyntax of stative constructions which, I argue, provides important clues to identifying the structures which underlie stative meanings universally. I draw heavily on my ongoing fieldwork on the Senegambian language Wolof, a language which exemplifies two different strategies for constructing statives which express gradable property concepts (concepts like tall, expensive, and happy which are prototypically associated with adjectives): some Wolof property concepts are lexicalized as stative verbal predicates, while others are lexicalized as mass nouns. I show that comparing the semantic properties of these stative expressions across categories points us towards a unified definition of statives as a natural class of meanings, and provides insight into the relationship between states and degrees in the semantic ontology.

Speaker: Peter Klecha (Linguistics, PhD Candidate, University of Chicago)
Title: Temporal Orientation and Modality
Date: Friday 1/31
Time: 11:30 am to 1:20 pm
Location: Wieboldt 408

This Friday, please join us for Joshua Mendelsohn’s presentation on ancient logic, entitled ‘Term Kinds in Aristotelian Modal Logic.’

Speaker: Joshua Mendelsohn (PhD Student, Philosophy)
Title: Term Kinds in Aristotelian Modal Logic
Date: Friday 11/22
Time: 11:30 am to 1:20 pm
Location: Harper 148

‘I encourage people to look over the paper in advance but I will try to give a self-contained presentation on Friday. I am hoping that some linguists will be able to help me think about the modalities in the examples (1), (2) and (3) on page 12, and this approach to modality generally.’

This week it is our pleasure to welcome Donka Farkas for a special Tuesday meeting of the Linguistics and Philosophy workshop, who will be here from the University of California at Santa Cruz to give a talk entitled, ‘Assertions, Polar Questions, and the Land in Between.’

Speaker: Donka Farkas
Title: Assertions, Polar Questions, and the Land in Between
Time: 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Date: November 19, 2013
Location: Pick 22

The handout for the talk can be downloaded here.

Note the nonstandard date and time for this week.  The workshop will convene again at the normal place and time (Harper 148) starting on Friday 11/22.

This week, we are pleased to welcome Kjell Johan Sæbø (ILOS, University of Oslo), who will be presenting a paper entitled “Lessons from Descriptive Indexicals.”

Speaker: Kjell Johan  Sæbø
Title: Lessons From Descriptive Indexicals
Time: 11:30 am to 1:20 pm
Date: November 1, 2013
Location: Harper 148

A handout for the talk can be downloaded here.

This week we are delighted to host Michael Devitt (Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center), who will be giving a presentation on the semantics/pragmatics distinction entitled “What Makes a Property ‘Semantic’?”

Speaker: Michael Devitt
Title: What Makes a Property ‘Semantic’?
Time: 11:00 am to 1:00 pm
Date: October 18, 2013
Location: Landahl Center seminar room (campus map)

The paper can be downloaded here.
A handout for the talk can be downloaded here.

Note that this Friday, we will not be meeting at our standard time or location. Instead, we will be meeting a half hour earlier than usual, in the Landahl Center seminar room in the basement of the Social Sciences building. Next week, we will resume our regular meetings in Harper 148, from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm.

Please join us as we explore a Frege-inspired theory of names with Haim Gaifman, professor of Philosophy at Columbia University.

Speaker: Haim Gaifman
Title: Procedural Names and Descriptive Names
Time: 11:30 am to 1:20 pm
Date: October 11, 2013
Location: Harper 148 (campus map)

This week, we will be meeting at our usual time and location for the fall, 11:30-1:20 in Harper 148.