Language and its Structure III: Semantics and Pragmatics

Readings

Many of the readings are from the text book: Portner, Paul H. What is Meaning? Fundamentals of Formal Semantics. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005. ISBN: 1405109181. (Paperback)

SES #	TOPICS	READINGS
L1	Overview Meaning Grice on Non-natural Meaning	Required Reading Portner, Ch. 1 Optional Reading The following reading is optional for undergraduates in 24.903 and required for graduate students in 24.933: Grice, H. P. “Meaning.” The Philosophical Review 66, no. 3 (1957): 377-388.
L2	Concepts of Meaning Circularity/Holism Truth-Conditions
L3	More on Truth-Conditions Meta-language vs. Object Language Semantic Properties of Sentences Some Obvious Shortcomings of Truth-Conditional Semantics (Slang, Honorifics)
L4	Truth-Conditions Propositional Logic Truth-Tables The Connectives	Required Reading Partee, Barbara H., Alice ter Meulen, and Robert E. Wall. “Statement Logic.” In Mathematical Methods on Linguistics. Boston, MA: Kluwer, 1987, chapter 6, sections 6.1-6.4, pp. 97-112. ISBN: 9027722447. Optional Reading Partee, Barbara H., Alice ter Meulen, and Robert E. Wall. “Basic Concepts of Logic and Formal Systems.” In Mathematical Methods on Linguistics. Boston, MA: Kluwer, 1987, chapter 5, sections 6.5 and 6.6. ISBN: 9027722447.
L5	Tautologies, Contradictions De Morgan’s Laws The Material Conditional
L6	The Material Conditional (cont.), as an analysis of “if” Initial Plausibility “Paradoxes” Pragmatic Inferences
L7	Pragmatic Inferences (cont.) Sentence (Truth-Conditional) Meaning vs. Speaker Meaning “I’m not hungry” Grice’s Maxims of Conversation Quantity Implicatures Pragmatic Strengthening of “possible” (from Portner’s Book)	Required Reading Portner, Ch. 11
L8	Gricean Quantity Implicatures (cont.) Reasons to prefer a Pragmatic Approach over an Ambiguity Approach
L9	Gricean Quantity Implicatures (cont.) Applied to Strengthening of “some” and “or” (Truth-Conditionally: Inclusive, Pragmatically Strengthened to Exclusive)
R1	Review Session 1
L10	Gricean Story about “or” again	Required Reading A refrigerator summary of Grice’s maxims (PDF), and a sample derivation of a quantity implicature (PDF), meant to replace the calculation on pp. 201-202 of Portner’s book.
L11	Supplementing Material Conditional Truth-Conditions for “if” with Pragmatic Inferences
L12	Problems for the analysis of “if” as Material Conditional + Pragmatic Implicatures New Topic: Compositionality Analyzing “Sheila barks”	Required Reading Portner, Ch. 2
L13	Proper names have as their semantic value individuals Predicates have as their semantic value sets of individuals, or functions from individuals to truth-values Brief Discussion of Vagueness	Required Reading Read the article on disjunction by R. E. Jennings in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Read especially carefully the section on “The Myth of Vel and Aut.”
L14	Transitive Predicates (Functions from Individuals to Functions from Individuals to Truth-Values) Function Application as the Main Semantic Composition Principle	Required Reading Portner, Ch. 3 Optional Reading Partee, Barbara H., Alice ter Meulen, and Robert E. Wall. Mathematical Methods on Linguistics. Boston, MA: Kluwer, 1987, chapters 1 and 2 (Sets, Relations, Functions). ISBN: 9027722447.
L15	The Lambda-notation for Specifying Functions Order of Arguments First Introduction to Relative Clauses
L16	Review of Semantic System Different kinds of Transitivity Alternations, Implicit Arguments Informal Discussion of Relative Clauses
L17	Relative Clauses Gaps, Variables, Fillers Predicate Abstraction	Required Reading Heim, Irene, and Angelika Kratzer. “Relative Clauses, Variables, Variable Binding.” In Semantics in Generative Grammar. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1998, pp. 86-105. ISBN: 0631197125.
L18	Example Calculation: “Shelby is smart” Modifiers Predicate Modification	Required Reading Portner, Ch. 4
L19	“smart dog” vs. “smart person” Perhaps, adjectives are not one-place predicates but functions from one-place predicates to one-place predicates Other Interesting Cases of Adjectives: “alleged murderer”, “canine genius”
L20	Perhaps, adjectives are one-place predicates after all, but context-dependent ones “Pauline is a tall horse”
L21	Definite NPs “The” as a function from one-place predicates to individuals Partial function only defined for predicates that are true of exactly one individual Presuppositions The “King of France”	Required Reading Portner, Ch. 5.1, 5.2
L22	Quantifiers	Required Reading Portner, Ch. 6.1, 6.2
L23	Natural Language Quantifiers Compared to Predicate Logic Quantifiers The Meaning of “most” Negative Polarity Items
L24	Negative Polarity Items (cont.) Licensing by Quantifiers in position of Downward Monotonicity (the Fauconnier-Ladusaw Hypothesis)	Required Reading Portner, Ch. 6.3
L25	Frege vs. Russell on the meaning of “the” Attributive vs. Referential Uses of Definite Descriptions Pragmatic analysis of the two uses of Definite Descriptions	Required Reading Portner, Ch. 5.4.4, 5.4.5
L26	Review of the analysis of “the killer of the black cat” (from problem set) More on Referential vs. Attributive
L27	Tense Semantic Values Relative to a Time of Evaluation The Past Tense Existential Quantification or Referential? Partee’s Example “I didn’t turn off the stove” Also: “Last month, I went for a hike”	Required Reading Portner, Ch. 8.1
R2	Review Session 2
L28	More on the Past Tense and whether it is Referential or involves Existential Quantification (Contextually Restricted)
L29	Aspectual Classes: States, Activities, Achievements, Accomplishments Instants vs. Intervals Accomplishments are only true of Intervals	Required Reading Portner, Ch. 8.2.1
L30	“The World of Sherlock Holmes” Shifting the World of Evaluation
L31	Modals	Required Reading Portner, Ch. 8.3
R3	Review Session 3
L32	Conditionals again The Strict Implication Analysis
L33	Conditionals again (cont.) Stalnaker’s Definite Analysis